Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 305
March went out like a lamb around here after warning of high winds and rain there were a few rumbles of thunder and some wind but no big storms. The folks to the south of us were not so lucky as storms just kept hitting them for the last week. Twenty people have died from these storms as fifteen tornadoes hit four states on Wednesday in one place or another and rains up to and over a foot in many places. Flooding from the rains from southern Illinois to Mississippi. Here winds were high in the northern part of New York off Lake Ontario.
I reported last week on the earthquakes in Myanmar where the death totals are now over 3,500 people and a week of rain is in the forecast.
Some of my crocus came out as the temperature got up into the sixties and my daffodils were on hold fighting off the cold nights and just waiting for a sunny day to bloom.
Many people told me they had lots of Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles at their feeders, but I had only a Grackle now and then and only three Red-wings all spring. Then this weekend they all came here for lunch. I had over thirty Grackles and ten to twelve Red-wings on and under the feeders. The little birds had to fight for a seed and only the Nyjer Seed feeders were free from the bigger black birds. The dusting of snow a couple of mornings kept them around all weekend, but they seem to have left today as I only had a single blackbird this morning.
Going on a few hikes in the area, I used the Merlin appt and it heard some birds that I didn’t hear or see. One was a Red Crossbill on the Inlet Golf Course. There was a Red Shoulder Hawk calling there. They have nested somewhere around the Golf Course for a couple of years now. There certainly are plenty of frogs and snakes around there for them to eat. The Broad-winged Hawks are also good frog catchers. I watched them catch some around my pond when the frogs were breeding in the spring. I saw young Barred Owls catch frogs around Moshier Reservoir one fall and they were rather good at it.
I called my sister Wendy one evening and she said listen to this as she held the phone out for me the hear the peepers calling from the swamp near her home. With this weather the wood frogs should start calling soon and laying eggs in the small ponds in this area. I have only heard them out back a couple of times, but I always find eggs laid there and polliwogs from those eggs later in the year. They normally make it to the frog stage before the pond dries up. The American toads put on quite a show in the big pond a little later in the year.
Other birds I’ve seen and heard this week that have moved in from the south were Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, American Woodcock, Hermit Thrush, Swamp Sparrow, and Golden Crowned Kinglet. There have been a few reports of Loons back on some of the area Lakes. I saw one on Old Forge Pond earlier this week.
I had a couple people in Old Forge report bear signs in their yards, so they took down their bird feeders. They will be hungry as they went into hibernation last fall with less fat than normal.
The sap collecting is about over, but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Crocus
