Green Guru Network

OVERVIEW

The ruby-throated hummingbirds were back. This is always a welcome sign of early May since it coincides with many of their favorite flowers blooming. Another early May arrival, one you can almost predict to the day, is the Baltimore oriole. Naturalist and ecologist Aldo Leopold described the oriole's flash as "like a burst of fire." Their brilliant orange-and-black plumage brightens the spring landscape.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK

5/4 - Minerva, HRM 284: I hiked nine miles on four different trails in Essex County today. I found a black-backed woodpecker nest location and, as usual, the male was doing all the excavation work. The female foraged nearby and called to the male. It is quite remarkable to watch how hard the male black-backed woodpecker works, non-stop all day. I also found a yellow-bellied sapsucker nest site. An American bittern vocalized from the marsh along the railroad bed in Minerva. Ruffed grouse seemed to be everywhere and I had to stop several times today while driving to wait for grouse to stroll across the highway.
     - Joan Collins

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES

5/3 - Newcomb, HRM 302: The bird chorus this morning was full of warblers and thrushes. New arrivals included black-throated green, black-throated-blue, black-and-white, and Nashville warblers along with Swainson's thrush and a least flycatcher. While the birds are arriving and faring well in this great spring weather, the same cannot be said for the small mammals in this area. Last year was a big year for small mammals but the lack of fall food (mostly beech nuts) caused the populations to plummet around October. Earlier in the week I spent some time with a graduate student from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) who has been trapping small mammals in the Huntington Wildlife Forest. Three nights of trapping, 168 traps per night, and not a single small mammal was captured. It is not looking like it will be a very good summer for small mammals or all the creatures that eat them such as coyotes, bobcats, owls, hawks, and weasels.
     - Charlotte Demers

[More than a few Almanac contributors have commented on the near absence of chipmunks and squirrels in the lower Hudson Valley this spring. Tom Lake.]

5/3 - Round Top, HRM 113: As I stood on my deck this morning I could see and hear that spring was here. Shadbush was in full bloom; the "Tom" turkeys were gobbling; the first hummingbird zipped past my head to the feeder; and the phoebes were hard at work making a nest on the side of a log beam on the house. I love that little bird and always look forward to seeing them.
     - Jon Powell

[A common thread for Almanac entries is a reference to Hudson River miles (HRM). These give context to each entry, that is to say where in the watershed the entry occurred. For research and navigation purposes, the Hudson River is measured upriver from the Battery (HRM 0) at the tip of Manhattan, in the Upper Bay of New York Harbor: The George Washington Bridge is at HRM 12, the Tappan Zee Bridge is 28, Albany 145, the Federal Dam at Troy, at the head of tidewater, is about 153, and Newcomb, at the foot of the High Peaks of the Adirondacks, is about HRM 302. While cities and bridges make convenient points of reference, river phenomena do not always occur at such neat and tidy intervals, so we see many references to places in between. While these designations are not exact, they do allow us to create a mind's eye picture of points on the river and in the Hudson watershed. Tom Lake.]

5/3 - Fourmile Point, Greene County, HRM 121: Tyler Kritzman caught a 41 lb., 45.74 inch long striped bass in the Hudson on a live river herring.
     - Tom Gentalen

5/3 - Kowawese, HRM 59: The northern gateway to the Hudson Highlands was dotted with small fishing boats and the beach was lined with anglers catching and releasing 15-17 inch long striped bass. [NYS striped bass regulations are one fish, at least 18 inches long, per day.] Amidst this sportfishing frenzy, we hauled our small beach seine and caught many small white perch and spottail shiners, none of which would have had sufficient size to serve as bait for the bass. But we were satisfied to find out who was home in the river today. The water was 59 degrees Fahrenheit.
     - Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson

[Kowawese Unique Area is a 102-acre park directly on the Hudson River in New Windsor, owned by New York State and managed by the Orange County Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation. Tom Lake.]

5/3 - Garrison, HRM 51: It was School Forest Day for the Garrison school district. In addition to seeing carpets of trout lily and Canada mayflower leaves, one of the first graders found the smallest red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) I had ever seen. It was about two inches long, three-eighths inches wide, and had extremely fragile-looking limbs. After giving everyone a quick look, we put it back where it was found, hopefully not too traumatized by all the attention. We also heard woodpeckers drumming and the first blue jay I had heard this season. [Trout lily photo by Rhea S. Rylee, courtesy U.S. Forest Service.]
     - Susan Butterfass

5/3 - Croton Point, HRM 35-34: A too-brief walk on a beautiful morning yielded two meadowlarks on the main landfill, sun hitting their yellow breast during their telltale flight. Great horned owls have again bred successfully on the Point.
     - Larry Trachtenberg

5/4 - Newcomb, HRM 302: I had a first-of-the-season species today: Nashville warbler at a marsh along Route 28N. Black flies emerged today!
   - Joan Collins

5/4 - West Hurley, HRM 93: While visiting a friend this morning, I spotted the largest wild turkey I had seen in a long time. We watched it casually walk down a hill and right behind it was a hen. They were obviously together with no other rivals in site. Now we will wait to see what comes later on this summer.
     - Roberta S. Jeracka

5/4 - Town of Poughkeepsie: In an odd bit of housekeeping, I watched the male eagle bring a fish to nest NY62 this morning, and then remove a gray squirrel. Fifteen minutes later he brought another fish. A very active day.
     - Jay Meyer

5/4 - Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 35: This morning - warm, sunny, sweet-smelling - seemed to be a good time to put out a hummingbird feeder, just in case. This afternoon, one day earlier than last year, a plump male zipped up to the feeder, made the circuit of the blooming flowers, and took a perch on the fence.
     - Robin Fox

5/5 - Catskill, HRM 113: Bait anglers were catching and releasing American shad on herring rigs in Catskill Creek.
     - Tom Gentalen

["Herring rigs" are usually multi-hook Sabiki rigs, a series of six small hooks, each on a short individual dropper line. The dropper lines are tied to a longer leader, about 6 inches apart. A sinker is tied to the end of the leader and the rig is then jigged in the water attract river herring. Most of the river herring taken in this manner are used for striped bass bait. No take of American shad is allowed in the Hudson and its tributaries hence the release of this species when caught unintentionally. Tom Lake.]

5/5 - Palisades, HRM 23: I arrived at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory this morning in time to see the orchard oriole (first spotted last week) fly from the pond area and alight in a tree. Meanwhile, the resident Canada geese were out with their four tiny goslings. The song of the male red-winged blackbirds dominated the morning air, but a phoebe also sang relentlessly from a power line, as did a warbling vireo as it foraged in the top of an oak tree. The tree swallows had now firmly occupied the nest box, having evicted a pair of chickadees that had been there earlier in the season. I came upon the orchard oriole again low in a small tree. As I moved closer I noticed he wasn't alone - a female orchard oriole was also in the tree.
     - Linda Pistolesi

5/6 - Newcomb, HRM 302 : A week with no rain and warm air temperatures resulted in some inhospitable conditions for our amphibians. While we have seen some green frog egg masses, spotted salamander egg masses have been few. Spring ephemerals continue to bloom including the red trillium and sessile-leaved bellwort. Shadbush (Amelanchier arborea) and witchobble (Viburnum lantanoides) were blossoming and added some beautiful contrast to the forest with their white blossoms. I love witchobble this time of year; it's so showy and bright, but I will be cursing it in a month as it grabs for my feet, usually resulting in a few tumbles to the ground.
     - Charlotte Demers

5/6 - Town of Poughkeepsie: Watching bald eagles, at least for me, never gets old. Even after watching the pair in nest NY62 for thirteen years, there is always something new, something different. They are a perfect reflection of the river, the estuary, where we suppose that every day is different, when many forces collide to make each moment unique. The adult male came in from the river this morning with a fish. At a distance, through 10x binoculars, it appeared to be a foot-long river herring. The adult female was perched on a limb above the nest. The male brought the herring to the female and then left. It was a gesture that - in humans - might be seen as a gift. Twelve feet below the nestling peered up as if to ask, "And where is mine?"
     - Tom Lake

5/7 - Manhattan, HRM 7.5: While biking on the Greenway bike path through Riverside Park, just north of the West 100th Street access path, I noticed a few Canada geese drifting south on the ebb tide along the rocky bank, feeding on bits of vegetation in the shallows. There were two families: one a pair of adults with three goslings; the other an adult pair with seven goslings. The goslings were small and short-necked, with fluffy light brown feathers, the very definition of cute. The youngsters clearly knew which adults were their parents, and which were mere friends.
     Farther from shore, I noticed a cormorant diving for its dinner. It came up with an eel that it struggled to control. It kept the eel in its bill, but was having difficulty. After a while the eel stopped resisting and the ormorant dropped it briefly in the water, as if to take a quick breather. Then the cormorant grabbed the eel's head with its bill and started to swallow. The cormorant pointed its head up to the sky, making its neck as straight as possible, as the eel slid down. In just seconds most of the fish was inside except for a few inches of the eel's tail that didn't seem to fit. The cormorant looked incredibly uncomfortable with the eel's tail poking out of its mouth. Over the next five minutes or so I watched the cormorant drift south, periodically lifting its bill to the sky, trying to finish the job. Eventually the bird was too far away to see clearly, and I never saw the cormorant finish the meal.
     - Kaare Christian

5/8 - Minerva, HRM 284: I was out early this morning - first through the woods, then to the pond - and enjoyed a small spring-like festival of delights. The woods, a mix of deciduous hardwoods and conifers, were still very open, with buds just swelling and a little green showing. I spotted a single yellow-rumped warbler and an ovenbird (both singing), and a wild turkey gobbling off in the not-too-far distance. At the pond I heard a song sparrow, red-winged blackbirds, Canada goose, and our annual nester, a pied-billed grebe with its pretty unmistakable call. Blooming along the pond was leatherleaf; in the nearby woods were purple trillium, wild oats, and shadbush, all flowering.
     - Mike Corey

5/9 - Town of Poughkeepsie: A half-inch of rain fell for the second straight day. With air temperatures in the high 60s, hypothermia was not an issue for the eagle nestling in NY62. The heavy rain filtered through the nest and poured down the trunk of the tuliptree. While eagle nests are sturdy, they are also porous, and this allows for a nest cleaning every time it rains. Nests with eaglets can accumulate much offal, from leftovers to excrement, and a good rinsing from time to time serves them well.
     - Tom Lake

5/9 - Furnace Woods, HRM 38.5: We had a much needed rainfall, nice and slow, inch-and-a-quarter. I would gladly have received twice that amount. Our soil was dry as much as eight inches down. The first of the wild columbine bloomed today and, as I admired it, the first bullfrog of the season began his serenade just across the road. [Wild columbine photo by Clark Reames, courtesy U.S. Forest Service.]
     - Christopher Letts

5/9 - Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 35: So far, there is only one hummingbird in my yard. It's the plump male that arrived five days ago. He whizzes around to the feeder, checks all the flower buds, and sits on the fence as if waiting. Every now and then, the mood changes, and he starts to flirt with, joust with, and challenge a clothes pin that I had left on the fence last fall. The pin is about the size and color of a resting hummingbird, and it's clipped at the top of the fence in a "perched" position. The little bird swoops, darts, jabs, and whirls in familiar hummingbird motions. While the behavior is a bit bizarre, it is also quite charming.
     - Robin Fox

5/9 - Croton Point, HRM 35: For the last three early mornings, there has been a lingering single red-throated loon just off the swimming beach at Croton Point. This seems quite late to me? I was also fortunate to hear a singing orchard oriole this morning.
     - Larry Trachtenberg

[According to the Birds of North America Online, red-throated loon migration peaks in April in Massachusetts, late April in inland Ontario. This bird was a bit late, but I can recall seeing them along the Massachusetts coast - not far away as the loon flies - into the latter half of May. Steve Stanne.]

SPRING 2013 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS

May 18: 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Conservation Planning for Woodland Pool Wildlife with Laura Heady of the Hudson River Estuary Program, Gretchen Stevens of Hudsonia, and Larry Federman of Audubon, at Roeliff Jansen Community Library and Rheinstrom Hill Audubon Sanctuary [Columbia County]. For municipal board members and interested residents, a program focused on the value of woodland pools and how to protect them in your community. For information and registration, visit the Columbia Land Conservancy website or call 518-392-5252, x207.

June 2: 2:00 PM
8,000 years of history and ecology at Clinton Point program at Zion Episcopal Church, Wappinger Falls [Dutchess County]. Join NYSDEC Hudson River Estuary Program naturalist Tom Lake as he leads a journey through time from the first of us to live along the river to the arrival of Europeans, with a focus on the people and their lifeways. For information: mailto:lake@sunydutchess.edu

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 Steve Stanne, education coordinator at 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), go to DEC's Email Lists page, enter your email address, and click on "Submit." A page listing available subscription topics will appear. Scroll down; under the heading "Natural Areas and Wildlife" is the section "Lakes and Rivers" with a listing for the Hudson River Almanac. Click on the check box to subscribe. While there, you may wish to subscribe to RiverNet, which covers projects, events and actions related to the Hudson and its watershed, or to other DEC newsletters and information feeds.

The Hudson River Almanac archive allows one to use the DEC website's search engine to find species, locations, and other data in weekly issues dating back to October 2003.

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.

