Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 281
Looking across the pond the landscape is very gray waiting for winter to arrive. Most of the leaves are on the ground with beech still hanging on, mostly brown and the tamaracks all yellow refracting into the pond. With morning temperatures in the twenties several mornings, it blackened most of my flowers. I cut them down and covered my dahlias with leaves alongside the house wall where they have survived several seasons. The only wildflowers that make it through these cold mornings are the fringed gentians which close at night and open back up the next day if the sun comes out. I covered my toad lilies and saved them a couple of days before cutting off the blooming buds and I had them bloom indoors along with a few of the dahlia buds I also cut off before they froze. My toad lilies are late bloomers, and they get frosted many times before blooming. This year it has been a late year for frost so many of these got a chance to bloom. They start at the end of the flower stem and bloom at every leaflet down the stem which is neat to watch.
I have been chasing Halley’s Comet the last few nights from the Fourth Lake Boat Launch, and it is very visible about a half hour after sunset. I have not gotten any photos, but many people have. The full moon would fade it out some but now the moon is coming up later, so you get to watch the comet for a longer period before it fades in the moonlight. The next couple of nights there is also a meteor shower happening much more in the middle of the night which might be harder to see with the fading moon. There should be many per hour around two AM and what else do I have to do but sit out and watch. Last night I was at the boat launch with Don Andrews and his wife, and he was getting some great shots of the comet with his camera. He said the sunset was also a super one.
I’ve had the Saw Whet Owl nets up until midnight several nights from eight until midnight and I am catching a few birds, eight so far. Looking at my records last year I caught more the first few days of November than late in October, so I will keep at it. Last night I got two owls when I was wrapping up the nets at midnight. The night before I caught one just after putting up the nets and playing the caller so I called up to the Manzi home up the road to see if they would like to see the owl and they came down to watch me process and release the bird. Some thought it was a baby owl, but it is full size, smaller than a robin and on its way south for the winter. I’ve had them stick around during the winter a few times and they would catch mice in my garage at the Ranger Headquarters around the feed bags when I was feeding the deer. You would see them fly down at night in the lights outside the windows to catch mice under the bird feeders also.
I was trapping beavers on the south side of Seventh Lake Mountain one spring and while checking traps I heard the Black Capped Chickadees calling about something. They let me get close as they dove at something in a small spruce tree. It was a Saw Whet Owl that they were ganging up on. They got the owl to fly off and out of the territory. You might find this same thing when Crows and Ravens are causing a fuse out in the woods, but they are chasing off bigger owls or even hawks. The Town Highway Crew once called me about the Ravens and Crows that were after and owl on the Inlet Golf Course. I went down but most had dispersed except for a couple that were near the first bridge down from the road. I walked down and saw a Great Horned Owl in the water under the bridge. I captured the owl and brought it home in a towel, watching out for its feet which have a strong grip. I warmed it in the cellar, but it did not make it both from wounds the other birds had done to it and being in the freezing water, life is rough out there in the wild.
More shooting stars are coming this week, but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Saw Whet Owl
