| OVERVIEW
This was a week of extremes. It began with record-setting cold air temperatures in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks and ended with record-setting warm air temperatures at Albany and points south. Snowy owls continued to be the highlight and, with the watershed freezing up, bald eagles were becoming more concentrated near open water on the Hudson River.
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
 1/9 – Croton River, HRM 34: While I was looking for winter waterfowl at Black Rock Park on the Croton River, a beautiful immature bald eagle flew in and posed for photographs. Later I noticed that the eagle had a black band on its left leg and a silver band on its right leg. The alphanumeric on the black band was B7. (Photo of bald eagle courtesy of Ed Mertz)
– Edward Mertz.
[Mike O’Leary, a leader of the volunteer-based Connecticut Bald Eagle Study Group, found that B7 was banded 217 days ago, on June 2, 2017, in the town of Monroe, Connecticut at the Stevenson Dam on the Housatonic River about 55 miles northeast of where it was sighted. The silver band was from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Chris Martin]
NATURAL HISTORY ENTRIES
1/6 – Newcomb, HRM 302: The frigid weather continued in Essex County. Today’s high temperature was -13 degrees Fahrenheit (F), 38 degrees below the historical average high for the date. The low temperature of -20 F was 14 degrees below the historical average low.
– National Weather Service
1/6 – Essex County, HRM 300: With a bumper food crop on just about every tree species in the Adirondacks, this will be a fascinating winter to observe where birds are feeding. Here is what I have noted so far:
White pine: red crossbill, pine siskin
Red spruce: red crossbill, white-winged crossbill
Black spruce: white-winged crossbill
Tamarack: red crossbill, white-winged crossbill, black-capped chickadee, red-breasted nuthatch
Eastern hemlock: pine siskin
Balsam fir: pine siskin
Birch sp.: pine siskin, American goldfinch
White cedar: pine siskin, American goldfinch
– Joan Collins
1/6 – Saratoga County, HRM 200: I surveyed the Northumberland farmland this afternoon. The air was 5 degrees F and, coupled with 20 mile-per-hour (mph) wind gusts, created a -30 degrees windchill. I counted 279 horned larks and at least 64 snow buntings. (Without John Hershey along, I found no Lapland longspurs!) Among the 18 species encountered were five common ravens mixed in with some common crows.
– Ron Harrower (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
1/6 – Battenkill, HRM 193: I was once again on a quest for fun winter birds. I canvassed the area from my house in Salem to Cambridge, Shushan, and then to Hebron. Best birds of the day included a flock of 20 wild turkeys making a point of staying off the snow while perched in a grove of buttonwood trees. I also counted 30 snow buntings, 50 horned larks in Cambridge, a dozen blue jays, dark-eyed juncos were everywhere, cardinals, and an immature bald eagle on a section of open water on White Creek near the Vermont border.
– Scott Varney, Charles Varney (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
1/6 – Orange County, HRM 60: On a very windy morning, four snow geese were sitting very close to one another in a field behind Valley Central Middle/High School in Montgomery. I watched them take off and they seemed to have some difficulty quartering the wind and came back down. Snow geese in Orange County is not an unusual winter sighting. However, seeing only four, and in a school yard was a bit more surprising.
– William J. Gunther
1/6 – Hudson River Estuary: In the wake of last week’s nor’easter, the winds backed from northeast to northwest and continued to blow hard for the next 48 hours. This caused blowout tides along the coast as ocean water was pushed away from shore. Since the Hudson estuary is at sea level for most of its length, it experienced blowout tides too. The tide gauge at the Battery in Manhattan reported water levels as much as three feet lower than predicted based on the tide-generating forces inherent in the positions of the earth, moon, and sun. (Photo of NOAA tide gauge at the Battery courtesy of Steve Stanne)
– Steve Stanne
1/7 – Newcomb, HRM 302: The air temperature fell to -29 degrees F today establishing a new record low for the date. The previous record was -22 degrees. This was the fifth record low temperature at the headwaters of the Hudson River in the last ten days.