USEFUL LINKS

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's high and low tide and tidal current predictions are invaluable for planning boating, fishing, and other excursions on and along the estuary.

The Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System [HRECOS] provides near real-time information on water and weather conditions at monitoring stations from Manhattan to the Mohawk River.

Historical information on the movements of the salt front is available on the U.S. Geological Survey's Hudson River Salt Front website.

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.

Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Welcome to the Hudson River Almanac in its new format. Now that it is being sent out via DEC's new newsletter delivery system, you will not be able reach us by replying to this message. If you'd like to contribute observations or contact us, please click on our names below to send an email. In addition, you may now manage your Almanac subscription yourself; see the information in the footer a the end of this issue. We hope you enjoy the Almanac's new look!
     - Tom Lake, Hudson River Almanac compiler; Steve Stanne, Education Coordinator, Hudson River Estuary Program

OVERVIEW

Sandhill cranes, uncommon seasonal visitors to the Hudson Valley, made multiple appearances this week. It is difficult to know if these were migration or storm-related occurrences. In the water, herring and glass eels continued their inland migrations and the winter-to-spring landscape gained much color.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK

4/18 - Poughquag, Town of Beekman, HRM 71: Four sandhill cranes landed in a swampy field near my house. They stayed a half-hour, probably eating peeper frogs. They blended perfectly with the brown grass but those red heads stood out like beacons. When they took flight, one made a distinctive bugling sound. Just beautiful!
     - Patricia Mackay

4/18 - Croton Point, HRM 34.5: Jim Bourdon observed and photographed a sandhill crane this morning (9:00 AM) taking off from south side of the landfill and flying east toward the Croton River. A couple more may have been seen flying out to the river.
     - Anne Swaim

[Sandhill cranes have an impressive 6-8 foot wingspan. Most breed in summer from the prairies of central Canada north to the Arctic tundra, but - starting in 2003 - nesting has occurred at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in central New York State. Edward Howe Forbush (1858-1929) believed sandhill cranes were common in the Northeast during migration in colonial times, but were likely extirpated by the early 1700s. Tom Lake.]

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES

4/12 - New Paltz, HRM 78: I awoke at 1:15 AM to an unusual noise on our back deck. When I peered out of our door there was the backside of a huge (estimated 300 lb.) black bear. It was sitting on its rear legs, its front legs upright, and its head facing away. Our two dogs began barking and the bear exited into our woods. The feeder support was bent but our bird feeder was untouched. Guess it's time to bring in the bird feeder. This is only the second bear we have seen in 28 years of living here.
     - Bob Ottens

[From New York State Conservationist magazine, April 2013: Bird feeders attract bears, particularly in the spring after bears emerge from winter dens. Bears will stay near homes and camps for a longer period of time if feeders are available. Consider removing bird feeders by April 1.]

4/12 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: Everywhere the forsythia was in full bloom. The otherwise brown, drab landscape was aglow in bright yellow. Those of us who used to set our nets in the river in spring would look for this day as a bio-indicator of the start of the strongest phase of the shad and river herring run. Now it is just another step in the coloring of springtime.
     - Tom Lake

4/13 - Hannacroix Creek, HRM 132.5: It was very surprising that we caught only two glass eels from our overnight set at Hannacroix Creek.
     - Thomas V. Danahy

4/13 - Croton Point, HRM 35: Some of the birds we saw at Croton Point today included: red-necked grebe, horned grebe, common loon (2), red-throated loon (12), Wilson's snipe, great egret, laughing gull (rare here), rough-winged, barn, and tree swallows, brown creeper, Cooper's hawk, pine warbler, golden-crowned kinglet, red-breasted nuthatch, and two meadowlarks on the landfill. At the mouth of the Croton River (HRM 34) we also saw American wigeon (2), green-winged teal (6), belted kingfisher, and many flickers on the move.
     - Charlie Roberto, Kyle Bardwell, Larry Trachtenberg, John Grant, Chris Drury, Peter Post

4/14 - Schodack, HRM 139: I noticed that dark-eyed juncos have lingered here longer this year than they usually do. Today at noon there were 36 of them feeding on my front lawn. They were likely fueling up for the trek back to their northern breeding areas. I have never seen this many at one time.
     - Mary Ellen Grimaldi

4/14 - Hannacroix Creek, HRM 132.5: In a more "usual" catch, we counted 106 glass eels and one elver in our fyke net from the overnight set.
     - Thomas V. Danahy

[Having already defined glass eels (see 4/7 - Black Creek), elver is the next life stage we encounter. These are, for the most part, last year's glass eels that have lingered in the tributary and matured to the point where they look like miniature adult eels, in both physical (body) characteristics and darker pigmentation. As glass eels are already a year old, these are minimally two years old, ranging up to five years old, with sizes ranging from 100-200 millimeters (mm) total length. Tom Lake.]

4/14 - Mid-Hudson Valley, HRM 75-65: The woods had a soft red glow as the red maples budded out. In wooded areas where forsythia was not present, they provided the only color to the gray-brown forests.
     - Tom Lake

4/14 - Crugers, HRM 39: When we hung our floral wreath on the front door two weeks ago we didn't realize that a house finch pair would decide to build their cup-shaped nest among the flowers. When we noticed it last week, we moved it from the door and hung it over the light nearby where it wouldn't be disturbed with people coming in and out of the house. We've been observing the female's head amid the flowers and wondered if she were perhaps sitting on eggs. Sure enough, we took a mirror today and spotted five light blue eggs in the nest.
     - Dorothy Ferguson, Bob Ferguson

4/14 - Croton River, HRM 34: We spotted seven to nine Bonaparte's gulls here today, including several in breeding plumage with full black head. By the time we left, Ann Swaim had the count up to 19, with more coming in. The green-winged teal count is now up to 25 birds.
     - Larry Trachtenberg, Charlie Roberto

4/14 - Bronx, New York City, HRM 15: I led my monthly walk at Wave Hill this morning and, although migratory songbirds were sparse, perhaps due to northwest winds, we had some nice sightings: a third-year bald eagle being dive-bombed by a greater black-backed gull that looked petite in comparison; a large V of double-crested cormorants headed north over the Hudson; a common raven flying across the Hudson making a "barrel-roll" as it flew overhead; a pair of calling fish crows; an osprey flying up the Hudson; palm and pine warblers; and both golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets.
     - Gabriel Willow

4/15 - Poughkeepsie, HRM 75: I had been wondering why days would go by without seeing any birds at my feeders. Then today I looked up in a tree over the feeders and saw a Cooper's hawk, and understood why.
     - Trish Taylor

4/15 - Town of Poughkeepsie: It was a busy morning at the eagle nest today (NY62). Except for fishing, both parents remained at the nest. The male perched five feet above while the female tended to nest maintenance; periodically she would bring branches to build up the nest. The male has played a more active role compared to previous years. For a change, the local nesting red-tailed hawks gave the eagles a break from their harassment and aggression around the nest area. Both parents participated in feeding of the chick today. Promptly at noon the female headed down river and returned with a freshly caught river herring. [Photo of eagle family by Terry Hardy.]
     - Tom McDowell

4/15 - Hunter's Brook, HRM 67.5: The late afternoon high tide had run up into Hunter's Brook. While the water was tinged yellow-brown, it was absolutely clear. A small school of alewives made their way up this tiny tributary of Wappinger Creek on the pulse of the tide. Milling about in the pools were pumpkinseed sunfish, a couple of rock bass, white perch, and at least one white sucker.
     - Tom Lake

[Identifying fish in their natural environment is a practiced skill. Short of snorkeling, which can be problematic in an estuary, the best way to identify fishes, especially in shallow water, is by developing a "sight image" based on their size, shape, color, swimming characteristics, and other behaviors. One of the best guides to this activity is C. Lavett Smith's Fish Watching: An Outdoor Guide to Freshwater Fishes (1994). "Smitty," as he is best known, is Curator Emeritus of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, founder of our popular Hudson River Fish Fauna list, and an expert on the fishes of New York State. Tom Lake.]

4/15 - Croton River, HRM 34: A half-dozen Bonaparte's gulls were dipping and twirling in pursuit of some tiny morsels on the surface of the Croton River just inside Croton Bay, appearing much like phalaropes in their behavior. Whatever they were feeding on was not of interest to the mob of local gulls resting on the mud flats. Both rough-winged and tree swallows were feeding in the same area. An insect hatch? I had seen large caddis flies there a few days ago.
     - Christopher Letts

[In the last 19 years of the Hudson River Almanac, we have recorded eleven species of gulls in the watershed. Tom Lake.]
- black-headed gull
- Bonaparte's gull
- Franklin's gull
- glaucous gull
- greater black-backed gull
- lesser black-backed gull
- laughing gull
- herring gull
- Iceland gull
- ivory gull
- ring-billed gull

4/16 - Denning's Point, HRM 60: As we arrived we only got to see the end of the story: An adult bald eagle was flying out of the marsh at the mouth of Fishkill Creek, heading toward Denning's Point carrying a good-sized fish, pursued by an osprey. There was a good chance that the eagle was not the original "catcher" of that fish.
     - Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson

[Pirates on the river! One of the best shows, often in the fall, is watching eagles watch osprey. While eagles are among the best hunters of fish, they frequently allow osprey to do the heavy lifting, then swoop down and steal their catch. Tom Lake.]

4/17- Greene County, HRM 112: Twenty-three people attended our first spring birding walk at the RamsHorn-Livingston Sanctuary. Highlights among the 43 species encountered included the nesting bald eagles with one nestling; a merlin and a sharp-shinned hawk passing through within five minutes of each other; a red-shouldered hawk; two blue-winged teal; and a few "out of habitat" species, including savannah sparrow and purple finch. We also had our first garter snake and Dekay's or northern brown snake seen at the sanctuary this spring.
     - Larry Federman

4/17 - Norrie Point, HRM 85: I stopped at Norrie Point on my way home from work and spotted a horned grebe fishing in the cove to the east of the education center. Later I went for a walk: Dutchman's breeches were starting to come out on the rocks and hepatica was at the height of bloom. At least two muskrats patrolled Indian Creek eating the emergent vegetation and four pairs of wood ducks wandered through last year's cattail stems. In the creek to the east of the railroad I found two red-breasted mergansers and a green-winged teal. Back along the river I had a treat: a beaver swam into the cove and climbed out of the water to munch on some brush. On the way home I had my final wildlife sighting of the evening and one of the surest signs of spring in the Hudson valley: a deer tick crawling up my arm.
     - David Lund

4/17 - Quassaick Creek, HRM 60: Today was Mount Saint Mary College's opportunity to check and clear the eel fyke. The tide was rising but had not reached the net. The flow to the river was 57 degrees Fahrenheit, about eight degrees warmer than the Hudson. We collected and released 311 glass eels and three elvers. We could see small groups of alewives roiling on the surface in the current along the far shore - females broadcasting eggs; males rushing to cover them.
     - Courtney Albright, Melanie Hofbauer, Roy Forster, Suparna Bhalla, Dharmhet Khangura, Tom Lake

[A fyke net is a collection device used most often for fish, but occasionally for turtles. Most are a series of hoops connected by mesh netting and leading to a "cod end" where captured fish accumulate. When used in a Hudson River tributary, fykes are set facing downstream to collect fish, such as eels, heading upstream. At the downstream opening, a section of netting is angled away on either side from the initial hoop to serve as a guide, encouraging fish to take the path of least resistance toward the mouth of the net. Tom Lake.]

4/17 - Edgewater, NJ, HRM 8.5: My spirits were lifted, just a bit today, by this year's first sighting of a barn swallow winging past my window as I looked out seeking and, surprisingly, finding, something to break the depressing monotony. This is right on time for the area, looking back through my journal.
     - Terry Milligan

4/18 - New Baltimore, HRM 131.5: For the past couple of weeks we have had a bluebird pair in our yard. The male defends his territory early each morning by attacking our window, apparently his "rival."
     - Jean Bush

4/18 - Black Creek, HRM 85: The DEC Hudson River Fisheries Unit's herring counters had a very exciting experience today in our inaugural year with this project as we watched an estimated 200 river herring spawning in front of us.
     - Courtney E. Albright

4/18 - New Hamburg, HRM 67.5: With the approach of spring, can "Bucky the Beaver" be far behind? Apparently Bucky, or one of his progeny, attacked Rabbit Island in a night raid and did a major amount of unauthorized pruning. Swimming into the Hudson from his lair somewhere in Wappinger Creek, he made a landing and cut down one of our white birch trees, leaving a two-foot-tall stump that looked exactly like a sharpened stake. He also did a significant amount of grazing on juniper bushes, three Japanese maples, and a weeping Alaskan cedar.
     - David Cullen

SPRING 2013 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS

April 27: 1:00 - 4:00 PM
Family Fishing Day at the Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Family-friendly, all ages, free use of rods, reels and bait; wheelchair accessible. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

May 4: 9:00 AM
Discover Norrie Walk: Birding for Beginners with DEC Naturalist Jim Herrington at the Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free. Family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

May 11: 1:00 - 4:00 PM
Family Fishing Day at the Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Family-friendly, all ages, free use of rods, reels and bait; wheelchair accessible. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

May 16: 7:30 PM
Tivoli Bays Talks: Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign. Jack Manno and Frieda Jacques will speak about the history and future of the Two Row Wampum, the title of a 400 year old treaty between Native Americans and the Dutch founders of New Netherlands. Tivoli Library, Tivoli [Dutchess County]. Free. Wheelchair accessible. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

May 18: 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Conservation Planning for Woodland Pool Wildlife with Laura Heady of the Hudson River Estuary Program, Gretchen Stevens of Hudsonia, and Larry Federman of Audubon, at Roeliff Jansen Community Library and Rheinstrom Hill Audubon Sanctuary [Columbia County]. For municipal board members and interested residents, a program focused on the value of woodland pools and how to protect them in your community. For information and registration: http://clctrust.org/events/184/land-use-series-conservation-planning-for-woodland-pool-wildlife/ or call 518-392-5252, x207.

