| OVERVIEW
It was another week of eagles and ice floes.
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
 1/28 – Town of Warwick, HRM 41: There are five sub-species of northern red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) one of which is the Canadian sub-species B. J. abieticola. I have seen this red-tail in the southern (New Jersey) end of Liberty Loop at Liberty Marsh, part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge complex. Todd (1950) described this sub-species of red-tailed hawk as a population distinct from other red-tails in the east by their rich coloration and heavy streaking. They breed in the boreal forest of Quebec and Labrador east of Hudson Bay. (Photo of Red-tailed Hawk courtesy of Steve Walter)
– Steve Walter
[Their trivial name, abieticola, meaning “dweller of the firs,” refers to their predilection for boreal, coniferous forests of Canada and northern New England. Abieticola comes from Latin: Abies = fir; cola = dweller. Tom Lake]
NATURAL HISTORY ENTRIES
1/27 – Essex County, HRM 320-284: In surveying this reach of the county we came upon an array of “winter” birds, including gray jays (13), both white-winged and red crossbills, and a black-backed woodpecker.
– Joan Collins
1/27 – Waterford, HRM 159: We took our favorite ride to Waterford where the Mohawk River meets the Hudson River. We saw no waterfowl but the ice was a show by itself. There were many fast moving floes and we could clearly hear the ice popping above the crows’ protests of the presence of bald eagles.
– Debbie DiBattista, Bernie DiBattista
1/27 – Cohoes, HRM 158: We spent some time at the Cohoes power station and adjacent areas this afternoon looking for reported “white-winged” gulls. We saw a single Iceland gull briefly in flight that had a relatively slight build and a smallish all-black bill. But our brief look was not sufficient to positively identify that it may have been the Iceland gull sub-species (Kumlien’s gull) that Zach Schwartz-Weinstein reported earlier today. We did not find any glaucous gulls.
– Gregg Recer, Cathy Graichen, John Hershey
[The Kumlien’s gull (Larus glaucoides kumlieni) is currently considered a subspecies of Iceland gull by the American Ornithologists’ Union. They breed in the Arctic regions of Canada and winter from Labrador south to New England and west across the Great Lakes. Kumlien’s gulls are smaller overall on average and much smaller-billed than the larger glaucous gull. Allaboutbirds.org]
 1/27 – Peebles Island, HRM 158: The perimeter trail around Pebbles Island was littered with huge shelves of ice that obliterated the trail. It was easier (and more fun) to walk on top of the 18-inch-thick sheets of ice than to bushwhack around them. (Photo of Peebles Island courtesy of Debbie DiBattista)
– Fran Martino
1/27 – Saugerties, HRM 102: Even though we could not see it, Esopus Creek was roaring downstream under a mantle of ice. We edged our way off the beach onto the creek. Near-shore ice is usually the thinnest (sunlight penetrates and warms the water column) and we found just three-inches – not a generous amount. Most often, the deeper the water, the thicker the ice. We had hopes that we might yet get to do some ice fishing. We carefully inched offshore 150 feet, directly over the deep-water channel. We carefully augured a hole in the ice. It did not take much – we had less than two-inches. “Widow-maker ice.” We carefully retraced our path, each step creating spider-web cracks – water bubbled up in places – and we were relieved to feel the sand as we stepped back onto the beach. Heavy rain and subsequent meltwater from the Catskills had eroded from beneath what had been a solid foot of ice only a few days earlier.
– Tom Lake. Chris Bowser
[Veteran ice anglers, through experience, attain a sense of ice safety that serves them well. However, for the casual angler, ice skater, or skier, knowing how to read the ice is complex and paramount for safety. Thickness of the ice, while important, is not the only measure of safety. The general rule of three-inches or more being “safe” ice is not always true. And while four inches of new, hard “black ice” is safe, twice that amount of ice that it is melting away in the sun or eroding underneath from moving water is not (as we found out on this day). As winter moves toward spring, the increased angle of the sun decreases the time when the ice is sheltered. For step-by-step procedures to determine ice safety, see: https://www.wikihow.com/Know-When-Ice-is-Safe. Tom Lake]
1/27 – New Paltz, HRM 78: A dozen mixed male and female brown-headed cowbirds made a visit to our bird feeders this morning. We had not seen any for many months. Oddly, they didn’t seem to be a part of a larger mixed flock of blackbirds, which is often the case. Were these early spring migrants, or hangovers?
