Morning Hike
The sun woke me up this morning and I had decided that I needed to take a nice hike. While filling the feeders, I found a cool bird wing imprint in the snow. Then I decided to head down to France Brook which always brings me some excitement. Had the most fun crunching the ice puddles along the road!
Birds were acting funny and the Bluejays kept on making these strange clicking sounds. To my surprise there was an adult Bald Eagle near the Beaver Ponds. It was a stunning bird and took off before I could get a good picture. Suddenly the Common Ravens circled and started chasing the Eagle. It was wonderful thing to watch! Besides this excitement with the eagle and Raven; there was your typical birds moving around in the shrubs which I enjoyed watching.
Tree Sparrow with more sticks in the way!! The one picture is of it itching.
Enjoyed finding a Song Sparrow in there!
After my hike, I visited my family and lost a bunch of money at the Casino!! Ugg, they opened a section in the new building and I had to check it out! It’s going to be a LONG time until I visit that place again!!
Are Muskrats being territorial or just having fun
Yesterday, I truly enjoyed my walk around Red House Lake in the warm sunny weather. I saw numerous birds including Dark-eyed Juncos, Tufted Titmouse, American Tree Sparrows, and even some Horned Grebes. In the area that I call “duck pond” there were 11 or so Mallards feeding in the weeds.
Something didn’t appear to be right with these Mallards due to a majority of the ducks were ignoring me and swimming around
in an almost circle direction. A few did take flight but there were others that just held their ground. I knew this couldn’t be a game of duck-duck-goose; so the binoculars came out for a closer inspection. To my surprise there was a Muskrat chasing the Mallards around the pond! I have always understood that Muskrats are commonly found in areas the dabbling ducks like to feed and that they are mainly herbivores (but on occasion will feed on crayfish, ect). Could this muskrat be looking for a quick meal?? I doubt it!! But, I never expected to see such persistency in this mammal moving these ducks away from this particular area. It almost became comical to watch.
The Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) gets its name from a musky aroma which follows them around into their grass lined dens. I questioned if this Muskrat was having fun or just being very protective of its territory. Numerous of the field guides that I have been flipping through do note that they are very territorial and one did note that they “have been observed chasing away dabbling ducks”. Doesn’t matter what the books say, this Muskrat appeared to be having fun to me!! I think that over the winter months that I need to keep an eye on this musky furry friend. (Did the best I could photographing the Muskrat through the trees)
day two – North Country Trail
After breakfast, the kids started to make a small fire, broken down camp and we headed out on the trail towards the Quaker Store. We hit the re-route and I don’t see where it helped the existing trail that was previously there. I would have rather walked through the slush wet trail than climbing over the mountain with slush on the trail. At one point we did decide to adventure down the hill in search of the old trail (which we never found, but did find the pickers). The back section behind all the Quaker Cabins was a fun hike; we laughed, spit trail mix at each other and truly enjoyed the day. We finally arrived at the Coon Run road and worked our way over to the Quaker Store (in search of a ride to Cain Hollow). What a wonderful hiking trip and I am very proud of these two hikers that assisted me. To learn more about the trip, follow the links to the pictures.
day one – North Country Trail
Today was the start of my back packing trip along the North Country Trail with two young naturalist. We started at the administration building here in Allegany State Park and headed to the Stony Brook Lean-to for an overnight. All morning we watched the NEXRAD radar which said that it was finally clear for us to start hiking. Of course, it rained for the first 1 ½ hours of hiking! We stopped at the Conservation Trail Lean-to and took some time to eat our Subway subs (and to try to stay dry). We arrived after 5 hours of hiking at the Stony Brook Lean-to. After setting up the tents, we made dinner, joked around and got a camp fire going. With our luck, after going to bed we had two porcupines started chewing on the lean-to building and I finally was able to fall asleep after being absolutely exhausted. I noticed mice running around the outside of the tents about 5:30 am and the coyotes howling about 8:30am the following Morning. What a night, look at the pictures and learn more about the trip.
Mon@rch's Nature Blog 