Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 272
You could hardly start an outdoor fire with gasoline around these parts but out west there are currently 287 forest fires burning in 15 states, the most seventy-five in Oregon, also the most acreage on fire there. Locally we will be lighting up the fire towers in the area on 8/31 from 9 to 9:30pm and reading the names of the observers that manned those towers in remembrance of their service. Bald Mountain (Rondaxe), Woodhull, Wakely, Owlshead, Stillwater and Snowy Mountains will be lit that night. Some lighting can be viewed from the local lakes and highways. I know some people go up to these towers that are lit before sunset to take photos, but you better take a good headlamp or two with you because it is completely dark coming back down after the lighting takes place.
My job watching several local lakes for Loon nesting this summer ended this week and wouldn’t you know that a local Loon on Big Moose Lake ends up with a plug in its mouth and right eye on that last day. We went out that night but couldn’t find the bird. We saw several other Loons in the territories there but none with a plug attached. The Loon was found by us in North Bay the next day, making lots of long dives to get away from our boat. So, we went out that night and got on the bird before dark, so we knew where it was when it became dark. It yodeled to us while watching it. Darkness, well not real dark, as the moon was growing, not giving us much cover. We turned on the light and found the Loon at the west end of the bay, it dove, and we never saw it again in over an hour of lighting. I think it dove as the light was going around over the water, so we gave up. Thinking this bird may get stressed with the plug attached we waited a couple of days. We got a report that the Loon was lethargic and that it could be approached by a boat in the back bay of north bay. Amy Sauer and I went up early the next morning and had the canoe just about rigged to catch it if we found it. It surfaced as if to say hello I’m here not fifty feet from the landing, made a call and dove. It was down fishing for a timed five minutes before it came up halfway up the bay. It is not lethargic when it can make a dive like that so it can fish, and play keep away all day. We loaded the canoe back up and left it alone. The Loon might get an infection from the hook and maybe not. That bird may be going south flying with a plug in its mouth, only time will tell.
Before going up that morning I had been notified that there was a mallard duck with a hook in its mouth on the south shore of Fourth Lake coming to a local residence with a big flock of over forty ducks. I went over with my loon net and as these ducks were feeding, I singled out the one with the hook and snagged it with my net. We took out the hook which was only in the feathers in the corner of its mouth, and it went away fat and happier.
When I was up in the Saranac Lake area banding Loons last week, I took a half mile walk on the rail trail between Lake Placid and Saranac Lake. I walked down to the marsh south of Route 86 by Ray Brook on the trail. It was remarkably busy with bike riders going in both directions. I started to count them but gave up after well over one hundred had passed me. I met a few hikers like me but not too many, most were biking, and some were going right along, others with families just out for a nice ride. The beavers had plugged the culvert in the marsh and the water had gone over the trail, but they had been removed. Looking along the trail I found some invasive plants that may have been brought in with the fill they used on the trail or been there from the railroad. Talking with some who had been on the trail further down by the Floodwood Road, I don’t know if that section is open yet or not, but they said the beavers had it flooded down that way and you couldn’t even find the trail in the pond as it was well underwater. I think that is going to be a problem for that trail as it goes through many wetlands before reaching Tupper Lake. I know many beavers were removed when it was a railroad, and that same thing will have to be done if this rail trail is to be passable.
The end of the year Loon Celebration fundraiser for the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation is to be held at the Veterans Camp on Tupper Lake this coming weekend, but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Loon with plug on Big Moose Lake by Don Andrews