– Lynn Bowdery, Alen Bowdery
1/27 – Ulster County, HRM 75: I came upon a dozen greater white-fronted geese, four snow geese, and a cackling goose mixed in with about 3,000 Canada geese in a cow pasture near the Shawangunk Grasslands.
– Jim Clinton
[The greater white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons), an Arctic breeder, appears once or twice most years, during the fall or winter (this sighting was exceptional). They are usually found in large flocks of Canada geese, a reward for the patient birder who checks them carefully. – Barbara Butler]
 1/27 – Town of Poughkeepsie: The adult bald eagles at nest NY62 continued their preparation for the breeding season. We watched today as the male of the pair brought a gray squirrel back to the nest tree and gave it to the female. “Gift-giving” is a common occurrence during the mating season. She took the squirrel and flew toward the river to a favorite perch where she fed. (Photo of Bald Eagle with gray squirrel courtesy of Bob Rightmyer)
– Debbie Lephew, Bob Rightmyer
1/27 – Peekskill to Croton Bay, HRM 43-34: Sixteen of us ventured out to see what we might find along a nine-mile reach of the river. There was ice on the Hudson indicating that upriver was probably iced in. Evenly spread out among the five stops we made were more than 30 bald eagles. Included in the small rafts of waterfowl were buffleheads and lesser scaup.
– Bob Rancan, Janet Rancan
1/28 – Poestenkill, HRM 151: It seemed the birding world was in sync: This morning I saw two pairs of bluebirds fighting over one of our nest boxes. I think it is time to kick out the wintering deer mice!
– Jim de Waal Malefyt
1/28 – Schodack Island State Park, HRM 135: I was not the only one mesmerized by watching the river ice flow in early afternoon today. One large sheet of ice jammed itself upright along the railing near the boat launch where several of us were watching. We all jumped back several feet and expressed our exclamations as we saw this once-floating object come straight toward us, and then stay propped upward just inches away. The rest of the river ice was singing high and low notes as it headed southbound at the start of the ebb tide.
– Fran Martino
 1/28 – Eastern Dutchess County, HRM 96: I found four immature golden eagles at Stissing Pond today. Three had been flying along Stissing Mountain – their wintering grounds – and the fourth had flown in to check out a dead Canada goose on Stissing Pond. (Photo of Golden Eagle courtesy of Justin Schmidt)
– Justin Schmidt
1/28 – Verplanck, HRM 40.5: Our “eagle team” from Bear Mountain State Park’s Trailside Museum and Zoo has been conducting bald eagle roost surveys. While recording our counts, we watched five eagles (mixed adults and immatures) chasing an adult bald eagle carrying a fish. The fish was dropped, grabbed again, lost, found again, and on they went. It seemed like it was a game of “catch the fish.”
– Emily Enoch
[This is a common occurrence played by eagles witnessed mostly in wintertime as a game of “tag.” The game may serve as a means of socializing among wintering eagles from faraway places, especially new and unattached adults looking for mates. The rules are simple: one bird will carry an item, from sticks, to chunks of ice, shellfish, and of course fish. The pursuers eventually force the carrier eagle to drop the item, whereupon another eagle will pick it up and the chase resumes. Tom Lake]
1/29 – Town of Poughkeepsie: Our group, the Soul of NY62, became concerned today when photos revealed what looked like monofilament fishing line around the foot and talons of the male bird from bald eagle nest NY62. This was one of those times when you’d like to be able to intervene, but realistically know that the eagle will have to face the challenge by himself. [In subsequent days, it appeared that the line either fell off or the eagle managed to cope.]