– National Weather Service
1/7 – Cohoes, HRM 153: Eyeing the runways at the Albany International Airport at mid-morning, I spotted a red-tailed hawk chasing a snowy owl along the runway. The snowy owl took flight at an increasing height and flew north leaving the airport.
– Jeff Nadler (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
1/8 – Green Island, HRM 153: This morning I checked the river at the head of tide just below the federal dam and spotted an adult bald eagle, 22 common goldeneye, and six common mergansers.
– Zach Schwartz-Weinstein (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
1/8 – Verplanck, HRM 40.5: As a result of relentless winds and sub-zero temperatures of the past week, there was a significant amount of ice on the river making it a banner day for bald eagle viewing from Steamboat Dock in Verplanck. We watched an adult fly in and snatch a large fish off the water only to drop it back into the river. The bird seemed undaunted and landed on an ice floe to wait for something to drift by. There were many adults, at least eight, and immatures on the river all day. Some were also perched in riverside trees. Eight double-crested cormorants had taken a small ice floe for their own.
– Dianne Picciano, Phil Picciano
1/9 – Cohoes, HRM 153: I checked the runways again today at the Albany International Airport and found a snowy owl perched on the runway 2 sign. It may have been the same snowy owl Jeff Nadler spotted two days ago.
– Curt Morgan (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
 1/9 – Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 35: We noticed a significant concentration of mussels along our entire wooden sea wall and seawall panel at the Croton Yacht Club. They were concentrated at, and a few feet below, mean low water level (MLW). (Photo of hooked mussels courtesy of Tom Lake)
– Dennis Kooney
[These were hooked mussels (Ischadium recurvum), a marine bivalve often found in brackish water. They had become established in the warm and salty waters of Haverstraw Bay last summer. Last April, tide-rows of these mussels were found washed up on the riverside beach at Croton Point where they had likely succumbed to low salinity and exposure to the freezing night air. As at Croton Point, bay barnacles (Amphibalanus improvises) were mixed in with the hooked mussels observed at the Yacht Club. Tom Lake]
 1/10 – Cohoes, HRM 157: The 90-foot-high face of the falls at Cohoes, where the Mohawk River flows over greywacke (a hard sandstone) and shale, looked very much like the leading edge of a glacier. Despite very little flow, there was considerable open water below the falls. A “battalion” of common goldeneyes, at least 60 birds of mixed hens and drakes, swam quickly downstream in what looked very much like an orderly formation. After traveling several hundred feet, they all did a very precise about face and headed upstream in the same symmetrical formation. As a backdrop there were no fewer than 1,000 mixed gulls, a couple of which I could see were Iceland gulls. (Photo of falls at Cohoes courtesy of Tom Lake)
– Tom Lake
[Twenty thousand years ago, a glacier moved across this area carving the feature that would later become glacial Lake Iroquois and, following its draining 13,500 years ago, the Mohawk River watershed. Tom Lake]
1/10 – Green Island, HRM 153: At high tide at the head of the estuary, the river was frozen over except for a broad strip in the tail race below the federal dam. An adult bald eagle was perched across the river at Troy. Between us, in the river, was a mix of waterfowl including common goldeneyes, common mergansers (at least one red-breasted merganser), two redhead ducks, and a dozen or more black ducks. The latter were all out of the water sitting on the shelf ice.
– Tom Lake
1/10 – Troy, HRM 151: One of the enduring mysteries of eagles in winter is where they find their fish when there is seemingly no open water. Open water is not usually a challenge for wintering eagles, but today the river was fully frozen bank-to-bank and on up the Poestenkill to the fall line. Yet, an adult bald eagle was perched at the confluence of the tributary feeding on what looked like a gizzard shad. Magic.
– Tom Lake
1/10 – Orange County, HRM 66: As I walked along the shoreline near Roseton, I counted 15 bald eagles, two of them adults and the rest immatures. There was quite a bit of ice on the river and the eagles were very active. In the midst of all this raptor activity was a lone hen long-tailed duck.
– Eric Shaw
1/11 – Hadley, HRM 208: I counted six bald eagles, two adults and six immatures, this morning on the ice, just off shore, or in trees, near the Conklingville Dam in Hadley. They were feeding on road-kill white-tailed deer carcasses provided by New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. They were joined by a half-dozen ravens.
