Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 298
The National Guard jets from Burlington are buzzing around our skies again this morning and their roar seems louder in the below zero temperatures. Some lucky people in the plane crash in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that flipped over while landing in a cross wind yesterday. Everyone escaped the plane with eighteen people taken to the hospital with a few serious injuries.
Down south a hundred-year storm hit Kentucky and neighboring states with flooding that caused fourteen deaths one in Georgia, one in West Virginia and the others in Kentucky and hundreds were washed out of their homes. The water is still running today with another storm coming across the country hitting them with a second punch. Many of them will be hit with more than a foot of snow from Texas to the east coast. Temperatures to the north of these storms are well below zero with -50- and -60-degree wind chill factors. This second storm is going to last through the weekend before swinging up the east coast into the Northeast.
The Great Backyard Bird Count ended yesterday with countries all over the world participating in the count. My backyard feeder birds must have heard about the count as over 75 American Goldfinch showed up on Friday and they are still here this morning. The day before the count a few were around my feeders, so I put up a couple Nyjer seed feeders which I hadn’t had up. Well, the next morning these feeders were covered with goldfinch as well as the ground under these feeders. I had thirty to forty under and around each feeder as well as they were feeding on sunflower seeds also. My three turkeys must have heard all the commotion at the feeders and came for their snacks. They pick any seed the birds knock out from the feeders. I contacted a few other feeder watchers in the area, and they had an increase in their American Goldfinch population also. My peanut butter logs are empty every morning with everything working on that mixture of lard, peanut butter, seed, oat flakes and cornmeal. This would be my largest count in several years. I also got the flock of 125 Mallards and 6 Black Ducks in the Inlet channel. I just heard today that someone in Eagle Bay Park is also feeding this big flock of ducks daily. I didn’t see any Red Crossbills in the Limekiln Road over the weekend, but the snowmobile traffic was very heavy most of the time keeping them out of the road.
I don’t know if my friends in the Champlain Valley got out but I ‘m sure they did plus counting at their own feeders. Ellie George got six Barred owls one afternoon last week as she was out and about. Stacy Robinson sent me a photo of a big flock of Snow Buntings more than I had seen in one place before, Ellie estimated here were over 850 in the flock but looking at the photo it was hard to tell how many there were. If they flew up it would have been just a white blur of wings.
NYSDEC reported another safe year of hunting seasons, with 2024-25 seasons being the second safest on record. DEC released its annual report documenting hunting related shooting incidents (HRSI) and tree stand elevated hunting incidents. The numbers are consistent with the low rates observed across the state in recent years. 11 (HRSI) in 2024, including two party firearms incidents and seven self-inflicted incidents. Unfortunately, one of the self-inflicted incidents was a fatality. Two incidents involved individuals who were not legally hunting.
DEC also reported eleven elevated hunting incidents in 2024, though not all falls are reported. Of these, nine involved hunters failing to wear a safety harness or failing to connect to the tree, two of these falls were fatal and nine others resulted in serious injuries. All of these could have been prevented had the proper use of a full arrest harness system that remains connected to the tree.
Inlet’s Frozen Fire and Lights programs will be running this weekend at different places around the town so get out and enjoy these fun events, maybe even go fly a kite or get in the outhouse races.
Got all the shots available this fall, covid, flu, and pneumonia but one of these got by the shots and I have type A influenza but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Barred owl landing in red cedar by Ellie George