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), go to DEC's Email Lists page, enter your email address, and click on "Submit." A page listing available subscription topics will appear. Scroll down; under the heading "Natural Areas and Wildlife" is the section "Lakes and Rivers" with a listing for the Hudson River Almanac. Click on the check box to subscribe. While there, you may wish to subscribe to RiverNet, which covers projects, events and actions related to the Hudson and its watershed, or to other DEC newsletters and information feeds.

The Hudson River Almanac archive allows one to use the DEC website's search engine to find species, locations, and other data in weekly issues dating back to October 2003.

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.

USEFUL LINKS

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's tide and tidal current predictions are invaluable for planning boating, fishing, and other excursions on and along the estuary. 

The Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System [HRECOS] provides near real-time information on water and weather conditions at monitoring stations from Manhattan to the Mohawk River.

Historical information on the movements of the salt front is available on the U.S. Geological Survey's Hudson River Salt Front website.

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.

Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

OVERVIEW  

The floral bio-indicators of spring were spreading up the valley: crocus, forsythia, daffodils, hyacinth, magnolia, and others. Soon to come will be shadbush, dogwood, and lilac. These blooms once marked the various stages of migratory fish runs. Today they simply brighten and sweeten the landscape.  

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK

4/5 - Manhattan, HRM 12.5: Nadir Souirgi reported a Canada goose at Inwood Hill Park (see 3/31) that had a yellow neck band labeled "RY87." The Canada goose was originally banded on June 29, 2012, near Demarest, NJ.

     - Matt Rogosky, Bird Banding Laboratory, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD

[Demarest, Bergen County, NJ, is about ten miles, as the goose flies, northwest of Inwood Hill Park. Where that goose might have traveled in the intervening ten months is the intriguingly mysterious part of the story. Tom Lake.]

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK

4/5 - Croton Point, HRM 34: The ancient magnolia on the site of the old Croton Point homestead near the beach on the south side of the Point had struggled into full bloom yet another year. Twenty-five years ago I spoke with Cal Greenburg about that tree. Cal was born in the old house, an Underhill family legacy and a fine dwelling. The house was bulldozed twenty years ago, but Cal said that the magnolia "looks the same now as when I was a kid." Without troubling the tree with a core sample there is no way to determine its age, but Cal's account would suggest that it was on the century path when he first knew it in 1950.

     - Christopher Letts

4/6 - Delmar, HRM 143: We had one black vulture flyover and one osprey at the NYSDEC Five Rivers Environmental Education Center this morning. Both were first-of-season for Five Rivers.

     - Scott Stoner, Denise Hackert-Stoner

4/6 - Town of Poughkeepsie: It has become very apparent that bald eagle nest NY62 has only one nestling this spring. If there was another egg, it likely did not hatch. That could have resulted from several causes including uneven incubation, a sterile or broken egg, or even raccoon predation. Over the last two days, Deb Kral, Sheila Bogart, and Terry Hardy have taken photos of Mama feeding the nestling what appeared to be "nestling-sized" pieces of fish.

     - Tom Lake

4/6 - Furnace Woods, HRM 38.5: The relatively sunny days this week have made a liar of me. Daffodils began to show color overnight, and if the forecast for the next few days is on the money, we will have bouquets of daffodils in every room in a week. The first of the trillium, wake robin, were in bloom in sheltered beds. Always a spring favorite and common in Westchester woods a few decades ago, they have been extirpated by the "hoofed hordes" (white-tailed deer) invasion. They are safe only near the house. Over the past two days, peony shoots have thrust six inches up from the soil.

     - Christopher Letts

4/7 - Tillson, Ulster County, HRM 84: I heard, and then saw, a pileated woodpecker fly onto a tall tuliptree. As I watched, she began flapping her wings and circling the trunk flapping some more. Curious, I thought, but then another flew onto the trunk just below, and together they circled up the trunk, with the first one occasionally flapping. I took this to be a courtship ritual, though did not observe any mating.

     - Deb Weltsch

4/7 - Fishkill, HRM 61: We watched a raven hunt a wooded ridgeline of the Fishkill Mountains, mostly gliding on thermals, occasionally flapping, turning after several hundred yards and doubling back. It was onto something.

     - Tom Lake, Phyllis Lake

4/7 - Black Creek, Ulster County, HRM 85: Our eel fyke captured 960 glass eels overnight, a very high number.

     - Chris Bowser

[Freshwater eels have survived global cataclysms for millions of year but now some populations appear to be diminishing, even disappearing, worldwide and scientists are not quite certain why. While American eels are considered freshwater fish, they are born at sea and many of them spend much of their lives in tidewater. Glass eels are one of the juvenile life stages of the American eel; they lack pigment and are nearly transparent. They arrive by the millions in the Hudson and other estuaries along the East Coast each spring following a long journey from the greater Sargasso Sea area where they were born. This is a particularly vulnerable time for the tiny eels and little is known about this period in their life history. In anywhere from 12-30 years, depending upon their sex, they will leave the Hudson River watershed for the sea where they will spawn once and then die, or so we think. Tom Lake.]

4/7 - Poughkeepsie, HRM 76: As with Black Creek, nearly ten miles upriver, our eel fyke caught high number (200) of glass eels overnight.

     - Chris Bowser

4/8 - Town of Poughkeepsie: The eagle nest (NY62) was left alone for fifteen minutes this afternoon. The lone nestling was truly alone. Is this common?

     - Jay Meyer

4/8 - Hudson Highlands, HRM 55-45: You could not help but look at the river as our Metro North commuter train sped south to Manhattan. Beneath the gray "opaqueness" of the Hudson, thousands, probably many thousands, of American shad were pulsing up the river with the rising tide and current as they have since there has been an estuary. But for the first time since humans have resided in the valley, it is only a rumor. The era of authentication - for many millennia, fishers catching shad - is past.

     - Tom Lake

[According to those who once worked the river in springtime 75 years ago, there was a nearly continuous presence of shad nets from the Upper Bay of New York Harbor north at least one hundred miles to Columbia County. As the story goes, from any shad net you could see the poles or floats of the next. However, signiiicant declines in the Hudson's shad populations (and those of many other Atlantic coast rivers) led to closure of the Hudson's commercial and recreational shad fishery after 2009. Tom Lake, Steve Stanne. Photo from NYS Archives.]

4/8 - Fishkill Creek, HRM 60: At morning high tide at the confluence of Fishkill Creek and the Hudson, an adult bald eagle was perched at Hammond's Point and an immature was perched across the bay at Denning's Point. They were biding their time for the tide to drop and improve hunting prospects. In the late afternoon low tide, an adult and an immature bald eagle (same eagles from the morning?) were standing on the mud flats in the bay alongside the out-flowing trickle of the creek. Each was using its beak to tear apart an alewife clamped down in the mud.

     - Tom Lake

4/8 - Croton Point, HRM 35-34: Red maples were in flower, and cabbage white butterflies were fluttering around. A carpet of robins sang, skirmished, and poked for breakfast, watched by a wave of kestrels that had come in overnight. Flocks of brown-headed cowbirds and red-winged blackbirds were moving by, and I had the impression that they had crossed the Tappan Zee within the hour. On the way off the Point, I stopped to recover my gloves, hat, and jacket, stashed behind a tree after the temperature climbed what seemed like 20 degrees Fahrenheit in an hour.

     - Christopher Letts

4/8 - Scarborough, HRM 32: The Tappan Zee was flat as glass. An osprey (the "fish hawk") could clearly be seen out on Scarborough Light in the Tappan Zee, an "inland sea," now teeming with shad, herring, and striped bass. Fishing would be good.

     - Tom Lake

4/8 - Queens, New York City: I encountered my first mourning cloak butterfly "attack" for the year. The beast was trying to drive me off the fire break trail at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

     - Dave Taft

4/9 - Town of Knox, HRM 146: Today marked our unofficial date for spring: The last of the ice was gone from the ponds; a pair of Canada geese had taken up residence in the marsh and have a nest on top of one of the muskrat mounds; red-winged blackbirds and robins were about; and the frost was gone from most of our fields.

     - Pat Price, Bob Price

4/9 - Columbia County, HRM 116: I headed south looking for coltsfoot in bloom. After crossing into Columbia County, I found them growing, just yellow flowers and stems, alongside the parking pulloff for the Lewis Sawyer Preserve. The leaves, whose shape gives the plant its name, arrive later.

     - Wilma Ann Johnson

4/9 - Ravena, HRM 133.5: It is wonderful to still have sunshine after getting home from work as the days lengthen. With air temperatures in the high 50s, late afternoon yard work becomes more pleasant. Hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips were emerging around my house; the crocuses were blooming; and the air was full of sounds. Off in a marshy area across the road I could hear a massed chorus of spring peepers. From every direction birds were filling the air with songs.

     - Larry Roth

4/9 - Kowawese, HRM 59: By mid-morning the near-shore shallows had warmed to 50 degrees F on a day when the afternoon air temperature would reach the mid-70s. It was a delightful blue-sky spring day. We hauled a seine just off the beach across the sandy bottom and caught spottail shiners, a Hudson River staple. While the catch was meager, there was no better place to be on a day like this than knee deep in a cool river with a sampling net in our hands. [Photo by Tom Lake.]

     - Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson

[Seines are commonly mentioned in Almanac observations pertaining to fisheries research and education. A seine is a net with a floating seamline on top, a lead seamline on the bottom, and tight meshes in between. The word seine is French, from the Latin sagëna, which means a fishing net designed to hang vertically in the water, the ends of which are drawn together to enclose the fish. Those referenced in the Almanac range in length from 15-250 feet long, 4-8 feet in depth, and mesh sizes from a quarter-inch to nearly three inches (measured diagonally) depending upon application. They are an excellent tool that is used to sample an area and collect aquatic animals without injuring the catch. "Haul seines," very long nets that require a boat to set and many strong arms to help haul, were used in Hudson River commercial fishing from colonial times until the last decade of the 20th century. They have since been outlawed; in the hands of competent fishers, they are simply too efficient. Tom Lake.]

4/9 - Crugers, HRM 39: It seems like overnight green things are emerging from the ground and the tightly-curled buds of practically every flowering spring plant have exploded open: forsythia, pussy willow, red maple, and more. Spring has arrived and we can really enjoy those hours of extra daylight! I've also been seeing crows flying with beaks full of twigs and other less-identifiable objects. Their breeding season approaches.

     - Susan Butterfass

4/9 - Croton Point, HRM 35-34: A vesper sparrow, seen recently, was still present near the model airplane field along with 12-20 savannah sparrows and a field sparrow. Other birds seen in the general area included American kestrel, killdeer, robins, starlings, song sparrows, northern flickers, Carolina wren, white-breasted nuthatch, red-bellied woodpecker, turkey vulture, and greater black-backed gulls.

     - Sean Camillieri

4/9 - Westchester County, HRM 30: I took a short walk around Rockefeller State Park this morning hoping to see my first warblers of the season. I was rewarded with 26 palm warblers and two pine warblers as a bonus. Most were found in a short stretch along the Pocantico River Trail. A male eastern bluebird, electrically-brilliant in the morning light, was icing on the cake.

     - Greg Prelich

4/9 - Staten Island, New York City: Despite a slow start this spring on Richmond Creek, the glass eel migration had at last kicked in. The warmer water temperatures and upcoming new moon brought 952 glass eels to our fyke net over the past two days. In total, we have captured 2,572 eels to date this year.

     - Rob Brauman

4/10 - Columbia County, HRM 127:

The lavender hepatica

Does not know

That it is small;

That it is pretty.

It pushes its way

Up through leaf mulch

In the woods

And comes to full flower.

This ephemeral

Simply is

In THE NOW

Of a sunny, spring day.

     - Wilma Ann Johnson

4/10 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: At 2:25 AM, a brief but fierce storm rolled across the river with thunder, lightning, high winds and heavy rain (half-inch in 30 minutes). At times like this I lie in bed and think of the ten-day-old nestlings in the many eagle nests in the Hudson Valley and hope that every one of them is safely tucked under their mother's wing. I also remember the resiliency of the species, one that has been enduring under these conditions long before we walked the land, and I feel comforted enough to go back to sleep.

     - Tom Lake

4/10 - Beacon, HRM 61: I was able to spot a school of river herring under the Tioranda Bridge at the head of tide on Fishkill Creek.

     - Jerry Goodman

4/10 - Quassaick Creek, HRM 60: Our first day (after an overnight) of glass eel fyke net sampling on the Quassaick resulted in 2,917 glass eels!

     - Zoraida Maloney

4/10 - Furnace Woods, HRM 38.5: Forsythia and blackflies were in bloom, rough-winged swallows had returned, and the marmorated stink bugs had emerged from their winter hiding places. It was nice to note that there appear to be fewer of them this year - so far.

