Bear With Us
By: Dr. Everett Vreeland
I am starting this on 3-17-04 and the first report of bear sighting has ocurred. Paul Prindle had a warm fuzzy visitor on his back porch. I believe this same bear lives on the southern slope going towards the reservoir and generally seeks food from there to town hill and then can go back of the town hall to come along a continuing bird feeder route to my place where he is greeted with a raucous canned air horn (if seen). Bird feeders will suffer trashing along the route. He has contiuous cover on a NW route across Flat Rock where he is seen - and felt - enroute to the greater Mohawk Forest. My judgement - as seen on my porch - is that he is a male of about 350 lbs. and mates are available at Mohawk.
My feeder abounds in Finches with Siskins leading the attack. Squirrels are fattening with speed and many many resplendent male Mergansers gather in ice free places awaiting the yearly mating gathering at Waramaug. Redwings take up stations on treetops surrounding customary nesting swamps. Strong instincts demand that they clain territory for mating in spite of frigid winds and frozen bogs. They are joined here now by Grackles and a few Cowbirds.
A few fly fisherman have been braving icy waters in the river in search of hungry trout. I think mostly to escape the frenetic urban areas from whence they willingly come. The river also attracts migrant waterfowl and I expect odd species from time to time; just like Rt. 95 and its yearly “snow-birds.”
Humorous to me in this uncertain weather, is the erratic flights of the awakening Vultures. They try, in vain, to find an uplifting thermal current that gives them access to buoyant flight and carrion odors. Finding no thermals, they must actually fly. That is not a strong talent compared to soaring and they appear as amateurs. In observing this, however, I did see one Black Vulture in Kent. This is a smaller species, new to New England, that capable friends said were here a year ago. It took me this long to spy one. They have wing bars in flight, seen parallel to the body.
Watch now as the larger wooded slopes slowly change in color and the tree buds develop. First the Maples give a maroon sort of haze and then the watercourses begin to show vague light green of the Poplars. Way way back I used to follow these streams to their source learning every step of the way about plants and critters that average people never see: (e.g. trout-lilies, hepatica, water-cress.and sun-bathing snakes.) That knowledge brings a contented outlook and maybe a tendency to talk too much.
