Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Consulting Naturalist
Overview
After reporting three seals in the river so far this spring, and with the river herring spawning run in progress, it was not surprising to hear of three harbor porpoises in the lower estuary. Other signs of the river awakening from winter included eagle nestlings, songbird arrivals, amphibian crossings, and osprey and great blue heron nesting.
Highlight of the Week
 4/8 – New York Harbor, Upper Bay, HRM 2-4: Over the last two days, members of our Hudson River Community Sailing club, a nonprofit teaching STEM concepts including environmental science to high school students, have spotted three harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) “porpoising” in the Hudson River off Piers 66 and 90 in Manhattan. We were able to record two videos. (Photo of harbor porpoises courtesy of Porpoise Conservation Society)
– Alexe Taylor
[Among marine mammals, harbor porpoises are among the less frequently seen. Our first Hudson River Almanac record occurred in March 1994, when anglers off Scarborough (river mile 31) heard “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh,” before sighting two harbor porpoises swimming nearby. Other records came from the Upper Bay of New York Harbor in March 2004 and 2005.
The anglers’ description fits well with the harbor porpoise and has earned them the nickname “puffing pig” as they expel air from their blow holes. Harbor porpoises are a rather small marine mammal, generally averaging not much more than five-feet in length. They have very distinctive small, dark-colored, dorsal fins. As with the seals we have seen in the river this spring, their presence can likely be attributed to the river herring spawning run, now underway. Tom Lake]
Natural History Entries
4/6 – Town of Half Moon, HRM 164: We visited the 2015 gray seal recovery site (Lock One, Hudson-Champlain Canal, river mile 164) today. On December 4, 2015, The Riverhead Foundation, with assistance from the New York State Canal Corporation, rescued a 4.5-foot-long, 150 pounds, one-year-old, male gray seal. The fact that a gray seal, an Arctic seal, was marooned 175 miles upstream from the sea, seemed extraordinary.
That was day 133 for the gray seal at Lock One. In late spring, the gray seal had made his way upriver in an incredible journey peppered with serendipity. It climbed through the federal lock at Troy and then through Lock One of the Hudson-Champlain Canal in Half Moon. These were incredible circumstances. I have wondered if the young seal had fallen in with bad company – harbor seals – and followed them upriver in pursuit of river herring (harbor seals are not uncommon in the river in spring).
In December, the gray seal was stranded as winter approached. If the small seal on the big river could not be found and rescued, it was likely he would not have survived a frozen-over upper Hudson in winter. Then, with another bit of serendipity, the seal was spotted swimming inside Lock One (325 feet-long, 45 feet-wide). The lock was closed, and the seal was rescued.
The Riverhead Foundation transported the seal to its rehabilitation facility on Long Island where the seal was released on December 10, at Ponquogue Beach, Hampton Bays. Fitted with a satellite radio transmitter, the gray seal was tracked for weeks through the inshore waters of New England to Cape Cod Bay and beyond.
– Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson
4/6 – Green Island, HRM 153: Snow and ice melt from the Adirondacks was pulsing down the river and as it cascaded over the Federal Dam at Green Island, it produced an incredible white plunge pool. The seaward current, even at low tide, was significant and waterfowl were clustered inshore in the quieter eddies. A half-dozen ring-necked ducks, ten common goldeneye, and a male red-breasted merganser were treading water. Five double-crested cormorants splashed down on their periphery, and none of them seemed interested in diving in the turbid water. The river was 43 degrees Fahrenheit (F), a bit cooler than this time last spring, and ten degrees cooler (53 F) than 135 miles downriver at Yonkers. We searched the river with binoculars looking for the seals that had been recently sighted near here (a harp seal and a harbor seal), but they did not show.
– Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson
 4/6 – Town of Poughkeepsie: We like to think of bald eagle nest NY62 as a good representative of the other eagle nests in the Hudson River watershed, especially those that we are unable to faithfully monitor. With their two nestlings, the female in NY62, from three different nests, had now produced 20 nestlings in 19 years. (Photo of bald eagle nest NY62 with 2 nestlings courtesy of Bob Rightmyer)
– Tom Lake
 4/6 – Beacon, HRM 61: Fishing seemed to be picking up. In six hours today, I caught and released two carp and four male channel catfish. There were no bait-stealing golden shiners around, the bane of carp anglers. The two carp weighed 9 pounds 5 ounces and 7 pounds 14 ounces. The largest was a “mirror carp,” a genetic variety of common carp, that had several very large, odd-sized scales randomly scattered about the body. The river was 45 degrees F. (Photo of mirror carp courtesy of George Chernilevsky)
– Bill Greene
[Bill Greene’s mirror carp brought to mind some research I did in the 1990s with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) catching striped bass in spring. We primarily gill-netted at night in the river off the base of Storm King Mountain. But, one night at World’s End off West Point, just west of Constitution Island, we gill-netted what may have been a near-record mirror carp. Before releasing it, we guessed the fish weighed all of 60 pounds. Tom Lake]
4/6 – The Great Blue Heron rookery appears to now have 19 occupied nests. A couple of the nests were very small and appeared to be newly constructed. Both had an adult standing there, but the nests did not appear to be deep enough to hold eggs at this point. There were five other nests with an adult standing, and the rest had a heron settled down incubating eggs.
– Jim Steck
4/7 – Saratoga County, HRM 157: Fifteen eager participants met this morning at the Vischer Ferry Nature Preserve to see what birds were home. Working our way along the towpath, our first sighting was a rusty blackbird, then a variety of beautiful, dabbling ducks, including blue-winged teal, northern shoveler, gadwall, and wood duck. Diver ducks included bufflehead, ring-necked duck, hooded merganser, and pied-billed grebe. Naomi Lloyd found and identified a distant American kestrel.
We continued with the three-mile loop through the woods to the main entrance. Most of the loop through the woods was very quiet. Bird-wise, we did hear an eastern towhee and a Carolina wren. Returning along the main path from the river, we spotted a savannah sparrow (not a common species at Vischer Ferry), an adult bald eagle, and a great blue heron. In total, we counted 47 bird species and five of us had a one or more “life-birds.”
– John Hershey (Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club)
[A “life-bird” or a “life list” is a common activity for many naturalists. Typically, these are compilations of related species, like postcards from one’s travels through life. Some people keep bird lists; for others it can be fish, flowers, trees, insects, reptiles, amphibians, mushrooms, even waterfalls. Anyone can keep a list of almost anything that ultimately gives them a context and appreciation for the natural world. Tom Lake]
*** Fish-of-the-Week ***
Now that winter has slowly retreated to points north, much of the watershed’s ponds, creeks, lakes, and rivers are ice-free, and we are recovering from our winter fish withdrawal. For 13 weeks our Fish-of-the-Week feature has helped during a bleak fish-less winter. It has worked so well that we may continue the feature, at least until we get tired of taking space from real fish stories.
 4/7 – Hudson River Watershed: This week’s fishes are from the genus Acipenser which, for us, includes Atlantic, lake, and shortnose sturgeon. They are numbers 11-12-13 (of 228) on our watershed list of fishes. (If you would like a copy of our list, e-mail: trlake7.)
[Sturgeon are long-lived fishes. They are the stuff of myth and legend. In terms of evolution, they are a very ancient class of cartilaginous (non-bony) fishes whose ancestry can be traced back several hundred million years.
Both Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon are endangered species, protected by federal law, and possession of either species is prohibited. Research and monitoring by the DEC Hudson River Fisheries Unit is conducted under a National Marine Fisheries Service permit number 20340. Their presence on the Federal Endangered Species list comes as the result of many factors including over-harvesting.
Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus) are an anadromous species, in that they live most of their lives in marine waters, traveling long distances along the Atlantic coast, visiting other estuaries, but demonstrating fidelity by returning to their natal rivers to spawn. They can grow to immense sizes, as was most recently shown with the discovery (June 2018) of a 14.1-foot-long female on the bottom in the vicinity of Hyde Park. A sturgeon of this size seems mythical. There have always been stories from “old timers” of giant sturgeon at least 14-feet long. Of course, we never believed them. Fully adult Atlantic sturgeon can commonly grow to 6-8-feet long and weigh as much as 200 pounds.
