Nesting Eastern Phoebe

One of the wonderful - and unanticipated - features of a log home is lots of nooks and crannies for nesting birds. Rare is the year that we do not have a robin's nest tucked into a cross section of log beam somewhere. This year brought a first - a nesting eastern phoebe - located immediately outside of our front door. 

One of the very recognizable habits of this "flycatcher" is that when it leaves the nest (which is anytime we open the door) it flies to a nearby low hanging branch in the woods, where it perches and furiously bobs its tail. 

It should take two weeks for the eggs to hatch, and then the birds will typically lay a second clutch of eggs - Double Clutching?

It's Blue Gill Mating Season!

 It is the first week of June, which on Bullet Pond means two things: 

You can safely (hopefully!) plant your tomatoes.

The blue gills are spawning. 

The smaller female is on the right (and being a tease.)

We have three active blue gill nests - called redds - around the dock this morning. We also have one nesting small mouth bass. The water temps climbed to 70F in this week's hot weather, which prompts all of the activity. The females will lay their eggs and move off to deeper water. 

The larger males will stay on the nest and will protect the eggs from predators. In these pictures you can see the male fish is more than twice the size of the female. 

The Hummingbirds are back!

Look who showed up last week! This guy is all puffed up and looking a little chilled. He stopped for a rest on the top of a balsam near the feeders. 

It's Memorial Day weekend, 42F with a steady rain. Typical Adirondack spring weather! We do not put out any feeders until the birds arrive from their migration journey. When the birds do arrive they go directly to where the feeders were placed the prior year, which I assume must mean they are last year's birds.

Hemlock Varnish Shelf Fungus

I was clearing some brush on the property near the pond yesterday and came across a standing dead hemlock. The base was covered with a shelf fungus which looks to be "Hemlock Varnish". 

Hemlock Varnish Shelf Fungus

Hemlock varnish has been used in Oriental medicine for centuries. The mushroom's mahogany color is quite shiny and really does look like it is "varnished".

Bullet Pond Ice Out - April 20, 2013

The first open water appeared last week along the north shore, exposed to the sun traveling though the southern sky. The winter ice yields to the encroaching water as a stiff breeze helps break up the ice and send it downwind with a few fallen logs to the west side of the pond. Over the next few days hooded mergansers usually show up to fish. Two appeared on the pond this morning. By tomorrow they should have the entire pond to explore. Sometimes they nest in the reeds near the Russo dock. The loons will join them very soon, maybe later today.

The New Year brings our first Deep Freeze

Bullet Pond ~ January 5, 2013

The New Year brought our first deep freeze on January 3rd and 4th, with temperatures dropping to -12F. Friends on Charley Hill Road a few miles south of here recorded -17F. Schroon Lake is finally freezing across the entire lake on the north end.

Foot trail west of Bullet Pond

We also enjoyed 18" of snow fall this week, and took advantage of it to do some snowshoeing west of the pond along the snowmobile trail. The only animal sign we saw on the entire trek was a vole scampering across the driveway. I was surprised that no one had been back there yet with a snowmobile. We'll go exploring again today, as temperatures have risen into the 20's.

A pond resident comes to visit.

Just as the ice begins to set up in December, we frequently will spy a mink or an otter enjoying a meal of fresh fish at the ice edge. When Mary spied some activity in the pond in front of the house, I assumed that I would find one of those pond dwellers in my camera's lens. What came into focus was another resident - a muskrat.

Muskrats feed mostly on vegetation, but the foraging evidence they most often leave for us is a pile of fresh water mussel shells from the previous night's meal near the water's edge.