– Justin Schmidt, Kate Connolly, Bob Rightmyer
[If you spend time walking along the Hudson River, especially at popular fishing locations, you will frequently find balls of snarled fishing line and fish hooks, a reminder of the importance to carry out what is carried in during the pursuit of outdoor activities. To not do so, risks injury or death to eagles, osprey, wading birds, and shore bids, as well as other wildlife, as they forage among our leavings. Tom Lake]
1/29 – Town of Poughkeepsie: As with NY62, another Town of Poughkeepsie bald eagle nest (NY372) was preparing for its fourth breeding season. The mated pair have been unsuccessful the last two years, but both adults have been active daily with nest refurbishing. Frequently, after a busy day, the adults will just sit in the nest, apparently taking a breather.
– Sheila Bogart, Dana Layton
1/29 – Westchester County, HRM 40.5: We did the final count of our bald eagle night roost survey after sunset today. Today’s tally was 16 adults and four immatures.
– Emily Enoch
[Wintering bald eagles go their separate ways during the day – they are not a “flocking” bird – but usually return to a specific night roost. There are many night roosts along the Hudson River where as many as 100 bald eagles may spend cold winter nights perched together in trees. On the coldest of nights, they will choose an inland forest usually finding conifers for a wind break. On warmer nights, they might find a roost along the river, often on the leeward side of a point. Tom Lake]
1/30 – Town of Poughkeepsie: An often asked question of bald eagle watchers is, “How can you tell that the big bird in the sky is a bald eagle and not a turkey vulture?” As we watched one today, on a soaring-glide in from the Hudson River, the answer became obvious: bald eagles soar on flat wings. Other large soaring birds in the sky such as turkey vultures and osprey hold their wings in a slight dihedral, or “V.”
– Sheila Bogart
 1/30 – Beacon, HRM 61: The wintertime waterfront at Beacon is a prime location to look for “white-winged” gulls among the far more common ring-billed, black-backed, and herring gulls. While the midday high tide was not ideal, there were still several hundred gulls from the near-shore ice out to small areas of open water. Finding the odd gull among so many familiar ones requires painstaking focus. The tears brought on by a brisk west wind made it challenging. In a half-hour I found one first-year Iceland gull (Larus glaucoides), which I considered a triumph. These gulls are Arctic breeders that winter in small numbers in the Hudson Valley. (Photo of Iceland gull courtesy of Curt McDermott)
– Tom Lake
[When we talk of “white winged gulls” in the eastern United States we are referring to Iceland and glaucous gulls. Adult Ivory gulls are pure white and incredibly beautiful but are uncommon to rare in the watershed. Only glaucous gulls of the other two species are always white winged in all cycles of molt. Their wings have white primaries in all stages of life. Iceland gulls have variability in all stages (like most gull species) and as adults, can have primaries that range from white to black. Curt McDermott]
1/31 – Norrie Point, HRM 85: The west wind made our eyes tear as we watched the three-quarters iced-over river. It was an early afternoon high tide and the river had tightened up leaving just the channel free. Three immature bald eagles had left their ice floes and were now perched on Esopus Island where they were joined by two adults.
– Tom Lake, B.J Jackson
1/31 – Hudson Valley: We had a full moon today that was also a “Blue Moon,” so named for the second full moon in one month. They are not common, thus the axiom “once in a blue moon.” This was also the third of three consecutive Super Moons beginning with November’s full moon. Our view of tonight’s full moon eclipse, also called a “Blood Moon,” was limited by our location in the eastern United States. If we think of the full moon as being “white,” we could say we had, albeit briefly, a “Red, White, and Blue” Super Moon!
– Dave Lindemann
 1/31 – Dutchess County, HRM 68: On February 21, 2017, Dwight Reed, Bob Rightmyer, Terry Hardy, and I photographed a bald eagle carrying a burnt-orange leg band number 0709-05717. The color of the band identified it as being a Massachusetts bird. I filed a report to their Division of Fisheries and Wildlife but heard nothing further. Today I was copied in an e-mail sent by Dr. Thomas W. French (Division of Fisheries and Wildlife) to another birder who also photographed the same eagle, this year, in Massachusetts. The data from our orange-banded bald eagle:
Banded: June 9, 2016 (three eaglets in the nest)
Location: Powwow River drainage north of the Merrimack River, Amesbury, Essex County, MA.