Shortnose sturgeon (A. brevirostrum) are considered an estuarine species in that they spend most, if not all, of their lives in the brackish and freshwater reaches of the estuary where they spawn. However, they are capable of, and on occasion do, enter marine waters. On average, the adults are much smaller than Atlantic sturgeon, usually less than four-feet-long and averaging 15 pounds.
Lake sturgeon (A. fulvescens) are known from the Saint Lawrence River as well as lakes Erie, Ontario, Oneida, Cayuga, and Champlain. They were added to our watershed fish list in 2017, when we were apprised by Doug Carlson that the lake sturgeon had made their way from Oneida Lake into the Mohawk River, and thus our watershed. While lake sturgeon can grow to immense sizes, much like the Atlantic sturgeon, most do not exceed five-feet-long and 80 pounds. (Photo of Atlantic sturgeon courtesy of Wes Eakin)
4/7 – East Fishkill, HRM 66: We waited a bit too long to bring in our winter bird feeders. A black bear showed up tonight making a grand entrance. Last year, our first bear arrived on April 2, which was early. We had gotten used to seeing the first bear in May. This bear had grown so much over the winter, and it did not take long for it to destroy our bird feeders, suet feeders, and cable system that keeps our feeders about 25 feet off the ground. The bear might not be back right away; there is nothing left to entice it.
– Diane Anderson
[See the DEC Guidance to Homeowners on how to avoid problems with black bears.
http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/113258.html.Tom Lake]
4/7 – Haverstraw Bay, HRM 36: Our DEC Hudson River Fisheries Unit crew was on Haverstraw Bay today gill-net sampling for immature sturgeon. We captured some small Atlantic sturgeon, one of which had a fork-length of 16-inches. Atlantic sturgeon is an endangered species, but with our National Marine Fisheries Service permit (20340), we are allowed to take a fin ray to learn about the age structure of the population that winters in Haverstraw Bay.
– Amanda Higgs
 4/7 – Croton Bay, HRM 34-33: I caught and released a striped bass today in Croton bay. The variation in markings were striking with one side having the normal parallel lines (seven stripes) to an almost checkered pattern on the other. I thought it may have been the result of injury, but I caught a few more with similar but not as pronounced patterns. This leads me to think it is a genetic mutation. (Photo of striped bass courtesy of Dennis Kooney)
– Dennis Kooney
[Varying stripe patterns on striped bass has been a point of conjecture for decades. Theories abound. One of the initial hypotheses was that the presence of broken stripes indicated exposure to petrochemicals in the water at an early age. Another thesis suggests that striped bass that are born and reared nearer marine waters tend to have “straighter” stripes; some that linger in the estuary tend to have “broken” stripes. Both would need serious testing. John Waldman suggests that the “broken stripe” syndrome is just within their range of natural variation (much of the anomalies that we see in nature are examples of range-of-variation). Tom Lake]
4/8 – Hudson River Estuary: Thirteen of our fourteen glass eel fyke nets were currently installed (Poestenkill in Troy will be installed next week). Installed nets include Richmond Creek (Staten Island), Blind Brook (Rye), Sarah Lawrence Center for the Urban River at Beczak (Yonkers), Furnace Brook (Town of Cortlandt), Minisceongo Creek (West Haverstraw), Quassaick Creek (New Windsor), Hunter’s Brook (Town of Wappinger), Fall Kill (Poughkeepsie), Enderkill-Indian Kill (Staatsburg), Black Creek (Town of Esopus), Saw Kill in (Annandale-on-Hudson), and Hannacroix Creek (New Baltimore). After their net was installed last week, the Hannacroix location caught 700 glass eels! Not that long ago, 700 glass eels would have been a month’s catch.
– Chris Bowser
[This is our twelfth year of the Community Science: American Eel Research Students and Community Partners Research Migratory Fish Project. For information on this project or to participate, see: https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/49580.html Chris Bowser]
4/8 – Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 34.5: This was the day we have been waiting for: Both adult osprey from what we have dubbed the “Cell Tower Nest,” were on station today.
