Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 266
It was a busy Fourth of July Weekend with the town busting at the seams, and the weather was good for the most part and only rained during the overnight time. The three bears that were hanging around here most of the spring moved into Limekiln Campsite where more food was there for the taking in some campsites. One small bear was being fed by hand and becoming a problem. I should say that the people who were feeding him were the problem, but they cannot be put down as he was. I don’t know if any tickets were issued for feeding the bear or if these people were caught. They are not tame bears; they live in the woods and will get food where they can when wild food is scarce. Berries and nuts aren’t ripe yet and they are eating grasses, and some tree leaves mostly at the top of aspen trees where they might get some ants along with the leaves. There are lots of service or shad bush berries which are being shared by the birds and the bears. There was one man who lived on Seventh Lake who went back in the Plains and picked these berries for jams, jellies, and pies. He said you had to watch them ripen and get there before the birds and bears stripped the bushes. Along the trail to Icehouse Pond there were lots of these small trees and thorn apples which the wildlife would strip in a couple of days.
When there was an abundance of berries and mayflies which have been hatching all during June the Cedar Waxwings have bumper nests of young during August. They are one of the last birds to nest, and they only lay down a couple twigs for a nest and have young. Sometimes they take American Goldfinch nests apart and make their nests with that material.
The rains from last weekend flooded several Loon nests and their eggs got cold. Some Loons added several inches of material to their nests and still their eggs got chilled in the process. We had some really heavy downpours where more than an inch fell in half and hour. If the Loons were trying to save their nest at that time the eggs could have been chilled enough from the cold rain not to hatch. When the loon chick is close to hatching, they pretty much fill that eggshell and any cold water from the rain or the lake can chill them enough that they will not hatch. During that time, the adults will hold tight onto the nest to keep these eggs warm and hatch. They do hear them chirping inside the eggshell and pick the shells off gently as they can with that big beak to release the chick. That is why the nest is full of little egg chips when there is a successful hatch and sometimes the inner rubber like sac. That sac sometimes keeps them dry inside the shell when water does get into the nest from boat and wind waves.
The people who live in Texas from Corpus Christy to Houston along that coast are being hit tonight with a category 1 Hurricane Berly as it picked up force going across the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, these folks had gotten a lot of rain from other storms off the gulf in recent weeks so rain from the Hurricane will not help their situation. That storm is going to track north across the country up into the Midwest and up into the Great Lakes by the end of the week.
In my travels during the week, some on land and much on the water I get to see many neat things. Since the Loons like to nest on bogs if there are some in the lake’s inlets and bays. Bogs are good because they go up when it rains and back down during dry periods. On these bogs many unique plants grow, many orchids and bug eating plants like sundew and pitcher plants that catch bugs from the air and horned bladderworts which catch them in their root system under these bogs. The pitcher plant flowers are past, but the seed heads will remain standing all winter. The delicate sundews, both spatulate and round leaf, put up a small white flower with several on one stem from each plant. Sometimes you must look close to see if they have caught any bugs but when they catch a small dragon or damselfly you can easily see that. It is like the neighboring plants join in on the snack.
In some of these shallow bays they become covered with white pond lilies. I was just up South Inlet on Raquette Lake this morning and the first bay on the left was white with pond lily flowers. Opposite that I sat by a big beaver house for my ten-minute count and the babies inside were begging for breakfast.
On land one neat plant that deer don’t eat is viper’s bugloss. If you grabbed it to pick you would see why the deer don’t even nibble on it. There are few patches along the Number Four Road and a big patch on the Stillwater Dam right by the gate.
Banded hummers at Stillwater Restaurant but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Pitcher Plants