Note: The second sighting of this banded eagle, photographed by Alice Mainville, occurred January 21, 2018, Newburyport, Plum Island, Essex County, MA. (Photo of Bald Eagle with burnt-orange leg band courtesy of Bob Rightmyer)
– Deb Tracy-Kral
[When Deb Tracy-Kral, et al. photographed this immature bald eagle in 2017, it had fledged 237 days earlier from a nest 230 miles northeast of Dutchess County on the Massachusetts border with New Hampshire. Whether it is a banded bird or a tagged fish that is recovered at a far-away place, it always reminds me of how connected we are to the rest of the world. Aldo Leopold’s sentiments are appropriate, “To band a bird is to hold a ticket in a great lottery.” Tom Lake]
1/31 – George’s Island, HRM 39: I visited George’s Island Park today and counted 31 bald eagles sharing Haverstraw Bay with more than 60 bufflehead ducks and at least one drake common goldeneye.
– Pam Zicca
2/1 – Columbia County, HRM 124: For a few days the back field of my house in Austerlitz was free of snow. One night, a band of coyotes dismembered and dragged out a white-tailed deer carcass. That drew at least seven bald eagles, both adults and immatures, plus ten common ravens. They ate for hours at a time with many scuffles between the eagles. The ravens’ strategy was for one of them to tug at an eagle’s tail to distract it while several others rushed in for a quick bite.
– Nancy Kern
2/1 – Manhattan, HRM 1: In the chilly February air, we went to check our research sampling gear in Hudson River Park at The River Project’s sampling station on the lighthouse tender Lilac at Pier 25. After a couple weeks of relatively empty traps, we were delighted to find a tautog (Tautoga onitis), colloquially referred to as a blackfish (205 millimeters) In the ice-cold water, the fish had paled to match the color of the dead leaves around it.
– Siddhartha Hayes, Toland Kister
2/2 – Staatsburg, HRM 86: As the season advances, although it was a frigid 7.0 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, the songbirds around my feeder were changing. The purple finch males were redder and it was getting easier to differentiate American goldfinch males from females (yellow to greenish). There were five red cardinals flitting about today, not yet aggressively chasing each other. The “spring” bird songs heralding the coming breeding season, made me look into the trees expectantly.
– Joanne Engle
2/2 – Ulster County, HRM 78: Peregrine falcon nesting is right around the corner. The Mohonk Preserve Conservation Science Department is seeking additional volunteers to bolster its monitoring effort for the three territories on Mohonk Preserve lands. If you are unfamiliar with the program, please check out this link – http://mohonkpreserve.org/bird-programs for general information. If anyone is interested in volunteering some time for this important program, the Volunteer Orientation will be Saturday, February 17, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Mohonk Preserve Visitor Center. Please RSVP using this link: http://www.mohonkpreserve.org/training. Thank you.
– Zach Smith
2/2 – Hudson Valley: Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society’s 2018 Great Backyard Bird Count is scheduled for February 16-19, 2018. The Great Backyard Bird Count was launched in 1998 and became the first online citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real-time. Now, more than 160,000 people worldwide join the four-day count each February to create an annual snapshot of the distribution and abundance of birds. In 2017, Great Backyard Bird Count participants, in more than 100 countries, counted more than 6,200 species of birds on more than 180,000 checklists.
We invite you to participate. For at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count, simply tally the numbers and species of birds you see. You can count from any location, anywhere in the world, for as long as you wish. If you’re new to the count, or have not participated since before the 2013 merger with e-Bird, you must create a free online account to enter your checklists. If you already have an account, just use the same login name and password. If you have already participated in another Cornell Lab citizen-science project, you can use your existing login information. For more information go to http://gbbc.birdcount.org.
– Tom Lake
WINTER-SPRING 2018 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS
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