     - Christopher Letts

[The brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) has made quite an impression in many areas of the Mid-Hudson Valley in the last couple of years, invading homes, businesses, schools, garages, and automobiles, often in overwhelming numbers. Also called the shield bug, they are invasive insects native to Asia and introduced in the northeast in the 1990s. They are considered agricultural pests since in large numbers they can suck plant juices and damage crop production. Tom Lake.]

4/10 - Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 35: A call from a friend sent me hastening to the Croton waterfront where I took on a cargo of a dozen large river herring (alewives), some of them more than a foot in length. Herring roe and a dandelion salad sounded very good, and a lot like spring.

     - Christopher Letts

4/10 - Upper Nyack, HRM 31: The first broad-winged hawks of the season arrived today at (over) the Hook Mountain Hawk Watch.

     - Steven Sachs

4/10 - Staten Island, New York City: A very quick walk into the woods was just what the doctor ordered. I found my target: a beautiful patch of woodland with blooming bloodroot I've come to know. As if to make spring that much more obvious, a palm warbler perched, tail bobbing, in a flowering red maple above it all.

     - Dave Taft

4/11 - Beacon, HRM 61: We spotted four red-breasted mergansers early this morning at Madam Brett Park on Fishkill Creek. Also seen was a kestrel, bald eagle, osprey, ruby-crowned kinglets and, near the factories on the creek, rough-winged swallows coming out of the building.

     - Aimee LaBarr

4/11- Beacon, HRM 61: This evening I just saw lots of white suckers at the falls below the Tioranda Dam at Madame Brett Park on Fishkill Creek. They were all about a foot-and-a-half long, dark gray backs, orange sides and pale bellies. I saw about a hundred or so in the hour I watched them making their way up the steps.

     - Jerry Goodman

[This is the prime spawning season for white suckers. They move into the Hudson River tributaries in early-to-mid-April, ascending upstream seeking the right (gravelly) bottom substrate with a modest current, usually above the reach of tide, to lay their eggs. During the breeding season, male white suckers develop a reddish stripe down each of their body. Tom Lake.]

4/11 - Queens, New York City: While at Jamaica Bay Wildlife refuge this afternoon doing some barn owl box maintenance, I managed to get in some birding on the East and West Ponds. The notables were, on the East Pond, green-winged teal (14), snowy egret (23), great egret (13), black-crowned night-heron (43), northern shoveler (37), and laughing gull (4) – on the West Pond, great egret (7), greater yellowlegs (3), and palm warbler (3).

     - Andrew Baksh

SPRING 2013 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS

April 27: 1:00 - 4:00 PM

Family Fishing Day at the Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Family-friendly, all ages, free use of rods, reels and bait; wheelchair accessible. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

May 4: 9:00 AM

Discover Norrie Walk: Birding for Beginners with DEC Naturalist Jim Herrington at the Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free. Family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

May 11: 1:00 - 4:00 PM

Family Fishing Day at the Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Family-friendly, all ages, free use of rods, reels and bait; wheelchair accessible. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

May 16: 7:30 PM

Tivoli Bays Talks: Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign. Jack Manno and Frieda Jacques will speak about the history and future of the Two Row Wampum, the title of a 400 year old treaty between Native Americans and the Dutch founders of New Netherlands. Tivoli Library, Tivoli [Dutchess County]. Free. Wheelchair accessible. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

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), go to DEC's Email Lists page athttp://www.dec.ny.gov/about/65855.html , enter your email address, and click on "Submit." A page listing available subscription topics will appear. Scroll down; under the heading "Natural Areas and Wildlife" is the section "Lakes and Rivers" with a listing for the Hudson River Almanac. Click on the check box to subscribe. While there, you may wish to subscribe to RiverNet, which covers projects, events and actions related to the Hudson and its watershed, or to other DEC newsletters and information feeds.

Weekly issues are archived at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/25611.html . The DEC website's search engine can find species, locations, and other data in the archives.

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. For a free, no-obligation issue go tohttp://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/conservationist.html 

USEFUL LINKS

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide predictions are available online athttp://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.shtml?gid=62  NOAA's 2013 tidal current predictions are at http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/currents13/cpred2.html#NY .

For real-time information on Hudson River tides, weather and water conditions from eight monitoring stations, visit the Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System website athttp://www.hrecos.org .

Historical information on the movements of the salt front in the Hudson estuary is presented by the U.S. Geological Survey: http://ny.water.usgs.gov/projects/dialer_plots/saltfront.html .

Information about the Hudson River Estuary Program is available on DEC's website athttp://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4920.html .

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
February 10 - 16, 2013
Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

OVERVIEW 
The diversity of natural history sightings is somewhat limited in winter with much of the wildlife having either migrated, disappeared under the ice, or burrowed underground. As a result, the increased presence of wintering bald eagles looms larger in our daily scan of the landscape. 

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
2/16 - Wappinger Falls, HRM 67.5: An adult red-shouldered hawk has been stealing suet out of a bird feeder that is only a few feet from our kitchen windows. [Photo by Rich Tallman.]
-  Rich Tallman

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES
2/10 - West Point, HRM 52: I put on my snowshoes today and went for a walk along a stream. Along the way, I came upon small insects, snow fleas, on the snow - another sign that winter is coming to a close and spring is on the way.
- Doug Gallagher

2/10 - Newburgh, HRM 61: We stopped at the Hudson River along the Newburgh waterfront today to check on the gulls. We were not disappointed. Our best guess at the number of gulls was about 7,500 birds, riding the ice floes down to Cornwall Bay and then flying back to Newburgh to start the ride over again. The highlight was three adult lesser black-backed gulls. The number of gulls was so great that we were sure that we missed some immature lesser black-backed gulls as well.
- Curt McDermott, Clara Montenegro

2/10 - Westchester County, HRM 39: As we were snowshoeing at Blue Mountain Reservation in the Town of Cortlandt, we came upon the largest and loudest pileated woodpecker we've ever seen. Down at the river at George's Island, as the sun began to set, we counted eight immature and one adult bald eagle in the trees at Dogan Point, with several more out on ice floes.
- Andrea Schechter, Herb Chong


2/10 - Westchester County, HRM 39-35: Despite the heavy overnight snow, my kayak was able to break through a light crust of ice on the water leading to the river at George's Island. As I paddled south, I spotted two adult bald eagles perched on Oscawana Point. As I passed, one of them flew over my kayak headed for the open water.
- Stephen Butterfass

2/11 - Milan HRM 90: I saw my first red-winged blackbird today at my feeder, followed closely by a female brown-headed cowbird.
- Marty Otter

2/12 - Town of Poughkeepsie, HRM 74: Driving home today I spotted three vultures riding on the wind. I stopped my car to get a better look and saw that they were black vultures. There were the first black vultures I had seen in this area. I stopped at the nearby Millbank Town Park and again the three black vultures were circling overhead as well as two red-tailed hawks that appeared to be courting. It was here that I also spotted a red-shouldered hawk perched in a tree.
- Maha Katnani

[The black vulture was virtually unknown in New York State only a few decades ago. It, like so many other southerners, moved northward. It is now fairly common in the lower Hudson Valley. At times they can outnumber the more familiar turkey vulture which, itself, preceded the black vultures in moving northward. I remember reading in Henry Hill Collins’ book Wildlife of North America that you knew you were crossing the Mason-Dixon Line when you looked up and saw turkey vultures. Now, we can see them while crossing the Canadian border. Rich Guthrie]

2/12 - Wappinger Creek, HRM 67.5: With no expectations of seeing much, we drove slowly along the frozen-over Wappinger Creek tidewater. Then, between the trees, we saw them: two eagles, an adult and an immature, scavenging a dead white-tailed deer, frozen half-in and half-out of the ice.
- Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson

2/12 - Orange County, HRM 56: From the Route 9W parking lot, halfway across Storm King Mountain, we spotted two golden eagles perched on the hillside.
- Gerhard Patsch, Jesse Jaycox

2/12 – Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 35: There was a whole new crowd at the feeders this morning, a mob scene of blue jays and one red-winged blackbird. We could also hear spring peepers in the swamp nearby.
- Mimi Rosenwald

2/13 - Columbia County, HRM 122: On such a warm and sunny day, I thought I'd see some springtails dancing on the snow near the Kline Kill. Instead, I was treated to three male bluebirds that must have been able to find enough to eat during our mild winter. Maybe they were looking for springtails as well.
- Fran Martino

2/13 - Catskill, HRM 113: It was a late morning ebb tide and the current was racing downriver - a conveyor of ice in blocks and sheets, flat and on end, accompanied by a symphony of grunts, grinds, groans, and high pitched squeals. In the few open leads, a handful of common goldeneyes and greater scaup kept pace with the flow.
- Tom Lake

2/13 - North Germantown, HRM 109: In a replay of two weeks ago (see 1/29 - Chelsea) the inshore current had turned to flood while in mid-river the ebb current still raced furiously seaward. The point where they sheared was not well defined but rather a collection of ice floes rotating in place. In the backdrop were six immature bald eagles, three in the air and three in the trees across on Inbocht Bay.
- Tom Lake

2/13 - Saugerties, HRM 102: With recent "on-winters," ice fishing on tidewater has been a tricky proposition. The midday tide was near low and the ice had settled on the lower Esopus affording easy-on and easy-off. Alternating between a half-dozen holes cut in the six inches of hard ice, I hooked and landed seven yellow perch, only two of which were of a size worth keeping. Looking toward the mouth of the creek I counted seven other anglers all eagerly engaged.
- Tom Lake

2/13 - Town of Clinton, HRM 82.5: While walking in our backyard our son, Nathan, noticed a spotted salamander crawling across our snowy field (eight inches of snow). There are woodland pools nearby but we are not sure why the salamander was out in February, though it was a rather warm day (40 degrees Fahrenheit).
- The Burger Family: Sarah, Glen, Nathan, Dan, Laura Burger

2/13 - Hudson River, HRM 76-34: I took the 8:47 Metro North this morning from Poughkeepsie to Manhattan and counted a group of thirteen bald eagles half way between Beacon and Cold Spring, another group of fifteen between Garrison and Peekskill, and eight more between Peekskill and Croton. The first two groups were on a few acres of ice or perched along the shore. The total was 35 eagles, all ages, and I'm sure I missed some.
- Allan Bowdery

2/13 - Town of Poughkeepsie, HRM 68: The Waterman Bird Club had a walk at Bowdoin Park today and we were fortunate enough to see a pair of adult bald eagles mating. Altogether we counted six eagles soaring overhead.
- Maha Katnani

2/13 - Newburgh, HRM 61: The gull count along the Newburgh waterfront today was estimated at 4,000 birds. They included two adult lesser black-backed gulls and a first-year Iceland gull.
- Curt McDermott

2/13 - Peekskill to Croton River, HRM 43-34: I wanted to see some eagles before the great spring "diaspora" began [wintering birds tend to start heading north by late February-early March]. Visiting four sites between China Pier in Peekskill and the mouth of the Croton River, I counted 47 eagles. Most were on the ice, flying close above it or squabbling in knots of two to five over who knows what. Adults outnumbered immature two to one. This is a savory time of year for eagle lovers. As the pulse of approaching spring beats more strongly, the birds become more interactive and so much more rewarding to the observer than eagles sitting on a perch for long periods. On one small floe off Verplanck, fourteen birds were squeezed close together. I always have to wonder, what is on the ice in all those miles of river that I cannot see.
- Christopher Letts

2/14 - New Hamburg, HRM 67.5: I've been accused of being a silly romantic when I relate stories of mated pairs of eagles "renewing their vows" in mid-February, particularly on Valentine's Day. And yet it recurs each year. Bald eagles mate for life and in the weeks before incubation begins, usually around March 1, the adults put on a show. The adult pair from eagle nest NY62 spent more than half an hour this afternoon cavorting in the air over the river in a display that could only be described as amorous.
- Tom Lake

[Eagle courtship is usually performed by breeding pairs in the days or weeks before the spring nesting season. Christopher Letts calls this aerial performance of grace and symmetry "sky dancing." Once, at Verplanck, we watched a courtship display over the river in a snow squall. Through a small break in the clouds came a shaft of sunlight and we watched that pair perform as though they were dancing on a sunbeam. On a Valentine's Day dawn at New Hamburg a decade ago, I watched a pair of eagles shadow each other over the ice with loop-de-loops and wing-touches. At the apex of a long arc in the sky they locked talons – one turned on its back in the air, the other mirrored it from above – and they went into a free-fall for more than a hundred feet before releasing and flaring out over the ice. At the climax of each acrobatic move they fell away in synchronized flight - flap-flap-glide - both wheeling and banking away in perfect form. It was like an exquisite ballet. At times they flew so close to each other that they cast only one shadow, drifting across the limestone face of Cedarcliff. Their effortless yet powerful wing beats moved them through the air as a single bird, communicating more through instinct than any utterance. Tom Lake.]

