Something very exciting...

This entry will be short and sweet, and not too related to wildlife. I have to share this exciting news with those (few???) of you out in Cyberspace reading BearlyAlyssa's blog.

I recently posted this picture:

(Schoharie, NY)


...on several different places hoping to share with a wider audience. I'm so proud of this shot, it's centered, good color, and a BOBCAT which is a tough animal to observe.

I e-mailed it to the NYS Conservationist Magazine, and shared it. They quickly replied asking for more information and permission to possibly print it in a future edition of The Conservationist. In the mean time, they shared it on their FaceBook page to share with readers and followers. It was wildly popular, got a lot of "likes" and "shares" and a couple comments. It was very exciting to watch!

Then, I also submitted the picture to the Times Union newspaper, online, to be shared in the "reader photo submission" area. They shared it, and even gave it the title of "Your Best Shot", which I linked to above. I included my blog address in both submissions, directing people to "more of the bobcat story"...and my blog has been lit up over the past few days! It's really exciting for me to get local (well, New Yorkers) reading.

And THEN, something even more exciting happened. A few days after these pictures were submitted, and shared online, the Interactive Audience Manager of the TU sent me an email. He expressed his interest in the content I was writing about, gave me a few generous compliments, and summed up the email by extending an offer to blog under the TU's name! He wanted me to upload all of the 130+ entries and pictures from my blog here, and switch over to the blog format that the TU hosts, and to increase my readership and share stories with Upstate New Yorkers. Very exciting stuff, but I wasn't willing to leave Blogger. I like it here, I'm comfortable. After the new dashboard interface finally settled with me and I'm able to navigate the inner-workings of my blog again, I am reluctant to leave.

So, we had a nice long phone conversation, and struck a deal. I am going to be "co-posting" relevant Upstate NY entries. I will blog as usual here, and then just copy + paste into the other blog on the TU's website to share there.

When I finally get that up and running, I'll be sure to share the link, if anyone is interested in checking that out.

But, how lucky am I? It's ironic, I first attended college for communications. I was dead set on writing for a newspaper one day, and now here I am, blogging! Even better!

This is an unpaid position, but I think I'm ok with that. I never started this blogging journey with hopes of raking in the dollars. Merely sharing my interests and what I'm learning along my "journey" is enough. Plus, once I start getting paid, then I have to start blogging what the boss wants!

Thanks to those who urged me to write, encouraged me to ask questions, provided me with feedback, and to those other bloggers who inspire me to continue!

Kayuta Lake, Adirondack State Park
October 6th, 2012

Happy Columbus Day weekend!

 

 

 

 

The Adirondacks in April

The Adirondack Mountains are hands down, my favorite place to visit. I've been to Montana, Colorado, the Caribbean, Louisiana, the Outer Banks, Maine...all over, and I just love the Adirondacks the most. It is a beautiful place to be, but so are the Rockies, the ocean, the islands, etc...but the ADKs have family and friend memories that literally started in 1987. I think I've gone up there every year since.

This past weekend I went up there with the Wilderness Camping class that I'm enrolled in, a 1CR PE course. Camping for college credit? Sign me up! Two of my favorite professors were instructing and several of my good friends were also enrolled, so I was really looking forward to a weekend away, even if it was for class!

We camped at this Boy Scout camp which is acres and acres of beautiful land. Although there were heated lodges, we tented.

Once we got to the campsite Friday night, we had to unload and set up tents. Not shown in this picture, but under the cover of the pines there was snow on the ground. Just a dusting, but just enough for a very chilly night spent in a tent!

Friday night we hung out around the fire...grilled some dinner, listened to the loons calling on the lake, and then went to warm our sleeping bags.

Saturday we got up and got ready to paddle 14 miles down the Raquette River! I've paddled sections of this river many times, but never leisurely with peers. It's always been a marathon paddle with young campers during the summers I worked at the summer camp on Raquette Lake.

A quick group picture...

And then we were off!

 

I don't have any pictures from the adventure, unfortunately...but I was the steer-er of the canoe, and didn't want to risk fumbling with my new camera over the water. It's too new for that! We didn't really see much (too cold?!), none of the leaves were out, and those of us who were fishing didn't catch anything.

That night though, some of us went on a hike, a quest really, to find porcupine sign. I am quite enamored with our 2nd largest rodent of NY and have been told over and over that we "don't have them in the Finger Lakes", so I thought that the ADKs were a better place to look. A bit more boreal and undeveloped. We didn't look very long or hard, so nothing to report on that front either. ONE DAY I will have the best entry to write about porcupines! We did find an awesome beaver pond though. There were 2 quite large, thick, dense, high beaver dams....that had been breached. I'm guessing by the management of the Boy Scout Camp...the water level had seemed to be quite higher than it was when we visited. We thought maybe it had been abandoned, but we found some fresh chews in the water.

 

And then upstream, the lake that the beaver ponds were empyting, held a couple of Common Loons. I took several pictures of the pair, but they were far away and beyond some vegetation. The best picture I got is below...my favorite bird!

 

 

Our evening Saturday was much more enjoyable than Friday night. Still very cold (20s*F), but not snowing...and we were very tired so that made sleep come that much faster!

