A few sightings from the past couple weeks:
Nov. 18, 2019 Long Lake (Hamilton Co.) Canada Jay - 10 (2 along Route 30, 2 at the Round Lake Trailhead, and 6 at Sabattis Bog) - there are typically more than 6 Canada Jays at Sabattis Bog at this time of year, but none of the pairs along Sabattis Road had any young this year. Common Raven - a pair allopreening in a tree along Sabattis Circle Road. They vocalized the entire time with one sounding like a woman's voice - fascinating! I watched them for a long time. Bohemian Waxwing - 10 in a fruit tree by a home next to the school ballfield Pine Grosbeak - at least 4 (at least 2 males and 1 female in the mix) - in the same tree with the Bohemian Waxwings We are living with Wild Turkeys this winter. There are 2 regular flocks of 8 males and 27 females (& occasionally a second female flock of 13 shows up). They perch on my car, on the roof of our pole-platform feeder, on our front porch (where many roost on the porch railing during the day), up in the trees around our house, and in our driveway. When I walk out of the house or get out of my car they flock around me like barnyard chickens! They usually roost at night in trees around the house - at dawn they parachute down for cracked corn. I have been feeding Wild Turkeys in winter for several years, but normally they disappear into the forest for part of the day, and this is the first time that we've literally had them living around the house all day and night. There were huge numbers of Wild Turkeys this past year in the Adirondacks. Squirrels overpopulated this past year with the bumper cone crop on all the coniferous trees. They are now stressed with a low food supply. We rarely have Gray Squirrels at our home (usually just Red Squirrels), but they are everywhere this year, with many observed killed in roadways (including several today). Today, I observed 2 Gray Squirrels allo-grooming up in the rafters of our porch and it went on for a long time. There are lots of "viral" Gray Squirrel videos from squirrels doing unusual things like swimming across huge bodies of water. On 11/12/18, a Gray Squirrel got into the Hannaford grocery store in Queensbury and climbed a woman who was grocery shopping! One of the employees was able to capture it by the back of the neck and take it outside. It isn't easy to capture a squirrel, so I suspect it was suffering. Chris Rimmer (Vermont Center for Ecostudies) wrote an interesting blog on the huge squirrel numbers: https://vtecostudies.org/blog/squirrel-numbers-mount-by-land-and-water/ . We also have a Flying Squirrel visiting our feeders at night. I often awake to the smack sound of its landings! (We have a baby monitor on the porch for night sounds.) I recently found it up on the porch rafters in the middle of the night (adorable!) and I see its tracks in the snow on the porch. Cone seeds are a primary food for them (none this fall), so I suspect many people with feeders will see Flying Squirrels this fall/winter. Pine Siskins and American Goldfinches have been visiting feeders - mine and others in the area, but the numbers have been decreasing. I had another Evening Grosbeak visiting our feeders - a male that stayed for 4 days (Nov. 5-8, 2018) and then moved on. I heard Canada Geese on the move over our baby monitor during the night and the movement continued during the day with both Canada and Snow Geese flocks observed. I noticed all the Wild Turkeys outside our house suddenly stand up (many were laying down) and look upward. I could hear the Canada Geese flocks through the closed window. It was interesting that the turkeys responded to the sound. 11/17/18 - A solo Snow Bunting was foraging on the ice at the edge of the outlet of Little Tupper Lake (also the inlet of Round Lake). 