Spruce Grouse in the news

After studying their genetic diversity, NYSDEC is looking into a spruce grouse recover plan for the Adirondack spruce grouse population(which stands at around 100-200 individuals).

Read here

The Orchids are coming

Around this time of year orchids can be seen poking up through the leaf litter of the forests, and also along the moist peatlands(bogs) of the Adirondacks.

This WHITE-FRINGED ORCHIS Platanthera blepharigottis can be found at the Paul Smith’s College VIC:

This ROSE POGONIA Pogonia ophioglossoides can also be found in similar areas:

Look for Grass Pinks or Calapogon tuberosus on bogs:

Earlier in June this PINK LADIES SLIPPER Cypripedium acaule could be found in mixed hardwood/conifer forests:

And several bogs are home to this DRAGON’S MOUTH Arethusa bulbosa:

Photo Credits: (Top photo) Western Spotted Coralroot- Corallorhiza maculata, found along a trail in Henry’s Woods-Lake Placid.

All photos Brian McAllister

Spring in the far north

Here are a couple of interesting “Scientists At Work” blogs from a bird researcher doing work in the Alaskan Arctic…….Click here and here

Photo Credit: Tennessee Warbler-Wikipedia photo

Another walk through Henry’s Woods

The thermometer nudged into the lower 70’s today as the sun tried but couldn’t find a hiding place behind clouds. A gentle wind blew in from the northeast, but the sun kept things warm.

What a perfect day to walk Henry’s Woods in Lake Placid. The spring migrant bird population was in full chorus and the spring wildflowers were making themselves known with their vibrantly colored flowers.

Here’s what I saw:

Red trillium, Trout lily, Squirrel corn, Dutchman’s breeches, Spring beauties, Common toothwort, Round-leaved violet, bellwort(wild oats)

The bird population was very abundant, and too many to fill this blog. But I’ll list a few that I saw. If you walk the looped trail in a counterclockwise direction you will cross over several small tributary streams that feed a larger brook. Here the soil is very rich with a healthy overstory of beech, birch, maples, and some conifers for a splash of color.

The treetops in this area are just opening their buds and so small caterpillars  and other insects are  feeding on these buds.  These insects make for a great breakfast for birds. Here are some  of the species I saw feeding in the treetops:

Blackburnian warbler, Black-throated green warbler, Ovenbird, Black-throated blue warbler, Winter wren, Northern parula warbler

Photo Credit: “Squirrel Corn”-Brian McAllister

9th Annual Great Adirondack Birding Celebration

Mark your calendars for the weekend of June 3-5! We are presenting the 9th Annual Great Adirondack Birding Celebration(GABC) at the Paul Smith’s College VIC in Paul Smiths, New York.

We are thrilled to be featuring Scott Weidensaul as our  Saturday evening Joseph and Joan Cullman Lecture keynote speaker in the Paul Smith’s College VIC Theater @ 7:30pm

Click here for schedule, registration and additional information for this event.

Three days of birding events will take place at the Paul Smith’s College VIC as well as off-site field trips(Saturday and Sunday mornings) to Wilmington, Paul Smiths, Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, and Santa Clara, NY. Each field trip will focus on finding the many boreal bird species that inhabit this area during their summer breeding season.

Friday will feature an all day Boreal Ecology Workshop at Massawepie Mire and The Wild Center. Friday evening is a dessert reception/GABC introduction, followed by our ever-popular owl walk on PSC VIC property.  Saturday afternoon activities include workshops, and presentations and time to visit our vendors Wild Birds Unlimited of Saratoga Springs

Please visit our GABC sponsors as they give much of their financial support, time and efforts to this years event:

Adirondack Park Institute, Inc.

Northern New York Audubon

Audubon New York

Cochran’s Cabins

Lake Clear Lodge and Retreat  - Stay and Dine Packages Available

Mac’s Canoe Livery

Wild Birds Unlimited

NYS Olympic Regional Development Authority

Paul Smith’s College – The College of the Adirondacks

The Wild Center

Bookman Designs

Adirondack Raptors

Photo Credit: Magnolia Warbler-Wikipedia

Just a little more patience

These rainy days highlight some of last years colors(wintergreen berries):

And with some patience we’ll eventually see shadebush -Amelanchier:

But as things open up, like these Hepatica flowers,

things seem to take on a beauty of their own(witch hobble leaves):

So let the rains fall soft upon the earth(red trillium),

…and fill our woods with the first hints of ephemeral color(Spring beauty),

Because this is not far behind!