– Hugh McLean
 4/8 – Poughkeepsie, HRM 75: A great horned owl had a decidedly handsome, brand-new owlet today, in their nest in a hollowed-out tree trunk. (Photo of great horned owl courtesy of Terry Hardy)
– Terry Hardy
4/9 – Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: As another reminder of seasons lost, forsythia and magnolia were in full bloom. This was the time in the spring when commercial fishers would be mending their nets in the sunshine, oilskins would become coated with fish scales, and a delicious anticipation would build for the next drift for American shad on the river.
– Tom Lake
[All commercial fishing for American shad ceased on the Hudson River in 2010. The closure was made necessary by the drastic decline in shad populations primarily due to decades of over-harvesting. – Tom Lake]
4/9 – Quassaick Creek, HRM 60: We normally would have been thrilled by the 450 glass eels we captured in the set of our overnight fyke net, but it was difficult to get too excited since yesterday we counted 4,000!
– Rebecca Howser
4/10 – Town of Poughkeepsie: The adults in bald eagle nest NY62 added to their two nestlings’ diet today, when they brought a gravid (with eggs) yellow perch to the nest. This is the season when yellow perch (Perca flavescens) are spawning, as they have in the Hudson River for 10,000 years or more. This female was bursting with roe, a very nutritional meal for their nestlings.
– Tom Lake
4/10 – Yonkers, HRM 18: Through this week, our total glass eels captured by our fyke net at the Sarah Lawrence Center for the Urban River at Beczak had reached a record of 2,392 eels. Our total numbers for this date have increased each year since 2015, from 100, to 250, to 500, to 1,000 in 2018.
– Jason Muller, Elisa Caref
4/11 – Norrie Point, HRM 85: We caught eight carp today, warming up for our April 27 carp fishing seminar at Norrie Point. Our top hook weighed 16 pounds 4 ounces. We also caught two rudd.
– Sam Williams
[Rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus) are a large, introduced European minnow that has been in the Hudson watershed since the 1920s and seem to be getting more common in the estuary. It is a stubby, deep-bodied fish, with really bright red fins. Bob Schmidt]
4/11 – Stockport Flats, HRM 122: It was a mostly uneventful day, until we were surprised by a large cormorant on channel marker 152. It was an adult great cormorant in breeding plumage. Continuing north, we encountered the same bird on channel markers 157 and 166 (river mile 126), where it stood its ground at the top of the beacon facing south.
– Mike Kalin, Julie Elson
[The great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), also called the European cormorant, are a North Atlantic-Eurasian species and have quite recently become a more common wintering visitor in our area. Great cormorants are, on average, a little larger than our more common double-crested cormorant. In Europe they have been described as a “goose-sized reptilian water-bird.” They breed along the coast from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia and frequently winter south to New Jersey. Roger Tory Peterson.]
4/11 – Beacon, HRM 61: I put my time in today (more than seven hours) at Long Dock Park and was rewarded with four carp and a channel catfish. All were released. The carp ranged from 4 pounds 10 ounces to 9 pounds 2 ounces. The catfish was nearly 19-inches-long. Patience was again the theme of the day, and it paid off.
– Bill Greene
 4/12 – Woodstock, HRM 101: Along with other volunteers, we helped numerous amphibians cross Wittenberg Road on their annual spawning migration toward Yankeetown Pond. Even with moderate traffic, we saw many dead spotted salamanders and spring peepers. Other fatalities included some red-spotted newts and a few wood frogs. I helped 20 spotted salamanders get safely across the road, as well as many peepers (they seemed to enjoy sitting still on the road), some newts, other salamander species, and other frogs and toads. (Photo of spotted salamader courtesy of Ray Spiegel)
– Ray Speigel
4/12 – Greene County, HRM 133.5: After hearing earlier that four Bonaparte’s gulls were spotted at the Hudson-Champlain Canal Lock 3 (Rensselaer County), this afternoon I found two Bonaparte’s gulls and two Caspian terns at Coeymans Landing. I also had a fly-by of a smaller tern, probably a common tern.
