4/16/14 Long Lake (Hamilton Co.)
Several inches of new snow fell between yesterday and today in Long Lake.
It was 16 to 18 degrees for the couple hours I birded early this morning.
Quite a contrast from the mid-70s we had on Monday. Feeder birds came back
in droves. I am letting our 15 feeders run down now since we've had a few
Raccoon visits and Black Bears will be a problem soon. We have huge numbers
of Amer. Goldfinches once again, and the number of Purple Finches is
increasing. There are large numbers of Dark-eyed Juncos, one Chipping
Sparrow, a pair of White-throated Sparrows, and a singing Fox Sparrow.
It was quite a surprise to find a migrant male *Red-breasted Merganser on
Long Lake (near the beach) early this morning. I couldn't recall ever
observing a Red-breasted Merganser on Long Lake, and when I checked the
"Birds of Hamilton County, New York", there are no spring records listed at
all for the county! I took a number of photographs. Many people were
stopping by the beach since the lake is nearly at a flood level after warm
temps, heavy rain, followed by more snow. A Common Loon was also on the
lake. I drove to Little Tupper Lake and the lake was nearly over the road
at the 3-way intersection. A couple of *Ruby-crowned Kinglets were found
today at the Little Tupper Lake outlet.
4/15/14 Long Lake (Hamilton Co.)
I awoke at dawn to a calling *Eastern Towhee migrant over our baby monitor!
I was surprised by Mike Moccio's Eastern Towhee in Indian Lake and two days
later, I get awakened by one! This is a first for our location. Mike
Moccio and I communicated on Facebook - he said the elevation of his Eastern
Towhee sighting in Indian Lake is 1700 feet, and our Long Lake location is
at 2000 feet.
4/14/14 Long Lake (Hamilton Co.)
After my post on 4/14, I observed one more new arrival. A Long Lake
resident was celebrating her 50th birthday on this unusually warm (mid to
high 70s) day - part of her celebration was on the Long Lake beach and part
was on our boat (around the dinner hour)! The town boat launch was still
frozen, but we launched at the marina down from the Long Lake beach. The
only open water was under the bridge and in the bay with the beach. Given
the warm temps, strong current (14-mile Long Lake is a wide section of the
Raquette River), and strong south winds, the ice was breaking up in front of
our eyes - huge ice sheets that were zooming into the current, and we had to
dodge them. Erin Barton spotted the first *Common Loon of the season! (I
was thinking about how the loon must be constantly on alert to those huge
ice sheets too!) The ice-out line (it heads north over time) is a big topic
of discussion in our town at this time of year - there are many boat-access
only camps at the north end of Long Lake, so the out-of-town owners ask the
question of where the ice-line is located throughout April. There also
seems to be a competition of who can be the first to go boating each spring
- I guess we "won" this year! People driving by were honking and the Long
Lake Town Parks and Recreation Director was posting Facebook photos while we
were still boating (it is remarkable how instant social media can be!). It
was a long winter, so Monday felt like such a gift!
I posted recent photos and a video (all from Long Lake) on my Facebook page
(Brown Thrasher, Eastern Towhee, Fox Sparrow, and a short video of a
foraging Amer. Woodcock) at https://www.facebook.com/AdirondackAvian .
Joan Collins
Long Lake, NY
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