2/15 - Saratoga County, HRM 214: While conducting an eagle watch on the Hudson River near the Spier Falls dam in the Town of Moreau, we spotted two adult bald eagles. One had a transmitter antenna on it. It may have been the same eagle, banded bird E50, which I saw last year in the same tree.
- Gary Hill

[In the 1990s, DEC captured, fitted with a small radio transmitter, and released a number of wintering bald eagles in the Hudson Valley. The migration of these birds was tracked by satellite providing very detailed data of late-fall to early spring journeys from wintering locations in the Hudson Valley to breeding areas to the north and east, some as far away as northern Ontario, Quebec, and the Canadian Maritimes. The antennas and accompanying battery packs were very small and considered not to be a hindrance to the birds. However, battery life was limited and most if not all are now inactive. Tom Lake.]

2/15 - Chelsea, HRM 65.2: We counted six eagles, four adults and two immatures, out on the ice, drifting slowly upriver. Each of the six, on their own floe, was heads down and engaged in tearing up a fresh fish. These were "fish of a size," meaning they were not small white perch, eels, or bullhead catfish, the usual fare. We guessed they were gizzard shad. The eagles and fish had attracted dozens of ring-billed and black-backed gulls.
- Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson

[Gizzard shad are a favorite and readily available forage of wintering eagles. They are well known as a frequent victim of a phenomenon known as "winter kill" in the northern extent of their range. Studies have shown high mortality rates at water temperatures below 36 degrees F. Gizzard shad are not thought to be native to the Hudson River. They may have been introduced in the last half of the twentieth century either by immigration through the New York State canal system from the Midwest where they are native or inland from coastal waters. They are common in the Delaware River. J.R. Greeley of the New York State Conservation Department did not find them in the Hudson estuary during his 1936 biological survey. Tom Lake.]

2/15 - Newburgh, HRM 61: Gull numbers increased today to an estimated 10,000 birds. Floe ice made up about 65 percent of the river's surface. In late afternoon the incoming tide made conditions perfect, pulling the ice inshore with most birds on the edge of the ice. We identified an adult lesser black-backed gull and a first-year Iceland gull, possibly the same ones I saw a couple of days ago.
- Curt McDermott, Ken McDermott, Ajit Antony

2/15 - Orange County, HRM 56: Two golden eagles put on a magnificent aerial display this afternoon over Storm King Mountain and the Hudson River. I watched the eagles make several steep dives and sharp roller coaster upswings, followed by close acrobatic pairings and tumbling. The light of the setting sun and the snow-covered Hudson Highlands made for a memorable experience.
- Gerhard Patsch

2/15 - Croton River, HRM 34: It was a fantastic day, 54 degrees F and sunny. How can you beat a crystal-clear blue sky day while two adult bald eagles and one red-tailed hawk are riding the thermals overhead? And all of this as background to enjoying a walk along the Hudson River.
- Dianne Picciano

2/16 - Town of Poughkeepsie: This morning the mated pair at eagle nest NY62 was doing nest maintenance. The mating vocalizations had stopped and both were actively bringing in small twigs and dried grass. Unlike previous visits to the nest the female was now entering the nest and appeared content to just sit there. [Photo by Debra Tracy-Kral.]
- Tom McDowell

2/16 - Verplanck, HRM 40.5: I pulled over to the side of the road at Lake Meahagh to watch a beautiful adult bald eagle circle the lake twice and then head toward the Hudson.
- Susan Butterfass

2/16 - Crugers, HRM 39: I counted twelve red-winged blackbirds at the feeders this morning, a welcome sign of spring.
- Dianne Picciano

2/16 - Croton Point, HRM 35: We had a particularly nice encounter today at Croton Point. We spotted an adult bald eagle perched in a tree along the swimming beach. After a few minutes he started calling as a red-tailed hawk began its harassment. The hawk chased the eagle away and then perched on the same branch. We found the eagle again in a tree at the north point, Enoch's Neck. He took off, circled over our heads and out of sight, only to return followed by an immature. The two called and briefly interacted, grasping talons, before flying off.
- Sharon AvRutick, Joe Wallace

2/16 - Alpine, NJ, HRM 18: Twelve members the Hackensack River Canoe and Kayak Club hiked the Long Path atop the Palisades from Alpine to the State Line. The trail was packed snow, slush and mud but very passable. At Ruckman's Point we spotted a peregrine falcon flying out from the cliff top; it circled and returned to a perch at the point just north of us. After everyone got good looks at the peregrine, an immature bald eagle emerged from the woods, flew out over the peregrine and slowly circled the cliff's edge. Before the eagle was out of sight, three black vultures passed directly overhead and all landed on a common ledge about a third of the way down the cliff face. We also saw a sharp-shinned hawk, three red-tailed hawks, and multiple turkey vultures in the course of the afternoon.
- Bob Rancan, Herta Dousbout, Carole Baligh, Tom Babos, Joan Vieni

COLOR MARKED NORTHERN HARRIERS IN EASTERN NEW YORK
In conjunction with a study of wintering raptors DEC's Bureau of Wildlife is color marking a small number of northern harriers at three locations in eastern New York State this winter: Washington County Grasslands Important Bird Area, Coxsackie Flats in Greene County, and Shawangunk Grasslands National Wildlife Refuge in Ulster County. The marked harriers will have color dye on the underside of their primary and/or secondary flight feathers or the underside of their tail, in combinations that will allow for recognition of individual birds regardless of the site at which they were marked. Most individuals will also have a color leg band with a single white letter and number.
The purpose of the color marking is to gain information on the local movements of harriers in these important winter raptor concentration areas. DEC would appreciate receiving reports of any color-marked northern harriers at these sites or elsewhere. Please report the color and location of the marking, color and alpha-numeric of the leg band (if possible), sex of bird (adult male or adult female/juvenile), date, time, and exact location of the observation. If color marking is observed, but the exact location of the marking can't be determined, we may still be able to make individual identification based on the location of the marking and sex of the bird so please report inconclusive color marked birds as well. Please report color marked birds by e-mailing Mark­_NOHA@gw.dec.state.ny.us .

WINTER 2013 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS
February 26 - 7:30 PM
In the Beginning: The Hudson Valley. Hudson Highlands Nature Museum, Cornwall-on-Hudson [Orange County]. Join DEC Hudson River Estuary Program naturalist Tom Lake as we discover the ancestral roots and evolution of the Hudson River Valley. For information, e-mail Jackie Grantjgrant@hhnaturemuseum.org

February 28 - 7:00 PM
Shawangunk Ridge Biodiversity Partnership Lecture Series: Eel Migration in the Hudson River. Join Chris Bowser of DEC’s Hudson River Estuary Program and Hudson River Research Reserve for a presentation about American eel migration and the efforts of citizen scientists to collect critical data about young "glass eels" entering Hudson River tributaries. This free program will be offered at Lecture Center Room 102, SUNY/New Paltz [Ulster County]. For information, e-mail: chbowser@gw.dec.state.ny.us

March 4 - 7:30 PM
Hudson Valley Eagles: Back from the Brink. Join DEC Hudson River Estuary Program naturalist Tom Lake for a discussion of the heartening story of the recovery of Hudson Valley bald eagles at a meeting of the Edgar A. Mearns Bird Club at the Washingtonville Middle School, 38 West Main Street, Washingtonville [Orange County]. For information, e-mail (lake@sunydutchess.edu)

March 5 - 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM
How’s the Hudson Doing? Teaching About the River’s Health, a workshop for educators, will address this question and offer field and classroom-tested ways of responding to it. Sponsored by Teaching the Hudson Valley and DEC’s Hudson River Estuary Program, this free workshop will be held at the Henry A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park [Dutchess County]. During the morning, speakers will offer a health exam of the Hudson, reviewing the status of PCB cleanup, progress made under the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, questions about emerging contaminants, and ongoing impacts and threats from non-native species. After lunch, provided free of charge, educators experienced in classroom teaching and non-formal programming will present activities exploring water quality, invasive species, and relevant topics like bioaccumulation of toxics. Advance registration is required, no later than Wednesday, February 27 (click here to register). For more information, contact Steve Stanne at spstanne@gw.dec.state.ny.us .

March 5 - 6:30 PM
Scenic Hudson Naturalists Lecture Series: The Lives and Legends of Hudson River Fishes. Scenic Hudson River Center, Long Dock Park, Beacon [Dutchess County]. Join DEC Hudson River Estuary Program naturalist Tom Lake as we take a close look at the 219 species that make up the Hudson River watershed's fish fauna. For information, e-mail Tom Lake lake@sunydutchess.edu

March 7 - 7:30 PM
Tivoli Bays Talks: Hudson River Wetlands with Erik Kiviat, executive director of Hudsonia. Tivoli Library, Tivoli [Dutchess County]. Free. Wheelchair accessible. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

March 9 - 2:00 PM
Discover Norrie Walk: Winter Birds with DEC Naturalist Jim Herrington at the Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free. Family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

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 E-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 sign up to receive the E-Almanac (or to unsubscribe), send an email message to hrep@gw.dec.state.ny.us and write E-Almanac in the subject line.

Weekly issues are archived at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/25611.html . The DEC website's search engine can find species, locations, and other data in the archives.

The Hudson River Estuary Program has an e-newsletter! Stay connected by subscribing to RiverNet, which covers projects, events and actions related to the Hudson and its watershed.www.dec.ny.gov/lands/76018.html

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. For a free, no-obligation issue go tohttp://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/conservationist.html

USEFUL LINKS
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide predictions are available online athttp://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.shtml?gid=62 NOAA’s 2012 tidal current predictions are at http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/currents12/ .

For real-time information on Hudson River tides, weather and water conditions from eight monitoring stations, visit the Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System website athttp://www.hrecos.org .

Historical information on the movements of the salt front in the Hudson estuary is presented by the U.S. Geological Survey: http://ny.water.usgs.gov/projects/dialer_plots/saltfront.html .

Information about the Hudson River Estuary Program is available on DEC's website athttp://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4920.html .

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

Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

OVERVIEW
This was a week of eagles on ice floes, a report of an extremely rare bird, and a large "dog" harassing wild turkeys. These were mixed in with many quiet reminiscenses of the softer side of our natural world.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK 
2/2 - Norrie Point, HRM 85: Planning in advance for winter bald eagle viewing here is a guessing game. If we guess wrong and there is not enough ice - or too much ice - the eagles will be elsewhere. We guessed pretty well today; the river was two-thirds ice with plenty of large rafts and floes moving slowly upriver at the start of the flood tide. Fifty-one of us endured eleven degree Fahrenheit windchills to aim our binoculars and spotting scopes on nine bald eagles, both adults and immatures, on the ice and in the trees across the river. We watched a pair of adults busily refurbishing their nest, carrying twigs and small branches. The 140-foot-long Coast Guard cutter Sturgeon Bay made two passes not 200 feet off the dock, breaking up the ice.
- Paul Lewis, Dave Lindemann, Tom Lake

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
1/28 - Columbia County, HRM 122: My dog, Loki, and I took a walk along the shore of the Kline Kill in Ghent. Loki appeared to be "walking on water" as he waded in the stream. I could see his paws as he pranced about on frozen chunks of ice beneath a top layer of water about an inch deep. The Kline Kill, a tributary of Kinderhook Creek, is formed by the confluence of the Punsit and Indian Creeks. The Kline Kill is often confused with the Klein Kill, a tributary of the Hudson River where it meets the Roeliff-Jansen's Kill farther south near Linlithgo. Most locals pronounce the Kline Kill as "Kly-nee-kill."
- Fran Martino

1/28 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67.5: The Weather Channel could have saved the name for "Winter Storm Luna." A two-inch layer of new white snow was on the river, and the shoreline trees were coated with ice. Even in these times of climate change, it seems silly that such a soft and gentle snowfall can be called a winter storm. There were eagles on ice floes and eagles in the trees, a scene that has recurred every day recently.
- Tom Lake

1/28 - Peekskill, HRM 43: China Pier has always been one of my favorite places to see eagles, with the Hudson Highlands and the Bear Mountain Bridge in sight, and a ten-mile fetch to enjoy. The birds are not here when there is no ice, and that has been the case for a couple of years. Beginning this week, however, enough floe ice had accumulated and stabilized to attract the big birds, and this afternoon a dozen sat on the ice, singly and in groups of two or three. All but three were adults. This is perhaps the best place along the east side of the river to see interactions between eagles and with other birds.
- Christopher Letts

["Fetch" is a nautical and meteorological term usually used to describe an area of water over which wind can blow and strengthen unimpeded by islands, points of land, bends, or other obstacles. Tom Lake.]   

1/29 - Kinderhook Creek, HRM 128: My walk at the Patchaquack Preserve in Valatie had me thinking I was in a lumber yard. Wood chips were everywhere; some caused by pileated woodpeckers, others the work of beavers. The trail swings close to Kinderhook Creek, which was flowing at a high velocity. I heard the familiar tail slap of the beaver as I approached the stream, and wondered about the strength it took for the beaver to swim in such fast-moving water.
- Fran Martino

1/29 - Town of Poughkeepsie: Eagle nest NY62 was active today and, as expected, the mated pair has chosen their existing nest for the upcoming season. The pair remained at the nesting site for over an hour. Finally, the male, in his usual squawking fashion, headed upriver. A short distance away at the New Hamburg Yacht club (HRM 67.5) I watched two adult and three immature bald eagles riding ice floes on a flood current. They would ride the ice from the mouth of Wappinger Creek north to the yacht club, a quarter-mile, and then fly back and do it all over again.
- Tom McDowell

1/29 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: I just witnessed the oddest sight: Nearly a hundred snow geese in formation flew low under the clouds heading north along the river. They ought to have been foraging in the stubble of cornfields in Virginia or Maryland.
- Tom Lake

[While this sighting may have been an anomaly, it deserves some consideration. In the recent past, snow geese could be counted on quite reliably to return north around the vernal equinox (March 20). They would show up in riverside cornfields in Saratoga and Washington Counties and along the Hudson-Champlain Canal. It will be interesting to see if the pattern is changing. Tom Lake.]

