Pelican postmortem

Katherine Nussbaumer and the brown pelican on Lows Lake. Photo by Scott Nussbaumer.

The brown pelican that excited Adirondack birders for a few weeks has died of starvation, according to Amy Freiman, a wildlife rehabilitator in Newcomb.

The pelican was first spotted on Fourth Lake in the Fulton Chain and later on Lows Lake. Observers said it exhibited strange behavior, approaching people in boats and at campsites, apparently looking for food. The photo above is a case in point.

Freiman said the bird, though it may have appeared healthy, probably was famished the whole time. She speculates that it may not have been able to fish in our murky waters. Brown pelicans usually fish coastal waters. They reside along the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic as far north as Maryland. This pelican, a male, was banded in Maryland in 2001. It was the first of its kind seen in this neck of the woods.

“How it got here, that’s a big mystery,” Freiman said.

When Freiman received the bird last Wednesday, it was already weak and emaciated and vomiting bits of styrofoam and earthworms. The bird died overnight. She sent the carcass to Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research in Delaware for a necropsy.

“It had other issues, but the main cause of death was starvation,” Freiman said.

She thinks the bird might have been saved if authorities were alerted sooner. “The biggest mistake was that all the birdwatchers who were enjoying this bird didn’t call anybody,” she said.

By amazing coincidence, the bird was captured after begging for food at a Lows Lake campsite whose occupants included a woman who used to raise and rescue brown pelicans in Florida. Her son wrote in an e-mail posted on a birders’ e-mail group: “My mom caught the pelican and we kayaked down the Bog River to the Lower Lowe’s [sic] Dam. At the dam, my mom hitchhiked with the bird to the nearby Wild Center. However, they would not take the bird, or give it fish, so she took it to the High Peaks Animal Hospital [in Ray Brook].”

Steph Hample, a Wild Center naturalist, said the museum is not set up to take in wildlife. She also said that protocol calls for examining a distressed bird before feeding it. Hample was en route to the Wild Center to look at the bird when the woman decided to take it to the animal hospital instead. The hospital later turned the bird over to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Next time an unusual bird shows up, Freiman hopes people will contact DEC right away.  “Anytime you see a bird that is outside its natural habitat, there is something wrong,” she said.

“Everybody tried,” Freiman added, “but it was just too late.”

Canoeing the Deer River Flow

Ben Blanchard explores an arm of Deer River Flow.

I had been wanting to paddle the Deer River Flow for some time, so when my friend, Phil Blanchard, came with his family to the Adirondacks for vacation, I suggested we take a trip there. Unfortunately, Phil got ill on the morning of our scheduled outing, so his son, Ben, and I did the trip alone.

Ben, who is twelve, was an enthusiastic companion. As we headed down the flow, we had to fight a moderate wind. I feared this might be difficult for Ben.

“Too bad about the wind,” I remarked.

“That’s OK. It makes it more fun,” Ben replied.

“How so?”

“The more you work, the more fun it is,” he said.

“I’ve never heard that theory,” I confessed.

“Because once the trip is done, you feel more satisfaction because you know worked more and you earned it more,” he said.

And you know what? The kid is right.

We paddled nine miles in all. We put in along Cold Brook Road on the south end of the flow, canoed to the large dam at the north end, then took the flow’s riverine east fork to Horseshoe Lake. You can read all about our adventure in a future issue of the Explorer.

Brown pelican in Adirondacks

For the past week, Adirondack birders have been marveling about a brown pelican first spotted on Fourth Lake in the Old Forge-Inlet region. 

Normally, brown pelicans reside along coasts in more southern climes. They breed as far north as Virginia in summer and live year-round along the Gulf Coast. It’s the state bird of Louisiana.

John M.C. Peterson, one of the authors of Adirondack Birding, says this is the first brown pelican seen in this neck of the woods. Peterson keeps records of bird sightings in the Adirondack-Champlain region for the New York State Ornithological Association. As defined by the association, the region encompasses most of the Adirondack Park and some territory outside it.

Carolyn Belknap, an avid birder with a camp on Fourth Lake, took several photos of the pelican, one of which appears here. She had heard about the bird from e-mails on the Northern New York Birds online-discussion group.