– Rob Snell (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
1/11 – Fort Edward, HRM 202: Having heard that there were two snowy owls in the Fort Edward Grasslands area, I arrived and found birders looking at a gray-phase screech owl. Later, along with John Hershey, I found a snowy owl at the observation post off Route 42. Among the eight species I counted this afternoon, in addition to the owls, was a rough-legged hawk.
– Ron Harrower, John Hershey (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
1/11 – Fort Edward, HRM 202: Following up on Ron Harrower’s snowy owl report this morning at the Fort Edward Grassland area, I arrived in the afternoon to find many birders watching a snowy owl. A second snowy owl was found directly below the bird observation area on Saint James Road and then a third was spotted on a hay bale on Mahaffey Road Extension.
– Scott Varney (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
 1/11 – Saratoga County, HRM 200: After many trips to Northumberland this year, I finally found Lapland longspurs (at least three) this morning. I estimated there were at least 100 horned larks and 75 snow buntings at the same manure spread. [This afternoon, Ron Harrower tallied 340 horned larks at this spot but only two Lapland longspurs.] (Photo of Lapland longspurs courtesy of Deborah-Tracy Kral)
– John Hershey (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
[Lapland longspur (Calcarius lapponicus) is a common songbird that breeds in the Arctic tundra and winters in open fields across much of the northern United States and southern Canada. They show up in small numbers in our area in winter, often in the company of the related snow bunting. Tom Lake]
1/11 – Saratoga County, HRM 200-175: Our Thursday Birders traveled the west side of the Hudson River today. Waterfowl were not plentiful except for Canada geese. The first bald eagle of the day sat on the ice just off shore. A few miles south of Schuylerville, an adult and an immature bald eagle argued over a white-tailed deer carcass in a field. We checked manure spreads throughout the Northumberland farmland and found wild turkeys, snow buntings, and rough-legged hawks. John Hershey suggested we try King’s Road for Lapland longspurs and we found at least two among more than 100 horned lark and snow buntings.
– Naomi Lloyd (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
1/11 – Norrie Point, HRM 85: During our bald eagle count, on a mid-morning high tide, we spotted an osprey perched in a tree on the south end of Esopus Island.
– Gina Palmer, Adrienne Popko
[Pete Nye has speculated that until the last decade or so, there was very little overflow of coastal osprey to populate the Hudson Valley. In springtime migration, they were passing us by for Lake Champlain, the Great Lakes, and the Saint Lawrence River Valley. But now their nests seem to be popping up everywhere in the watershed. According to DEC’s Meghan Oberkircher, there are 33 osprey nests recorded in Region 3 alone. Barbara Butler points out that there have only been a few Dutchess County records of osprey in December and none in January. However, she suggests that with the number of breeding pairs, seasonal migration patterns may be changing. Tom Lake]
1/11 – Manhattan, HRM 0: Viewed from the Battery at the lower tip of Manhattan, as a result of the extreme record-breaking cold upriver, the Upper Bay of New York Harbor had ice floes drifting down river in the estuary’s ebb current. Likewise, the East River also had ice floes.
– Helena Andreyko
1/12 – Albany, HRM 145: The air temperature reached 63 degrees F today, tying the record high for the date.
– National Weather Service
1/12 – Ulster County, HRM 102-92: I passed three snow-capped fields and each had many hundreds of Canada geese, with a few snow geese mixed in, feeding on the corn stubble.
– Tom Lake
1/12 – Town of Poughkeepsie, HRM 75: The air temperature reached 62 degrees F today, tying the record high for the date.
– National Weather Service
 1/12 – Dutchess County, HRM 75-70: There were eagles on ice floes today, something that not every winter brings to the estuary. As I watched immature eagles perched on the ocean-bound ice, one of my favorite winter-on-the-ice moments came to me. It occurred several years ago at Norrie Point, 15 miles upriver, during a public eagle program. We were watching an adult bald eagle feeding on a gizzard shad out on an ice floe. It then flew off and was replaced by a river otter that had climbed up on the ice floe. The otter ate what was left. Fifty people watched that moment through binoculars and spotting scopes. It was a wonderful demonstration of the relationship between birds, fish, and mammals. (Photo of bald eagle on ice courtesy of Terry Hardy)
– Tom Lake
WINTER 2018 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAM
Saturday, February 24 – 1:00 p.m.