1/29 - Chelsea, HRM 65.2: In early afternoon at the top of the ebb tide, three adult bald eagles, well offshore, were riding ice floes slowly upriver. Much closer to shore, where the current had already changed, two more eagles, one adult and one immature, were riding ice floes slowly downstream. It looked strange to see these birds, quiet on the ice, heading in opposite directions.
- Tom Lake 

["Mahicanituk" is a written approximation of an Algonquian word describing the Hudson that has been interpreted as meaning "river flows both ways." Since River Indians had only oral language, this word has been written with as many variations in spelling as in interpretation. The most common interpretation is that "flows both ways" refers to the four daily shifts in tidal current direction, two floods and two ebbs. But there is another interpretation that is never more obvious than with winter ice: As each tidal current slows, there is a brief period of time where the momentum associated with the volume of deep water takes longer to stop and turn than it does in shallow water where the lesser volume succumbs sooner. During that window today, the river and its ice flowed both ways, at once. Tom Lake.]

1/29 - Furnace Woods, HRM 38.5: It had been some time since I last fished through the ice on Railroad Pond - almost two decades – and I walked onto the ice wondering what changes had occurred. Cutting my first line of holes near the dam, I noticed a green peeled stick frozen into the ice a few inches down. The finger-sized stick was cut at an angle on each end; it sure looked like the work of a beaver. Over the next hour I made my way toward the shallow end of the lake, and more sticks could be seen. There it was, a "live" beaver lodge, twenty feet in breadth, seven feet high, tucked up against a rocky headland (allowing no burrowing in from the back by predators), overhung by thick brush, and at a place where the old stream channel from Revolutionary War times had cut the deepest deep water for quick escape. Hundreds of peeled sticks of all sizes were strewn across the ice. This was a little wilderness experience only five minutes from the Hudson. Light was dimming as I walked off the ice with a full complement of dinner morsels; a full complement being all the fish I care to clean and am likely to eat at an evening meal.
- Christopher Letts

1/29 – George's Island, HRM 39: There was quite a difference in ice cover on the river below the Hudson Highlands. There was very little ice here and eagle activity was restricted to several perched immatures southwest of the boat ramp. Farther out in the river were some buffleheads that kept their distance, making photos difficult.
- Tom McDowell

1/29 - Stony Point, HRM 40: As the Rockland Audubon Society's recorder of rare and unusual birds, I received a report today from Doris Metraux: "This afternoon I was puzzled by something bright white in one of my shrubs. It was a white-winged junco (Junco hyemalis aikeni) giving me a frontal view. When he changed his location and briefly perched on a flowerbox I got a good look until one of the dark-eyed juncos became very belligerent and chased him away. He seemed quite a bit larger than the dark-eyed juncos, had a snow-white belly, a big bone-colored bill, black lores and was otherwise pale gray with a light brown wash on his back. He also had two very distinct wing-bars on each side."
- Carol Weiss

[In the 1970s the American Ornithologists' Union lumped what had been five species of junco, including the white-winged and our familiar slate-colored variety, into one - the dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis). Other southwestern forms are lumped together as yellow-eyed juncos (Junco phaeonotus). Not all taxonomists are happy with the current classification scheme, however, and given the junco's taxonomic history - described in scientific papers as "turbulent" and "a nightmare" - it may change again. Steve Stanne.]

[I checked sources for previous county records. The Oregon and pink-sided subspecies have been recorded sporadically but I could find no previous records of the white-winged form. According to Bull's Birds of New York State (1998 edition; ed. Levine), there are no known records of the white-winged subspecies from New York State. Its winter range appears to be restricted to the Great Plains and adjacent mountain states. Levine does mention that approximately two to three percent of dark-eyed juncos have white on the wings, but still can be separated by size (white-winged is larger). Alan Wells.]

1/29 - Manhattan, New York City, HRM 6: The Iceland gull previously reported was still present on the Central Park Reservoir this evening. It lingered at the periphery of a small flock of ring-billed and herring gulls. The vast majority of the remaining gulls took off for the night heading east and west.
- Nadir Souirgi

1/30 - Knox, Albany County, HRM153: With the temperature at 50 degrees F, a lone, shrill spring peeper was heard calling into the dark night on our beaver pond.
- David H. Nelson

1/30 - New Hamburg, HRM 67.5: It was an April-like day, with wind and some warmth (60 degrees F). And while the mild day loosened river ice, there was more if it; the tide was drawing floes from marshes, backwaters, and tributaries. Every open lead contained common mergansers with a few buffleheads and goldeneyes.  
- Tom Lake

1/30 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: Well after dark, following a wonderfully warm day, the fragrance of skunk was on the wind. The day had been a "wake-up" call and they were now out and about and up to no good.
- Tom Lake 

1/30 - Verplanck, HRM 40.5: While driving past the floodgate in Verplanck in extremely dense fog, I noticed a great blue heron on the edge of Lake Meahagh. He was standing on what was left of the ice, feathers soaked and head ruffled - a sentinel in the mist.
- Dianne Picciano

1/30 - Furnace Woods, HRM 38.5: It was "thick o' fog" with visibility of less than 100 yards, but enough to see the water on Railroad Pond where I had ice fished less than 24 hours ago. The thought of a family of well-provisioned beavers snug in their lodge made me smile as I headed home to put more wood in the stove and enjoy this strangely weathered day. The back bay on Railroad Pond has another essential element: a deep bed of soil sediment deposited by the stream. That is where the beavers store their winter food, jamming the sharp ends of branches, leafy birch and alder, down into the mud, leaves waving in the light current.
- Christopher Letts

1/30 - Manhattan, HRM 13.5: At least fifty Canada geese were making their way across the football field near the inlet of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, foraging in the grass at Inwood Hill Park. On the water were three dozen mallards. Starting up the trail through the Clove, I startled a pair of mourning doves and watched one black-capped chickadee at a little mesh feeder hung from a branch. Atop the ridge I saw no wildlife except gray squirrels and a mockingbird, who had found a few red berries. The only other color in the woods was moss and ground cover, small carpets of garlic mustard and ivy punctuated by tufts of wild chives, and one small holly, which, as always, "groweth green."
- Thomas Shoesmith

1/31 - Albany, HRM 145: I enjoyed walking along the river when the meteorological phenomenon called "graupel" occurs. Graupel is not exactly hail, and not exactly ice, but can be described as somewhere in between: Drops of water freeze on a falling snowflake, turning the flakes into something that looks like tiny styrofoam pellets. It is very bouncy and noisy as it falls to the ground.
- Fran Martino

1/31 - Poughkeepsie, HRM 76: It had snowed and a flock of more than a dozen wild turkeys that roost in the trees were acting befuddled. A few began to fly up into the trees and then we saw why. A healthy gray wolf was frantically trying to capture a wild turkey on the green of the adjoining golf course. It had stealthily crept near and whirled on a potential meal. Losing that one it spun around and tried for another but the birds scattered. We were enthralled with the spectacle. Other neighbors have reported seeing this animal recently.
- Diana Salsberg

[After investigating this sighting, all parties ultimately agreed that this was probably an eastern coyote. Two separate teams of researchers studying the genes of coyotes in the Northeast have reported evidence that these animals that have for decades been thought of as coyotes are in fact coyote-wolf hybrids. The team headed by Roland W. Kays, curator of mammals at the New York State Museum, studied coyotes from New Jersey to Maine. Jonathan Way, wildlife biologist with the Eastern Coyote Research consulting firm, examined coyotes around Cape Cod and Boston. Both teams found that the animals carry wolf and coyote DNA. The findings may explain why coyotes in the East like this one are generally larger than their western counterparts - that is, more wolf-like in size – and why they are so much more varied in coat color, as might be expected from a creature with a more diverse genome. As a result, we coyote fans like to refer to them as "woyotes." Tom Lake.]

2/1 - Orange County, HRM 67: We did not expect to see much this morning; the eagle viewing had been disappointing so far this winter. From New Hamburg we looked through binoculars across the river along the mile-and-a-half reach from Danskammer Point north past Soap Hill to Cedarcliff. Our glasses only reached Soap Hill where we stopped: nine adult bald eagles. That was not the most remarkable part of it. Those nine birds were all perched on less than an acre of hillside. We concluded that these were probably wintering birds from points north and east, eagles with no axe to grind regarding territory. That hillside might also be a night roost. Today they were perched out of the wind (a 20 mph bone-chiller), facing the morning sun.
- Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson

2/1 - Denning's Point, HRM 60: Following two days of strong west-northwest winds, we had a mini-blowout tide. The tide was noteworthy not so much for its "blowout" as it was for how long it stayed low - nearly two hours. Four wintering adult eagles were perched at Denning's Point with another adult and an immature across the bay and the mouth of Fishkill Creek at Hammond's Point.  
- Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson

[Blowout tides occur when strong, sustained north/northwesterly winds push seawater away from Atlantic coast, temporarily lowering sea level off New York and therefore in the Hudson too - essentially the reverse of storm surge. These Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System graphs show water levels at Hudson River Park's Pier 84 in Manhattan, and corresponding wind direction and velocity data from Piermont about 20 miles north. Reading the wind graph like a compass, the wind shifted abruptly to northwest early on January 31, and then more northerly on February 1. It clipped the midday high tide peak on the 31st, and kept tides lower than usual well into the first of February. Steve Stanne.]

2/1 - Hudson Highlands, HRM 47-35: An eagle census during my morning commute to work today produced more birds than any other morning this year: thirteen. They included one over Fort Montgomery, six on the ice at Annsville Creek, and one flying with a fish over Senasqua.
- Scott Craven

2/1 - Oscawana Point, HRM 38.5: I saw two beautiful adult bald eagles from the overlook at Oscawana. One was perched above the other, both enduring the blustery day, high above the whitecaps below.
- Dianne Picciano

2/2 - Tompkin’s Cove, HRM 41: We saw six bald eagles, three adults and three immatures, near the old Mothball Fleet memorial. We saw thirty here two years ago but saw none last year. We are so happy they are back!
- Kristy Bartholomew

[The "Mothball Fleet," or U.S. Navy Reserve Fleet, consisted of a number of Liberty and Victory cargo and troop ships that were used during World War II to ferry supplies and soldiers to Europe for the war effort. Following the war they were decommissioned and, from 1946 to 1971, anchored in the Hudson at Tompkins Cove. Tom Lake.]

2/2 - Pleasantville, Westchester County, HRM 32:  I was out with my dog near midnight. It had been snowing for a couple of hours, a dry snow that sparkled in the light. The cold night was hushed until I heard the deep hooting of a great horned owl coming from a neighbor's yard. This was only the second time in thirteen years that I've heard one. I went and got my sixteen-year-old so he could listen, too. Even the dog seemed to notice.
- Joe Wallace

2/2 - Croton Point, HRM 34.5: Our mid-day walk was uneventful until returning to our car at the small upper lot we noticed a crowd with cameras, long lenses on tripods, spotting scopes, and binoculars, staring up at one of the white pines. About twelve feet up on a branch, a barred owl was trying to ignore all the fuss.
- Stephen Butterfass, Ariel Butterfass

WINTER 2013 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS 
February 26 - 7:30 PM
In the Beginning: The Hudson Valley. Hudson Highlands Nature Museum, Cornwall-on-Hudson [Orange County]. Join DEC Hudson River Estuary Program naturalist Tom Lake as we discover the ancestral roots and evolution of the Hudson River Valley. For information, e-mail Jackie Grantjgrant@hhnaturemuseum.org

March 5 - 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM
How's the Hudson Doing? Teaching About the River's Health, a workshop for educators, will address this question and offer field and classroom-tested ways of responding to it. Sponsored by Teaching the Hudson Valley and DEC's Hudson River Estuary Program, this free workshop will be held at the Henry A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park [Dutchess County]. During the morning, speakers will offer a health exam of the Hudson, reviewing the status of PCB cleanup, progress made under the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, questions about emerging contaminants, and ongoing impacts and threats from non-native species. After lunch, provided free of charge, educators experienced in classroom teaching and non-formal programming will present activities exploring water quality, invasive species, and relevant topics like bioaccumulation of toxics. Advance registration is required, no later than Wednesday, February 27 (click here to register). For more information, contact Steve Stanne at spstanne@gw.dec.state.ny.us .

March 5 - 6:30 PM
Scenic Hudson Naturalists Lecture Series: The Lives and Legends of Hudson River Fishes. Scenic Hudson River Center, Long Dock Park, Beacon [Dutchess County]. Join DEC Hudson River Estuary Program naturalist Tom Lake as we take a close look at the 219 species that make up the Hudson River watershed’s fish fauna. For information, e-mail Tom Lake lake@sunydutchess.edu

March 7 - 7:30 PM
Tivoli Bays Talks: Hudson River Wetlands with Erik Kiviat, executive director of Hudsonia. Tivoli Library, Tivoli [Dutchess County]. Free. Wheelchair accessible. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

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 E-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 sign up to receive the E-Almanac (or to unsubscribe), send an email message to hrep@gw.dec.state.ny.us and write E-Almanac in the subject line.

