Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 270
The weather pattern hadn’t changed too much as we had rain and wind much of this week and into the nighttime hours. The fires out west are still raging, and the New York fire crew is in Montana right now. You couldn’t start a fire here with gasoline as any step in the woods is like you are in a bog and the debris down from all the wind that came with the rains is a mess. There is a lot of that also on the trails so be aware of where you are traveling and check because many trails have been closed mostly by beaver flooding or bridges out from the heavy rains. Some back roads used by vehicles and four wheelers are also washed out so check that out, some on Paper company properties and others on state lands.
I still see lots of folks out on the water in canoes and kayaks and on paddle boards without life jackets. You don’t have to wear them, but you must have them on board. I feel naked when I start out in my canoe, and I don’t have my life vest on. We are required to wear it while watching loons and just the other night we started out from shore in the dark and pouring rain and the lighter said I don’t have a life jacket. Zippo we were back on shore getting one. You can miss someone having those inflatable ones on. We have never flipped while banding but we have about half filled a canoe with water a couple times before getting stable again. People doing river running should always have them on whether in a canoe or a kayak. Just a month ago a kayaker on the Hudson River dumped in high speed water without a life jacket on and they found him fourteen miles downstream, dead of course.
Banding these last few days went on rain or a sliver of moon shine. The first night of three working out of Inlet, we traveled to Sixberry Lake up near Fort Drum. We got information that day that there was a male Loon from a pair with two chicks that had fishing line wrapped around its head. That was seen in pictures that we received. So, we canceled plans of doing local lakes and traveled over two hours to a new lake that we had never sampled. We got there and the stars were out but the rains during the day and all week had badly washed out the launch site. With a four-wheel drive vehicle, we got both boats in the water. It isn’t a big lake, and one boat found the bird with fishing line on it quickly. The surprise they found with the Loon was quite different. As they pulled up the line still overboard on about six feet of line, first came a non-lead sinker, a small bobber and then a five-foot-long new spinning rod and reel, what a surprise. How the Loon dragged that around all day and didn’t get it hung up we will never know but he did. He had the hook inside and the line was cut off. He was banded and blood and feathers taken. Many pictures were taken of course, and the pole and reel will be on display at the Loon Center in Saranac Lake with the complete story which you just got. We will have someone checking this bird to make sure he lives through the internal hook which should dissolve with the acids and stones they use to break down fish bones.
The second night was visitor night, but no Loon chick was found at Francis Lake, so we switched to Twitchell Lake which had two pairs with chicks. We had tried to catch these Loons for two years now and the male has climbed out of the net both years. We did get to sample the chicks but never the adults the last couple years and only one adult Loon there is banded. It started off about the same as the adults ducked us a few times but both chicks were captured and big enough to band and sample. We went up to the east territory and saw the female which would not stay up for the light. We heard the male at the far end but never saw him or the single chick. On the way back down, the other crew caught the female from the first pair, and she was banded and sampled. So, a visitor got to hold her for the process. We then traveled to Rondaxe Lake and in two canoes we went around the entire lake in fog that was like pea soup for over an hour never seeing or hearing any adult or chick Loon and quit at daylight.
The final night we had planned to go to Ferris Lake off Polly Road south of Piseco and Big Bay on the outlet of Piseco, but the Weather Radar showed all reds and yellows going through that area. We moved a little west where it was just rain and traveled to North Lake where it was pouring rain. The Atwell Fish and Game Club had set up their big tent for their picnic on Saturday, so we had a nice dry place to band and now all we had to do was catch a Loon. Both adults are banded there, and I guess they remembered, and they played just keep away far enough not to get netted in the pouring rain. The other canoe did catch the big chick which we banded and sampled. We cleaned all our gear and canoes to use at the next lake, Gray Lake in Old Forge.
We had contacted Linda Cohen that we might be coming in the middle of the night, as we had to park right in her backyard, still raining of course, but it stopped before we were done at 3:30 am. The crew went out and caught the unbanded female right away. Brought her in and went back out and had the banded male quickly. While processing these Loons the rain had stopped. The male had first been banded on First Lake of the Fulton Chain in 2001 and moved to Gray Lake and took over that territory where he was sampled again in 2020. His bands were changed this time as some of the numbers on the metal band were unreadable and the plastic bands easily snapped off. The crew caught both chicks which were too small to band, but they were sampled with blood and feathers taken. Thank you, Linda, for allowing us to sample there in the middle of the night and keeping track of those Loons.
Three more nights of Loon banding in the Saranac Lake area but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Banding at Twitchell Lake dock