All photos by Brian McAllister

A new kid on the block

After rolling many thoughts through my head and bouncing off ideas to listening ears I am thrilled to announce the creation of the “Adirondack Birding Center” -a new venue that will focus all its efforts on birds and bird related activities.

The new Paul Smiths College VIC, in Paul Smiths, NY has offered space(3,000 acres of it!) for all Adirondack Birding Center programming, walks, workshops, presentations, and more.  The Adirondack Birding Center is an entrepreneurial endeavor that will truly put the Adirondacks on the “birdwatching map”.

Down the “not too distant” road I see Paul Smiths College(and possibly other nearby institutes of education) integrating their own ornithological research and programming into the Adirondack Birding Center’s long list of public programming.

So stay tuned for more details and I’ll be sure to post them here.

The tap-tap of the taps

What a pleasing sound the drips make as they drop their 98% water and 2% sugar-laden loads in the aluminum bucket. The sun feels good on your face, and the 40 degree Fahrenheit day envelopes the last of a wintry scene on the hillside.

It’s maple “sugaring” season in the North Country! Gather your taps and buckets, hammer and drill. Go find the sugar maples that cooled you in summer, painted your forests in fall, and allowed the birds to rest, sing, and even build a secure nest among its branches.

Acer saccharum, our most notable maple(and the official State tree of NY), plays a major role in our northern forests. Being one of the dominant “hardwoods” of the Adirondack forests (along with white and yellow birch, American beech, ash, aspens, and a couple other maples), sugar maples create a great habitat for birds at all stages of tree growth.

Many warblers will find refuge, and nest-building opportunities in a dense stand of young sugar maple saplings. Older maples will hollow-out as they age and this creates a new home for a raccoon, barred owl, pileated woodpecker, or if your lucky a great horned owl might build a nest in the stronger branches near the trunk. I’ll even bet you have at least one piece of furniture in your house right now made with sugar maple wood. It’s strong.

But back to the sugarin’. The sap is slowly “rising” up from the roots where it has laid dormant over the winter(although in a somewhat starchy form), waiting to flow freely up into the tender branches of it’s canopy. Here it will full-fill it’s role as the major nutrient source for the hundreds of swelling buds on branch tips.

Drill your hole, tap in your spout, hang your bucket and listen for the tap-tap of sap. As you listen around the woods this time of year you’ll hear the “onk-o-ree” of distant red-winged blackbirds, the hollow rattle of the downy and hairy woodpeckers as they drum on old branches, and the occasional light melody of the brown creepers as they sing in March.

High overhead, you’ll hear the passing of hundreds of Canada and snow geese as they wind north with the spring. While the sun warms the tree trunks and rocks around the forest floor, Eastern chipmunks shake the sleep out of their eyes and bounce along the ground in search of early food.

Now the real work begins. You’ll pour a full bucket of sap into a bigger bucket and have to carry that down to the sugar house. These new-fangled plastic tubes that connect sap hole to sap hole in a sugar bush take all the fun out of carrying 40 pounds of sweet sugar maple sap! Well, after a week of carry these buckets I might be whistling a different tune.

White-tailed deer find the melting snow easier to walk through, so at dawn you’ll find their tracks carefully tracing your own boot tracks from the day before.  Late in the day as you begin to boil your sap the same deer will probably investigate the smells of your burning wood. Temperatures will drop tonight and the sap will stop it’s watery march.

As you go to bed all sore from carrying these heavy loads of sap, you’ll breath out a sigh and then listen for the deep “who, who-who, who, who” of the great horned owl off in your wood lot as he protects the nesting female and her tiny down-covered young in the hundred-year-old sugar maple.

Photo Credit-all photos Brian McAllister

Survival of the owlest

The phrase “survival of the fittest” that we associate with Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, is playing out in real time this late winter season in the Adirondacks.

One of my students in ornithology lab told me of finding two dead barred owls under a tree recently, and also of a dead barred owl on the side of a NY State highway.