Weekly issues are archived at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/25611.html . The DEC website's search engine can find species, locations, and other data in the archives.

The Hudson River Estuary Program has an e-newsletter! Stay connected by subscribing to RiverNet, which covers projects, events and actions related to the Hudson and its watershed.www.dec.ny.gov/lands/76018.html

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. For a free, no-obligation issue go tohttp://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/conservationist.html

USEFUL LINKS
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide predictions are available online athttp://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.shtml?gid=62 NOAA’s 2012 tidal current predictions are at http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/currents12/ .

For real-time information on Hudson River tides, weather and water conditions from eight monitoring stations, visit the Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System website athttp://www.hrecos.org .

Historical information on the movements of the salt front in the Hudson estuary is presented by the U.S. Geological Survey: http://ny.water.usgs.gov/projects/dialer_plots/saltfront.html .

Information about the Hudson River Estuary Program is available on DEC's website athttp://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4920.html .

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
January 14 - 21, 2013
Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

OVERVIEW
This was another week of counting wintering birds, both eagles and waterfowl, as means of estimating population trends and the effects of the season. 

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
1/20 - West Point, HRM 52: I was out for a walk this afternoon and spotted what I thought was an eagle flying over the river in front of the rugby field near the North Dock. It was a large black bird; wing tips were rounded with a straight leading edge and were flat in relation to the body. The bird would soar for brief periods, but it mostly kept pumping its wings to gain altitude.
- Doug Gallagher

[Doug's photos revealed an immature golden eagle. In recent winters, we have had one or more golden eagles wintering in the Hudson Highlands, specifically in the area of Crow's Nest and Storm King Mountain, just a couple of miles upriver. Tom Lake]

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES
1/14 - Dutchess County to Westchester County, HRM 60-34: Dense fog postponed our planned January 13 Lower Hudson Bald Eagle Roost Survey from Fishkill Ridge to Croton. Instead we went today, on an unseasonably warm afternoon. This synchronous count, now in its tenth season, involved thirteen observers distributed between six known night roosts. Despite the warm conditions and an ice-free Hudson, we recorded 47 eagles; we assumed they were both wintering and local birds. A larger proportion of the birds than usual were at inland roosts, with relatively few spending the night near the Hudson River.
- Barry Babcock, David Baker, Ken Comish, Melissa Gillmer, Lew Kingsley, Ed McGowan, Marnie Miler-Keas, Gerhard Patsch, Tracy Patsch, Pete Salmansohn, Joe Trapani, Jim Utter, Bill Wallace

1/14 - Bear Mountain, HRM 46: I usually welcome the sound of spring peepers as a sign that winter is nearly over, but not in the first week of January. A few solo callers were making themselves heard along the trail at the Bear Mountain Trailside Museums and Zoo, as well as halfway up Bear Mountain on a southern exposure.
- Ed McGowan

1/15 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: Somehow, the clear and crisp air of January brings a promise of springtime. Now that we are gaining daylight, the winter air seems to have a bright quality that engenders that promise. Red-tailed hawks are busy with their courtship and thoughts of mating. Twice today I watched an adult red-tail being pursued across the sky, mobbed by three or four crows. It is not an easy life being a raptor in a world of more maneuverable pests.  
- Tom Lake

[On January 10, sunrise occurred one minute earlier, not later as we stated in the last Almanac, for the first time since June 18. Tom Lake]

1/15 - Bronx, New York City: As I was on my way to work this morning, traveling north on the service road of the Bruckner Expressway in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx, I made a turn onto Calhoun Avenue and inadvertently flushed an adult red-shouldered hawk that had been perched in a tree. This gorgeous raptor flew low, banked left, flew across the street in between two houses and then was gone. What a beautiful hawk. It had so much red on it as well as the classic black-and-white banding on its tail. It was truly beautiful in all its wildness.
- Orlando Hidalgo

1/16 - Cheviot, HRM 106: This morning I looked out on the river to the cottonwood on the jetty and saw, as usual, two eagles. Upon a closer look, they were both immatures instead of the usual adult pair. While I watched, one immature took off and an adult took its place. Later, the two adults were back, sitting very close, hunkered down in the treetop in the snow and fog. One reached over and seemed to be grooming the other. Courtship.
- Jude Holdsworth

1/16 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67.5: There are certain bird calls or songs that stop you in your tracks or mid-sentence if you are in a conversation. Among these, for me at least, are the bald eagle, common loon, canyon wren, and any of the wood thrushes. But perhaps chief among them is the raven, particularly since they are not terribly common. In midday, as I was clearing five inches of fresh snow, I heard a throaty "clack" and "croak." I looked up, and there was a black-as-midnight raven watching me from the crown of a black locust.
- Tom Lake

1/17 - Columbia County, HRM 124: Tramping in the woods with my friend Loki, I came upon a white, piebald white-tailed deer. She had a dark nose, but her coloration wasn't like a pinto pony - she was whiter. It was a thrill for me to see this creature.
- Fran Martino

[White and brown deer are commonly referred to as "piebald." White is a recessive color phase of white tailed deer; it is normally not albinism. Pete Fanelli.]

1/17 - Cheviot, HRM 106: I spotted a dozen greater scaup on the river today, along with two red-breasted mergansers.
- Mimi Brauch

1/17 - Town of Poughkeepsie, HRM 71: This morning, along with all the deer and squirrel tracks in the snow, I saw red fox tracks. I had not seen our local red fox for several months, but it clearly paid a visit last night as the tracks came out of the woods, down the hill to my feeder area, and then across to Casperkill Creek where I lost them. This is the same path I have seen the fox travel many times in other seasons.
- Margie Robinson

1/18 - Germantown, HRM 108: I had brown cowbirds under my feeders this morning; among them were a male and several female red-winged blackbirds.
- Mimi Brauch

1/18 - Fishkill, HRM 61: My next door neighbor told me this morning that daffodils were coming up on the sunny side of his house.
- Lee Banner

1/18 - Fishkill, HRM 61: As darkness and the coldness of the night settled over the area, I was clearing some snow near my front door. The noise and proximity of this disturbed a small bird, likely a Carolina wren, from its nighttime roost in the balsam fir wreath on my front door. It flew to a nearby dogwood tree and waited for me to cease and desist before returning to its shelter in the wreath. Now assured of the bird's winter night refuge, I will not remove the wreath until spring.
- Ed Spaeth

1/18 - Westchester County, HRM 44: Driving home after dark tonight in North Salem, a bobcat crossed the road right in front of me. The big cat went up a hill and into the woods near a stream that empties into a nearby lake. Wow! It was a very large, muscular cat, yellowish in color with a short tail.
- Irene Marks

1/18 - Westchester County, HRM 35: While driving home through Croton-on-Hudson on Route 9A, a sweet little animal scampered out of the brush and darted across the road in front of me. At first I thought it was a small dog, but as it got closer, I could see that it was a red fox.
- Dianne Picciano

1/19 - Dutchess County, HRM 84-73: Today was the Waterman Bird Club's Waterfowl Count, part of the New York State Waterfowl Count. Thanks to a timely Rare Bird Alert sent by Barbara Butler, a highlight of the count, and a life bird for me, was a greater white-fronted goose that we spotted among several hundred Canada geese in a cow pasture in Amenia. We also saw a neck-collared Canada goose and submitted a report to the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Bird Banding Laboratory. We might eventually learn a little about the bird. We also counted 35 ringed-necked ducks on a small unnamed pond off Noxon Road.
- Deb Kral

[Adding "life birds" to 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 is fish, flowers, insects, mushrooms, or fungi. Anyone can keep a list of almost anything that ultimately gives them a context and appreciation for the natural world. Tom Lake. Photo of white-fronted and Canada goose by Debi Kral.]

1/19 - New Hamburg, HRM 67.5: This past week was, indeed, "A Gathering of Eagles" on tiny Rabbit Island. We hosted as many as five bald eagles: two pairs of adults and one immature. All were perched in a single, tall basswood tree on the periphery of the island. On some days there were just one or two; on other days there were up to five at one time. My wife, now jaded, feels they have become as common as robins. They seem somewhat reluctant to pose for photos, but nonetheless, it is thrilling to look out the kitchen window and these glorious raptors sitting in a tree in our backyard. Thirty years ago, who would have suspected that there would be such a resurgence of eagles in our valley?
- David Cullen

1/20 - Wappinger Falls, HRM 67.5: With most of the ice gone at Wappinger Lake, I stopped by to see what was there. Among the waterfowl were many (more than eighteen) mute swans, twenty hooded and common mergansers, two pairs of gadwalls, and a hen bufflehead, away from everyone, diving by herself. An adult bald eagle circled high above. The highlight, however, was a drake red-breasted merganser.
- Terry Hardy

[Red-breasted mergansers are uncommon on small Hudson Valley ponds in winter, preferring saltier, big-water habitats in New York Harbor and along the coast. Steve Stanne. Photo of red-breasted merganser by Terry Hardy.] 

1/20 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: I was awakened at 4:00 AM by the shrill cries of coyotes in stereo. In the still and frigid air, even through closed windows, it sounded as though they were everywhere. In reality, it was likely a small group of four or five - family, extended family, a clan - and they were on the prowl.
- Tom Lake

1/20 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: We heard, then saw, a Carolina wren today: "Teakettle, teakettle, teakettle"...with a very weak "tea."
- Tom Lake, Phyllis Lake

[Carolina wrens are permanent residents, though they are less vocal at this time of year. According to the Birds of North America Online, "Although the decimation of [Carolina wren] populations by severe winter conditions is well known, severe winters have apparently been infrequent enough during twentieth century to allow for populations to expand and move northward. In addition, reforestation of eastern forests could have provided more available habitat. Further, individuals frequently inhabit urban areas where feeding stations have become common and which can be used to supplement natural foods, especially when natural foods become covered with snow and ice." The maps below, from the New York State Breeding Bird Atlas, shows how this species extended its range here over two decades. Steve Stanne.]

1/20 - Town of Fishkill, HRM 63.5: I walked into the north gate of Stony Kill Farm this morning and was greeted by six bluebirds. They were flying and flitting by the free-running stream in the cow pasture, and sitting on top of the two closest bluebird houses. The morning sun made their blue-and-red feathers really stand out. While walking, I watched a red-tailed hawk soar and dip and glide with its red tail also glowing in the sun. A flock of starlings sitting in the black locust trees by the barn were cackling and singing their spring songs already. Could that be? As I headed off the property, a well groomed turkey vulture soared above, no more than sixty feet overhead. Such a nice way to start the day!
- Andra Sramek

1/20 - Westchester County, HRM 27: As my husband and I were returning from bird watching in Valhalla, we saw a very large raptor fly over our house. I grabbed my binoculars and - sure enough - it was an adult bald eagle flying over the Kensico Dam.
- Abbye Carsten, Bevin Carsten

1/21 - Town of Poughkeepsie, HRM 68: Call it the "winter blues," or "seasonal affected disorder," or just being in need of a bright and cheery moment. I went to Bowdoin Park today for my dose and was not disappointed. In each of two brushy areas I perused I came up no fewer than a dozen bluebirds, foraging the last of the berries or hunting for other sources of calories. In a season defined by drabness, the soft yet vibrant blue of these birds, complemented by an even softer orange, can be very heart-warming.
- Tom Lake

1/21 - Manitou, HRM 47: Today was the first day with any ice floating by on the river's outgoing tide. The bird feeders were busy with all the usual suspects; I have had common redpolls on and off for a few weeks. The sharp-shinned hawk has been a regular visitor and I see evidence of the kills around the lawn. Its tactics lead me to believe it is a young bird because it isn't very stealthy, hiding in plain sight. Bald eagles are being seen daily, both adults and immatures.
- Zshawn Sullivan

WINTER 2013 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS
February 2 - 12:00 noon
Looking for Bald Eagles with DEC Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist Tom Lake at Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free; family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

February 7 - 7:30 PM
Tivoli Bays Talks: The Hudson River Estuary - Keeping It “Green” As It Flows Downstream with Emily Vail and Andrew Meyer of the Hudson River Estuary Program’s watershed outreach project. Tivoli Library, Tivoli [Dutchess County]. Free. Wheelchair accessible. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

February 9 - 2:00 PM
Discover Norrie Walk: Winter Birds with NYS DEC Naturalist Jim Herrington at Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free; family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

February 26 - 7:30 PM
In the Beginning: The Hudson Valley. Hudson Highlands Nature Museum, Cornwall-on-Hudson [Orange County]. Join DEC Hudson River Estuary Program naturalist Tom Lake as we discover the ancestral roots and evolution of the Hudson River Valley. For information, e-mail Jackie Grantjgrant@hhnaturemuseum.org

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 E-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 sign up to receive the E-Almanac (or to unsubscribe), send an email message to hrep@gw.dec.state.ny.us and write E-Almanac in the subject line.

Weekly issues are archived at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/25611.html . The DEC website's search engine can find species, locations, and other data in the archives.

The Hudson River Estuary Program has an e-newsletter! Stay connected by subscribing to RiverNet, which covers projects, events and actions related to the Hudson and its watershed.www.dec.ny.gov/lands/76018.html

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. For a free, no-obligation issue go tohttp://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/conservationist.html

USEFUL LINKS
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide predictions are available online athttp://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.shtml?gid=62 NOAA’s 2012 tidal current predictions are at http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/currents12/ .