– Rich Guthrie
 4/12 – Beacon, HRM 61: The river was still a bit chilly (48 F) to expect many fish to be inshore, but we still made one haul of our seine and were delighted to catch a ten-inch brown bullhead, a native catfish. (Photo fo brown bullhead courtesy of Tom Lake)
– Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson, B.J. Jackson
4/12 – Manhattan, HRM 1: Our expectations were not robust after two fish-less checks of our collection gear earlier in the week. However, we tried again today, hauling up our research sampling gear in Hudson River Park at The River Project’s sampling station on the lighthouse tender Lilac at Pier 25. There we found two fish for the first time this year, a grubby 50 millimeters (mm) and a northern pipefish (120 mm).
-Toland Kister, Siddhartha Hayes, Eva Dail, Isabella Schaedle
[Note: one inch = 25.4 millimeters (mm)]
[Grubby (Myoxocephalus aenaeus), one of four sculpins (Cottidae) found in the watershed, are a small, bottom-dwelling fish. Grubby feed on shrimp, snails, crabs, and small fish. Of the four sculpins, the grubby is most common inshore in the New York Bight. Tom Lake]
Spring-Summer 2019 Natural History Programs
Saturday, April 27 (8:00 AM – 12:00 PM.. or later)
Seminar on Fishing for Carp!
Norrie Point Environmental Education Center, Staatsburg
The Hudson River Research Reserve and the Carp Anglers Group will conduct a hands-on seminar to teach and promote the sport of angling for common carp (Cyprius carpio).
For more information https://www.carpanglersgroup.com or Jim Herrington (845) 889-4745 x109
Wednesday, July 10 – Thursday July 11 (9:00 AM – 5:00 PM)
2019 Teachers on the Estuary and Living Environment Institute
Wonders of Wetlands (15 credit hours for NYS certified teachers and administrators)
Five Rivers Environmental Education Center, 56 Game Farm Road, Delmar, New York
Join us this summer as we explore the Wonders of Wetlands. Teachers will spend two days gaining valuable knowledge and learning new curricula. We will use interdisciplinary approaches with the guidance of experts like EPA Award Winner Chris Bowser.
Cost: $50.00 for materials, supplies, and refreshments (light dinner on Thursday)
To register, e-mail drew.hopkins
Tuesday, August 20 – Thursday August 22 (9:00 AM – 4:00 PM)
2019 Teachers on the Estuary and Living Environment Institute
Amazing Watersheds (22 credit hours for NYS certified teachers and administrators)
Five Rivers Environmental Education Center, 56 Game Farm Road, Delmar, New York
Join us this summer as we explore amazing watersheds. Teachers will spend three days gaining valuable knowledge and learning new curricula while using interdisciplinary approaches to explore watersheds. Some easy hiking on trails is involved.
Cost: $60.00 for materials, supplies, and refreshments (dinner provided on Wednesday)
To register, e-mail drew.hopkins
Volunteer Opportunity: Hudson River Eel Project
We are seeking volunteers to help study eels in streams of the Hudson River estuary! Volunteers check specialized nets for young transparent “glass eels” as they enter freshwater from their spawning grounds over 1,000 miles away in the Atlantic Ocean. Eels are counted, weighed, and released upstream, and environmental conditions are recorded. Sample sites include streams from NYC to Troy, and all gear is provided. See: https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/49580.html
For more information, e-mail Aidan Mabey: aidan.mabey
Hudson River: Striped Bass Cooperative Angler Program
You can share your fishing trip information and help biologists understand and manage our Hudson River striped bass fishery.
Here’s how it works: Fill out a logbook provided by us whenever you fish on the Hudson River (by boat or from shore). Record general location, time, gear used, what you caught (or if you didn’t catch anything) and return the logbook when you are done fishing for the season. You’ll receive an annual newsletter summarizing the information in addition to the latest news regarding regulations and the river. Whether you catch-and-release or take home a keeper, you can be part of the Cooperative Angler Program.
Join today by contacting: jessica.best, or call 845-256-3009
– Jessica Best
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.
To subscribe to the Almanac (or to unsubscribe), use the links on DEC’s Hudson River Almanacor 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 sixteen monitoring stations, visit the Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System website.
DEC’s Smartphone app for iPhone and Android is now available at: New York Fishing, Hunting & Wildlife App. |