“My encounter was pretty much dumb luck,” she wrote the Explorer.  ”I was kayaking with my ten-year-old niece and two visitors. My niece suggested we go across the lake, so we paddled to Eagle Creek, a small creek off of the north shore of Fourth Lake right across from our camp. The pelican was on a dock at the entrance to the creek, waiting for us. I was fortunate to have my good camera with me. The pelican was standing so still, that at first I didn’t register that it was alive!”

A few days after the initial sightings, the bird turned up on Lows Lake. Jeff Nadler, whose bird photos often appear in the Explorer, said the bird jumped onto the kayak of a friend’s daughter, apparently hoping for a handout.

The pelican is banded, so birders are hoping to find out where it came from.

Canoeing the Lower Bog

Martha near the put-in for the Lower Bog

 

Most people who canoe the Bog River start at the Lower Dam and paddle upstream to Hitchins Pond. From there, they can carry around the Upper Dam to enter Lows Lake. But there is another flatwater trip on the Bog that doesn’t see as much traffic.

 

Last Friday, my daughter, Martha, and I were looking for a short trip as the weather forecast called for rain. We launched our canoes near the Bog River Falls (just above where the river flows into Tupper Lake) and paddled upstream for about one and three quarters miles to the confluence of the Bog and Round Lake Outlet. Rapids on both rivers prevent paddling farther.

The iron ring.

About a half-mile above the falls,we passed under an old bridge. Just around the next bend we passed a solitary boulder in the middle of the river. Bolted to the upstream side of the boulder is an iron ring, evidently an artifact from the logging days. I am wondering if anybody knows the story behind this ring. Or if any would care to speculate. If so, please leave a comment.

After your adventure on the Lower Bog, you can cool off with a dip in the natural pool near Bog River Falls.

Paddling scenic Fall Stream

Paddling the weedy end of Fall Lake. Photo by Phil Brown.

A few years ago, the Explorer published a story by Mark Bowie about a canoe trip on Fall Stream, a tributary of Piseco Lake. Mark did the trip with some volunteers from the Adirondack Mountain Club who were investigating the possibility of adding Fall Stream to the state’s Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers System.

Mark concluded that all or most of Fall Stream should be classified as Scenic. After paddling the river to Fall Lake and Vly Lake last weekend, I heartily agree.

Most of the river lies within the state Forest Preserve, but the put-in and some of the land upstream are owned by the Irondequoit Club. You paddle upstream to Fall Lake and then Vly Lake, winding through beautiful marshes decorated with pickerelweed, cardinal flower, turtlehead, and other flowers. We saw lots of ducks and a few great blue herons.

I can think of three reasons for adding the stream to the Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers System:

1. To give this lovely stream the cachet it deserves.

2. To provide some extra protection against development.

3. To give the state more reason to ban motors from at least part of the stream.

The last would be controversial. Despite beaver dams above Fall Lake, anglers take small motorboats all the way to Vly Lake. On Saturday, we saw three motorboats on the lake. Given the dams and the smallness of the stream, I was rather surprised that they made it that far.

As a compromise, motors could be allowed as far as Fall Lake, which is located about a mile from the put-in. Most of the property in this stretch is private, and the stream is broader. Above Fall Lake, the stream narrows and becomes wilder as it penetrates the interior of the Jessup River Wild Forest.

Directions: From the intersection of NY 8 and NY 30 in Speculator, drive west on NY 8 for nine miles to Old Piseco Road (County 24) on the right. Turn and drive 1.6 miles to the bridge over Fall Stream. The put-in is on the right on the far side of the bridge. Park along the road, being sure not to block the entrance to the put-in.

‘Wild Times’ is here

We at the Explorer just received copies of our new book, Wild Times, a full-color anthology of 120 hiking and paddling adventures from the past ten years of our newsmagazine.

Softcover, 132 pages, $14.95

This is news you can use, whether you’re looking to paddle a quiet river, spend time on an uncrowded summit, visit a fire tower, or jump in a lake. As in the Explorer, most of the stories are personal accounts of trips, accompanied by hand-drawn maps and color photographs.