The Changing Ecology of the Hudson River Flyway
Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program’s Consulting Naturalist
Five River Environmental Education Center, Delmar
Hosted by the Audubon Society of the Capital Region with Southern Adirondack Audubon
For information, e-mail John Loz
HUDSON RIVER MILES
The Hudson is measured north from Hudson River Mile 0 at the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan. The George Washington Bridge is at HRM 12, the Tappan Zee 28, Bear Mountain 47, Beacon-Newburgh 62, Mid-Hudson 75, Kingston-Rhinecliff 95, Rip Van Winkle 114, and the Federal Dam at Troy, the head of tidewater, at 153. The tidal section of the Hudson constitutes a bit less than half the total distance – 315 miles – from Lake Tear of the Clouds to the Battery. Entries from points east and west in the watershed reference the corresponding river mile on the mainstem.
TO CONTRIBUTE YOUR OBSERVATIONS OR TO SUBSCRIBE
The Hudson River Almanac is compiled and edited by Tom Lake and emailed weekly by DEC’s Hudson River Estuary Program. Share your observations by e-mailing them to trlake7@aol.com.
To subscribe to the Almanac (or to unsubscribe), use the links on DEC’s Hudson River Almanac or DEC Delivers web pages.
Discover New York State Conservationist – the award-winning, advertisement-free magazine focusing on New York State’s great outdoors and natural resources. Conservationist features stunning photography, informative articles and around-the-state coverage. Visit the Conservationist webpage for more information.
USEFUL LINKS
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration online tide and tidal current predictions are invaluable when planning Hudson River field trips.
For real-time information on Hudson River tides, weather and water conditions from twelve monitoring stations, visit the Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System website.
Information about the Hudson River Estuary Program is available on DEC’s website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4920.html .
Smartphone app available for New York outdoor enthusiasts!
DEC, in partnership with ParksByNature Network®, is proud to announce the launch of the New York Fishing, Hunting & Wildlife App for iPhone and Android. This FREE, cutting-edge mobile app gives both novice and seasoned outdoorsmen and women essential information in the palm of their hands. Powered by Pocket Ranger® technology, this official app for DEC will provide up-to-date information on fishing, hunting and wildlife watching and serve as an interactive outdoor app using today’s leading mobile devices. Using the app’s advanced GPS features, users will be able identify and locate New York’s many hunting, fishing and wildlife watching sites. They will also gain immediate access to species profiles, rules and regulations, and important permits and licensing details.
NY Open for Hunting and Fishing Initiative
Governor Cuomo’s NY Open for Fishing and Hunting Initiative is an effort to improve recreational opportunities for sportsmen and women and to boost tourism activities throughout the state. This initiative includes streamlining fishing and hunting licenses, reducing license fees, improving access for fishing and increasing hunting opportunities in New York State.
In support of this initiative, this year’s budget includes $6 million in NY Works funding to support creating 50 new land and water access projects to connect hunters, anglers, bird watchers and others who enjoy the outdoors to more than 380,000 acres of existing state and easement lands that have gone largely untapped until now. These 50 new access projects include building new boat launches, installing new hunting blinds and building new trails and parking areas. In addition, the 2014-15 budget includes $4 million to repair the state’s fish hatcheries; and renews and allows expanded use of crossbows for hunting in New York State.
This year’s budget also reduces short-term fishing licenses fees; increases the number of authorized statewide free fishing days to eight from two; authorizes DEC to offer 10 days of promotional prices for hunting, fishing and trapping licenses; and authorizes free Adventure Plates for new lifetime license holders, discounted Adventure Plates for existing lifetime license holders and regular fee Adventure Plates for annual license holders.
Copies of past issues of the Hudson River Almanac, Volumes II-VIII, are available for purchase from the publisher, Purple Mountain Press, (800) 325-2665, or email purple@catskill.net |
Hudson River Almanac