Today I received a call from friends saying they know of a recently deceased barred owl in their neighborhood, and about 6 hours later I hear reports of a barred owl feeding on chickens in a village residents’ backyard!

Hmm, I’m sensing a pattern here. And that pattern is lack of food, too much snow, and a poor winter for rodent populations.

Reports are coming in daily about barred owls staking out tree branches in many northeast US backyards and keeping a sharp eye on the ground under bird feeders. Here they’re hoping to catch a mouse that runs out from the snow cover to grab a few fallen sunflower seeds.

Speaking of snow cover…we’ve got plenty of it here in the Adirondacks and it’s getting hard for an owl to find their preferred food which is snug under 3 feet of snow. Owls will pounce on a mouse or vole if it comes to the surface of the snow but some recent thawing and re-freezing has left a solid layer of frozen snow/ice that a vole finds hard to get through.

In addition to hard conditions(heavy snows) for mice, we also hear that it’s been a bad season for reproduction in rodent populations. So owls face a double whammy of cold temps/heavy snow and too little food source. All the fixings for starvation.

I was recently given a dead barred owl to take into ornithology lab where our students can investigate this truly beautiful bird of prey, and if possible, prepare this owl as a museum specimen so future students can learn from it.

Before the bird went into the freezer for safe keeping, I was able to snap a few photos of it to show the details of why it’s known as a bird of prey.

Talons for catching a rodent:

Tiny extensions on their primary(wing) feathers for turbulence reduction-which allows for silent flight:

Pretty sharp beak for tearing flesh:

Wide wings and soft wing feathers for silent and agile flight though woodlands:

Well, the spring forecast calls for rain, warming temps, and a growing litter of mice:-)

Photo Credits: Barred Owl(top)-Wikipedia, all other photos by Brian McAllister

Birds will sing…soon

Well despite the 29 inches of snow that has fallen over the past two days, the calendar marches on and my “birding calendar” tells me that some species of birds will start singing before long. I don’t know about you but I am certainly ready for it! As I write this blog I am playing my Stokes Field Guide to Bird Song as background “music” to get in the mood.

Birds such as the hairy and downy woodpeckers will soon be heard repeating their song throughout our woodlands.  But to our untrained ear it might sound like a series of dry rattles, or drumming. That’s because the male birds are rapidly hammering their little hearts out on some dead branch of an old maple of cherry.

In this unique case these birds are giving a song but it’s in the form of a song substitute(not given by the voice) – drumming their bills on a branch that they hope will resonate loudly through the forest. Click here for a great write-up on this topic by David A. Sibley.

Soon we will hear the light, musical phrasing of the Brown Creepr, as it “creeps” along the trunks of beech, maple, and other hardwoods, searching for food on the bark. It’s close relative, the White-Breasted Nuthatch can also be heard giving a series of quick “whi-whi-whi” notes in the same forested habitat

Listen carefully for the springtime notes of “fee-bee” given by Black-capped Chickadees as they gather in small groups in your yard or in the woods. Warm temps and blue skies can’t be far behind.

And who can’t wait to hear the first sounds of northward migrating Canada Geese as they honk to one another and follow their ancient pathways through the spring skies.

Along with these early songsters we should also be on the look out for flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds ( I hear there are reports of blackbirds winging over fields and brush down in the Lake Champlain and St Lawrence Valley’s), Common Grackles, and Brown-headed cowbirds.

Waterfowl are certainly not taking a spring break this month. Soon reports of many mixed flocks of waterfowl will be given around the St Lawrence River and Lake Champlain regions as they are now congregating in big groups on the open Hudson River well to our south.

If you’re sick of looking down at the dirty, gritty snow, then take a look skyward on warmer days with southerly winds and hopefully you’ll pick out some migrating hawks, falcons, and eagles. Reports of many Golden Eagles are filtering through the “internet air-waves” as they fly northward from the Ohio Valley to Pennsylvania and into New York. Late March-April can be a great time to look for Goldens over the Adirondacks.

The thrushes and warblers on my CD are lulling me into an early bird-induced-spring-fever, but that’s OK because there’s still 29 inches of snow out there to melt.

Photo Credit- singing Savannah Sparrow-Brian McAllister