11/16/18 - Coming home from NH, I took the 4 p.m. Charlotte - Essex ferry across Lake Champlain and observed a group of 22 Common Loons in the middle of the lake! (There were several Bufflehead on the VT side.) 11/14/16 - Heading to NH early, I stopped in Newcomb (Essex Co.) to check a fruit tree on Sanford Lane and found a solo Pine Grosbeak eating fruit with 2 Amer. Robins. A late male Red-winged Blackbird flew through the tree to feeders. As I watched the Pine Grosbeak, a flock of ~ 20 Bohemian Waxwings flew in too! It was so exciting that I was nearly late for the event in NH! 11/13/18 - A Snow Bunting was at our home at dawn. 11/9/18 Long Lake and Tupper Lake (Franklin Co.) Waterfowl at the Tupper Lake causeway: Bufflehead, Hooded and Common Mergansers. Ring-necked Ducks were still on Shaw Pond in Long Lake. A Common Loon was on Long Lake (& I heard one calling at dawn echoing up from the lake). Ruffed Grouse - displaying along Sabattis Circle Road Black-backed Woodpecker - male at Sabattis Bog that I observed for 45 minutes Common Redpoll - a flock of ~ 20 in Tupper Lake on Old Wawbeek Road. They were feeding on birch catkins. Amer. Tree Sparrow - several Rusty Blackbird - as I watched the Common Redpoll flock, I heard a Rusty Blackbird vocalizing! On 11/8/18, I came home in late afternoon and found the Black Bear that kept us awake on 11/6/18 when it tried to take down our platform feeder during the night (my husband really appreciated me waking him at 1:30 a.m. to go outside and take that feeder down for the night!). The bear had Mange. Roughly a third of the Black Bears that I see in the Adirondacks have Mange. It results in a slow death for the animals and it is heartbreaking to see. I'm sure that bear won't make it through the winter with little fur. I've been observing Black Bears with Mange for 2 to 3 years now. Dr. Carvill, of Potsdam, recently told me that a friend of his was hunting in Hopkinton (St. Lawrence Co.) and saw a Black Bear with no fur, so it appears the problem is widespread in northern NY. Pennsylvania is doing a lot to combat the problem in that state. The Washington Post ran a story about that state's efforts this past summer: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/06/04/black-bears-are-g oing-bald-it-might-be-even-worse-than-it-looks/?utm_term=.b803451df897 . The photos in this article are really disturbing. I try to get photos also to help document this problem. I have photos of two different Black Bears with Mange from this past year. I am very concerned about this problem and I suspect it will only get worse. 11/5/18 - We had 2 late Common Grackles at our feeders. 11/4/18 - About 15 birders were at the Memorial Recreation Park in Malone (Franklin Co.) to observe the spectacle of thousands of Snow and Canada Geese fly-in at dusk to roost on the pond. It is right in the middle of a suburban neighborhood and we all wondered if the birds ever become quiet during the night! The sound is deafening. There were many other waterfowl species including 2 Common Goldeneye on the pond. I observed 10 Canada Jays and 7 Ruffed Grouse on my drive up with side trips on Sabattis Road and Blue Mountain & Dexter Roads in Franklin Co. Our internet went out in the storm 9 days ago, and our provider can't get to us (and many others in Long Lake including businesses) until mid-December! (One of the disadvantages of living in the middle of nowhere.) So their new competitor has been swamped with installations and we are on that list, but it will be another week. We currently connect our computers through our iPhones with barely a connection to a cell tower 20 miles away - and it is usually too slow for web pages, but I at least manage to get email in and out. I'll post recent bird photos (including the Black Bear photos) to my Facebook page as soon as I can bring my computer to a place with a good connection in town. A couple Red-bellied Woodpecker records to note: Bill Labes, Long Lake, reported a male Red-bellied Woodpecker at his feeders on 11/15/18 and 11/16/18, and he heard it on 11/17/18. This is a rare species for Long Lake. On the same date that Shai Mitra reported an invasion of Red-bellied Woodpeckers migrating through Long Island (10/14/18), Jack Delehanty texted me a photo of a male Red-bellied Woodpecker at his home in Tupper Lake (another area where this species is rare)! Joan Collins Editor, New York Birders Long Lake, NY (315) 244-7127 cell (518) 624-5528 home http://www.adirondackavianexpeditions.com/ http://www.facebook.com/AdirondackAvian -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