Our writers, photographers, and artists made this publication possible. A lot of credit also goes to Susan Bibeau, our designer, who laid out the book.

Wild Times sells for $14.95 (or $13.95 if ordered from our Web site). That works out to about 12 cents an adventure. Not a bad deal.

You can find a few samples from Wild Times on our main Web site. The book can be ordered online and soon will be in stores.

To order from our home page, click on “Order Now” in the Wild Times box on the right side of the screen. That will bring you to the sample pages from the book. Click on “Order Now” again to get to the order form. Or you can simple click here to get to the form.

A chance encounter on Iroquois

Chris Finke, left, and Kevin Durr on the summit of Iroquois.

Last weekend I climbed over Algonquin Peak and continued along the ridge to Iroquois Peak a mile away. I’m not saying this is the best hike in the Adirondacks, but it’s way up there.

Some of the scenic highlights: the Trap Dike and huge slides on Mount Colden, Marcy rising above Colden, Giant and the Great Range farther in the distance, Lake Colden and the Flowed Lands, the Wallface cliffs in Indian Pass, and all the alpine flora.

At 5,114 feet, Algonquin is the Park’s second-highest peak. Since it’s only four miles from Adirondak Loj, it sees a lot of traffic. Fewer people bother to go on to Iroquois, which makes it a nicer summit if you’re looking for solitude.

When I reached Iroquois, I was the only one there. I sat down and gobbled M&Ms while taking in the views of the western High Peaks–the Santanonis and the Sewards–as well as Wallface, the Sawtooth Range, and other mountains.

Before I left, two hikers showed up. As we talked, I learned that their names were Kevin Durr and Chris Finke. When I mentioned that I lived in Saranac Lake, Kevin replied that he used to live there, too–in the Santanoni Apartments. Talk about coincidences: the Explorer office is located in the same building, which is owned by Dick Beamish, the publication’s founder, and his wife, Rachel Rice.

Kevin told me he now lives in Clayton in the Thousand Islands region. Another coincidence: My father operates the River Rat Cheese store in the village, and Kevin often shops there.

These sort of coincidences happen often when I’m out in the woods. Here’s another example:

One winter I was cross-country skiing and found a set of car keys on top of Little John Mountain, with the initials “PM.” My guess was that they belonged to Pat Munn, a well-known backcountry skier. But I never met Pat and didn’t know how to get in touch with him. I figured I’d ask his friend, Ron Konowitz. Lo and behold, the next day I went up Mount Marcy and ran into Ron on the summit. I asked if he knew how I could reach Pat.

“He’s right here,” Ron said. With that, Pat stepped forward.

“Pat, did you lose your car keys on top of Little John Mountain?” I asked.

“About two weeks ago,” he said.

“Well, I found them yesterday.”

What are the chances?

Climbing the Whiteface slide

Jeff Oehler climbs the Whiteface slide above Lake Placid. Photo: Susan Bibeau

Last weekend, I climbed the Lake Placid slide on Whiteface Mountain with Sue Bibeau, who designs the Explorer, and her husband, Jeff Oehler. We paddled across the lake, went up the hiking trail for two miles, and bushwhacked up Whiteface Brook to the slide. The round trip took ten and a half hours, including a stop for refreshments in the summit restaurant.

The mountain takes its name from this slide, which exposes the white rock (anorthosite) that constitutes the peak. At least, that’s the explanation I found in Peaks and People of the Adirondacks, by Russell M.L. Carson (1926).

Carson also relates that Bill Nye, a celebrated guide (for whom another High Peak, Nye Mountain, is named), cut the first trail up this side of Whiteface in the 1800s. The original route brought hikers to the slide. I’m glad this is no longer the case, for one of the delights of slide climbing is solitude in a wild setting.

Incidentally, the trail between Whiteface Landing, where we stashed our canoes, and the lean-to on Whiteface Brook has been rerouted in recent years. It used to cross the brook three times and now does so only once. Alas, the new trail goes through some of the worst muck I’ve seen in the Adirondacks–and that’s saying something. DEC is aware of the problem.

Look for my story about our adventures in the Explorer. Sue took some great photos, including the one of Jeff above.