The next morning, we packed all of our belongings up and shoved them in the van (it fit so much better coming than going!), and made a few stops before leaving the Camp property.

A truly bluebird morning in the ADKs...

Our instructors next took us to a bog down a short boardwalk. I love bogs, there are so many neat plants and animals that hang out in bogs...we were a little early in the season to see anything really flourishing, but some of the bog plants are evergreen or were leftover from last growing season.

Sphagnum moss

Pitcher plant

Sphagnum moss

Another type of moss

And my final picture, although not very good, is a picture of a juvenile Bald Eagle, a Raven, and an American Crow duking it out on the thermals. They were very high up and moving quickly, AND they were almost directly in front of the sun...all making for a difficult shot. I wanted to include it because it was a neat sighting for me, and especially others who've never experienced an Eagle or Raven.

It was a beautiful weekend with awesome friends, professors, food, weather, and laughs. A great memory of my time at FLCC!

Blog entries coming soon: follow up camera trap pics from East Hill Campus, the end of my independent study, and a bobcat dissection!

The Beaver!

The place I found this beaver sign was deep in a mixed deciduous/coniferous forest in the Adirondacks, along side of a iced over lake. It was a bright sunny day, and what alerted us to the presence of the beaver were drag marks across our path. There was ~1+ feet of snow on the ground. My club, The Wildlife Society, and I were visiting with FLCC alum Elaina Burns. Elaina is currently working on a study with the DEC on the American marten (Martes Americana) and the fisher (Martes pennant) in and around Newcomb, NY.

Newcomb, NY 3/27

We took a hike with her the morning of Sunday March 27 and discovered this drag that the beaver(s) had made across our trail. It was a few days fresh, as the last snow had fallen just several days prior. There were no distinguishable tracks that I could make out, but it was obviously that we found the site of the beaver. The drag marks led from freshly gnawed saplings and branches, across the trail down to the water’s edge, and disappeared into a now frozen over hole in the ice. There was just a thin layer of ice on it, but the temperature had been in the ‘teens that morning, so it had probably just frozen over. Along the beaver’s path there were loose twigs and pieces of trees that had come loose from his bundle. The beaver is such a fascinating creature!

Despite what many people may think, the beaver does not hibernate.  Instead, to battle the long cold winter, the beaver creates caches. A cache is a collection of food (branches) that beaver stock piles in front or within close proximity to his lodge. The branches become frozen in place, and are then accessible from underwater all winter long. I did witness this, but the lodge was too far from where I was to snap a good picture. The beaver stays cozy and warm underneath a thick layer of brown fat which insulates him against the cold air temperatures as well as frigid water temperatures. The beaver is most commonly recognized to live in a lodge, but may sometimes live in a bank den or burrow. Either way, both of these structures provide good protection through the winter months.

Why does beaver urine smell the way it does? Just ‘cause? To tell other beavers who has been where?  To lure the opposite sex in? To deter predators?  Walking along the path we were able to detect a whiff of beaver scent, which is very strong and unpleasant. To get a closer and “better” sniff, my fellow club members and I bent down to get a smell. It’s very musky and pungent. It’s the kind of smell that sticks with you for a few seconds as you pull away and makes you wrinkle your nose. Not pleasant, although cool to experience!

My friends and I smelling beaver pee!

Snowshoe hares DO live in NY!

I find it most appropriate to write about the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) tracks that I found. The first day of mammals class I didn’t even know they lived in NY, and a week later I had the privilege of finding and correctly identifying the tracks. I was on a weekend trip to the Adirondacks with The Wildlife Society Club, and we were taking a hike through the woods. The place I found these tracks was deep in a mixed deciduous/coniferous forest in the Adirondacks. There wasn’t very much understory brush present, but there was also 1+ feet of snow on the ground. There were winter tracks all around; deer, song birds, fox, marten, and snowshoe hare. At first we all thought they were eastern cottontail, because that’s what we’re all familiar with, but soon by looking at a track book were able to tell the difference.

The snowshoe hare has large furry feet that essentially act as snowshoes, as his name states. The eastern cottontail is considerably smaller (actual size of track, as well as stride/straddle), and lacks that fuzzy ring of fur around each foot which blurs the track in a way.  This hare is also referred to as the varying hare because of the coat color changes it goes through.  In warmer months this hare is brown, and in the colder months turns white. This acts as a camouflage.

(Newcomb NY 3/27)

The reason I didn’t get to see the hare, and just his tracks, is because he is mostly nocturnal. They are also, by nature, very timid and secretive.

As our Stokes book states, the snowshoe hare’s main defense is to sit very still and quiet in what is referred to as a ‘form’. This is a small depression the shape of a sitting rabbit that may be found under a log or brush, that allows the animal some shelter, but also allows him a quick getaway if an intruder comes too close. We may have walked right past one tucked away, and never were the wiser. What really amazes me is that once disturbed, this small 3 lb. animal can get up to speeds up 30 mph and leap 12 feet at a time!

What I want to know is....approximately what time of year does the snowshoe hare start to change coat color? In Stokes it states that these changes start to occur due to length in day and temperature changes. But this year for example is still quite cold for the spring, and in the ADKs when I found the tracks there was still quite a bit of snow. Does this mean there are still white hares hopping around even though it’s well into April?

(The Wild Center 3/26)