For real-time information on Hudson River tides, weather and water conditions from eight monitoring stations, visit the Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System website athttp://www.hrecos.org .

Historical information on the movements of the salt front in the Hudson estuary is presented by the U.S. Geological Survey: http://ny.water.usgs.gov/projects/dialer_plots/saltfront.html .

Information about the Hudson River Estuary Program is available on DEC's website athttp://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4920.html .

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

Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

OVERVIEW
Winter brings a focus on birds and that was particularly true this week with the annual Mid-Winter Bald Eagle Census. Yet it was not all eagles, as birds come in many flavors from owls to winter finches and waterfowl. Collectively they provide us with a ready-made measure of the season. 

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
1/7 - Clinton Corners, HRM 85: When I came into work at Upton Lake Christian School today, there were six crows at my bird feeders, but they were mobbing something. It turned out to be a long-eared owl that was sitting on a window sill of the school. Two red-shouldered hawks were mobbing the owl as well. The owl stuck around for several hours, allowing many students and staff members to see the bird. What a way to start the day and also a great science sighting for my classes. (Long-eared owl photo by Matt Merchant.)
- Jim Clinton

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES
1/1 - Newcomb, HRM 302: We began the New Year with air temperatures maxing out in the teens and eighteen beautiful inches of snow on the ground. Our feeder birds included a large flock of common redpolls and American tree sparrows, as well as a male and female northern cardinal. It appears that the cardinals are here for the winter. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a cardinal in Newcomb, so having a pair settling in for the winter is noteworthy. Other species at the feeder were the usual suspects, as well as a sharp-shinned hawk that gave a new meaning to the term "bird feeder."
- Charlotte Demers

1/1 - Coxsackie, HRM 124: I came across an enormous flock of snow buntings on River Road just north of the Village of Coxsackie. Getting a number on the size of this swarm was difficult because they were so flighty. I'd put a conservative estimate at around 600. They just kept flowing onto the road surface and shoulders until the next vehicle went by. Then they'd flow out as a black-and-white ribbon cloud rising and dipping across the fields. There were a few horned larks mixed in.
There were several Lapland longspurs on Flint Mine Road today and very dark savannah sparrows were there as well. Doing a little research on that species leads me to believe these birds might be from the northeastern Canada population, or from the Hudson Bay-Manitoba populations known, respectively, as "Labrador" savannah sparrow and "Churchill" savannah sparrow.
- Rich Guthrie

1/1 - Ulster Park, HRM 87: Three flying squirrels visited our feeder today to say "Happy New Year," following a couple of strong-wind nights without them.
- Peter Relson

1/1 - Wappinger Falls, HRM 67.5: While I wait for my first of the season, Tammie Carey had a common redpoll at her feeder today.
- Tom Lake

1/1 - Town of Warwick, HRM 44: Charlie Roberto, Kyle Bardwell and I spent a few hours in Black Dirt Country. A short eared owl was at Indiana Road (good New Year’s Day bird)!  We also had five rough legged hawks (both bark and light phases), at least a dozen harriers (including three "gray ghost" males, one killdeer, 200+ horned larks with about 30 snow buntings mixed in, five or six common redpolls (a lifer for Kyle and me), and lots of white-crowned and some savannah sparrows.  (Short-eared owl photo by Charlie Roberto.)
- Larry Tractenberg

1/1 - Westchester County, HRM 43-34: I found nine bald eagles along this reach of the river south of China Pier in Peekskill. It was a pretty sure sign that the recent snowy, cold weather had dislodged birds from farther up the Hudson Valley and sent them on down to us.
- Christopher Letts

1/1 - Croton Point, HRM 35: I took a walk around Croton Point this morning and stopped to watch a female northern harrier hunting over the fields. Waterfowl seemed sparse; there were a few mallards and a drake bufflehead on the west side of the point.
- Steve Seymour

1/1 - Croton Point, HRM 34: The great Aldo Leopold called it "goose music" and who could argue? For the past two days, flock after flock of Canada geese has announced themselves, appeared, passed over, and crossed the river, on their way to Delaware Bay (my guess). These were large flocks, almost always well over 100 birds, and not interested in stopping for a snack. On the model plane flying field there was another New Year's pleasure: two dozen horned larks wheeled in and poked through the grass only a dozen yards from me. It has been several years since I had the pleasure, and I took a long fifteen minutes just to watch.
- Christopher Letts

1/2 - Schodack Island, HRM 135: While aboard the 12:05 PM Amtrak south from Albany, I saw a cluster of bald eagles - immatures and at least one adult - crouched on the broken ice between Schodack Island and the east bank of the river.  I could not get a good count from the train but my guess is that there were six, maybe more.
- Barbara Heinzen

1/2 - Germantown, HRM 108: I came upon a flock of about twenty snow buntings feeding on the roadside in mid-afternoon. They moved a bit like starlings and shore birds, stopping to feed, rising and flocking, landing again, and repeating that behavior for the half mile or so that I was able to follow them.
- Mimi Brauch

1/2 - Staatsburg, HRM 86: As I approached the first small bay just down from the Mills Mansion at the Mills-Norrie State Park, I looked up to see an adult bald eagle gliding across just above me and beyond the nearby trees. When I reached the beach I looked back to see that the bird was now perched in a tree overlooking the river. A little while later a second bald eagle, this time an immature, flew over as I walked through the forest.
-  Jamie Collins

1/2 - Hyde Park, HRM 80: While leaving the Culinary Institute in late afternoon, I spotted two bald eagles straight overhead. One was an immature and the other was an adult. As they flew together and flapped their big wings, they seemed to be playing, with a little bit of tossing and turning in the air, little bits of the acrobatics that we'd seen so many times with winter eagles.
- Andra Sramek

1/2 - Walden, HRM 65: As I stepped out for my late night star-gazing, I was delighted to hear the loud plaintive call of great horned owls in nearby trees. It was too hazy for stars, but the owls' calls were reward enough in the frigid air. "Who's Awake? Me, too!" went back and forth, sometimes with one refrain starting up before the other had finished. I couldn't locate the silhouettes, but the conversation was fascinating.
- Patricia Henighan

1/2 - West Point, HRM 51: As I snow-shoed up the trail to Redoubt #1, I spotted lots of tracks in the snow but no wildlife other than squirrels. On the way down, however, I spooked a platoon (seven) of white-tailed deer returning from a raid in Highland Falls. About half of them raced up the hill toward Stony Lonesome; the others jumped over the cyclone fence and returned to the village.
- Dick Renfro

1/2 - Croton Point, HRM 35-34: On this, the coldest morning for at least a year, I tried to walk fast (walk fast; stay warm) but there were distractions. On the landfill, a kestrel, a harrier, and a dozen meadowlarks were all worth my attention. An immature bald eagle flapped past with lots of white on its breast and a white mantle, probably a three-year-old. Near the model plane flying field, same place as yesterday, I found two dozen horned larks. I do not recall seeing them here before this year. Close by were a dozen pipits, another kestrel that was perch hunting, and another harrier rocking and rolling in the stiff breeze.
- Christopher Letts

1/3 - Selkirk, HRM 135: Out at the woodshed this morning it was three degrees below zero. The sky was clear with the third quarter moon heading west. It also appeared that the Hudson River was frozen from shore-to-shore. It was very cold.
- Roberta S. Jeracka

1/3 - Ulster Park, HRM 87: As I drove to work, paralleling a small, half-iced stream, an angular black shape caught my eye. Was it a duck? Was it a crow? No, it was a mink on the ice just next to the open water. It rested a little and then picked up a small fish that was on the ice, presumably freshly caught, and scampered away.
- Peter Relson

1/3 - George's Island, HRM 39: I had not prepared well for the bitter cold this morning (ten below zero) and ended up doing my morning rounds behind the steering wheel. My nine-mile eagle survey of the Westchester County shoreline came up empty. At George's Island, I spotted a kettle of eight black vultures - flap, flap, flap - slowly rising in what must have been a very weak thermal.
- Christopher Letts

1/3 - Croton Point, HRM 34.5: A week ago Kyle Bardwell and I got a great photo of a barred owl perched on a broken snag with light snow falling. We had been seeing barred owls there on and off since end of November, as well as some eastern screech owls and resident great horned owls. I stopped to look today but could not find the barred owl. There were pipits and a kestrel on the landfill as well as a hunting harrier. 
- Larry Trachtenberg

1/4 - Beacon, HRM 61: It was bitterly cold this morning as I took a walk along the Klara Sauer Trail. As I walked north along the trail an adult bald eagle went flying south toward Denning's Point. Close by a pair of ravens were being very vocal as they circled around the area and a short time later two black vultures came gliding over heading east. Upstream on Fishkill Creek at Madam Brett Park, I was treated to two more bald eagles, an adult and an immature, circling the sky above me. The immature had an almost completely white tail and a lot of white feathers across its belly and all over its wings, likely a three-year-old.
- Jamie Collins

1/4 - Fishkill, HRM 61: Many birds had flocked to my feeders this morning and several were busy feeding on the seeds on the snow-covered ground. Suddenly, there was a flurry of feathers as birds were flying every which way in their attempts to flee a sharp-shinned hawk that had silently descended into their midst. One unlucky dark-eyed junco was unable to reach cover fast enough.  The sharp-shinned hawk briefly held its prey to the snow, and then carried it off to have its meal.
- Ed Spaeth

1/4 - Beacon, HRM 61: Five crows, quietly roosting in the bare trees along the train tracks at Riverside Park in mid-afternoon, all went into a frenzy - squawking loudly and mobbing a red-tailed hawk that came to roost nearby. The hawk was unperturbed and totally ignored them.
- Ed Spaeth

1/4 - Croton River, HRM 34: In a span of thirty minutes, five bald eagles flapped over. The dim light precluded the chance to determine their ages. A pair of hooded mergansers decorated the far shore of the Croton River.
- Christopher Letts

1/5 - Croton Point, HRM 35: The flock of horned larks seemed to favor the south end of the model plane "flying strip," attracted to the closely cropped grass. At least, that is where I have found them half a dozen times over the past few days. At least one kestrel and two harriers were still present, as well as many pipits.
- Christopher Letts

1/6 - Staatsburg, HRM 86: We've been enjoying four common redpolls - one male and three females - at our feeders, a first in 23 years of backyard feeder watching. While the numbers of house finches are back to what they were in the early 1990s, we have at least one male and one female with one eye swollen shut, an indication that the conjunctivitis that made them disappear for about ten years is still around. We're wiping down the feeder every day, hoping it helps keep the infection from spreading.
- Linda Lund, David Lund

1/6 - Pleasant Valley, HRM 75: We took advantage of this beautiful winter day to do some cross-country skiing at the Taconic Hereford Multiple Use Area, an activity which we sorely missed last year. I was thrilled to see the usual little visitors on the snow - winter stoneflies and snow fleas. There were some areas where the springtails made the snow dark with their presence.  Watching them hop about is, for me, just as much fun as skiing!
- Cornelia Harris

[Members of a group of insects called springtails, snow fleas (Hypogastrura nivicola) have a little forked tail (furcula) that they fold under their body and use to spring up many times their body length. Their bodies contain a protein that acts as a natural antifreeze, allowing them to be active on top of snow where on warm days they're easy to spot, looking like animated bits of black pepper. Tom Lake.]

1/6 - Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 35: A trim shape flew straight to perch in one of the oak trees that Hurricane Sandy left standing at the edge of my property.  Facing into the sunlight, I saw only a silhouette and could not identify the bird. The shape of the body and its pointed head, beak, and overall size, suggested a Cooper's hawk.  There were quite a few in the nearby woods.  As I flipped through my field guide it left, just as a huge bird took off from the edge of the reservoir. The bird slowly flapped its wings a couple of times into a shaft of sunlight.  A big eagle! With a white head and white tail feathers, it was an adult. It gained height and headed off toward the Hudson.
- Robin Fox

1/6 - Croton Point, HRM 34.5: The Point was not as active today as it had been in the past couple of weeks. Two kestrels were on the landfill and four common goldeneyes were feeding far off the swimming beach. That, plus half a dozen horned larks near the flying field, was all that I could say grace over this morning. 
- Christopher Letts

1/6 - New York Harbor, Lower Bay: A New York Harbor eco-cruise for New York City Audubon yielded a rich assortment of species. It was a two-hour trip out past the Verrazano Narrows to Swinburne and Hoffman Islands and back. It was unseasonably warm and calm as we sailed through Buttermilk Channel, stopped in Erie Basin in Red Hook, and then continued out through the Narrows. Erie Basin yielded several brant, gadwall, red-breasted mergansers, buffleheads, and a great cormorant. Near the Verrazano Bridge, we had a red-throated loon and a peregrine falcon. Along Hoffman Island we encountered several more buffleheads, some greater scaup, and three fly-by Bonaparte's Gulls. I was surprised to spot great numbers of long-tailed ducks at Swinburne Island, at least 40 birds, most of which were males. We also spotted two or three red-throated loons and a couple of common loons, and were treated to close views of several adult northern gannets flying right by the boat. The highlight: at least a dozen harbor seals bobbing curiously around the boat.
- Gabriel Willow

1/7 - Hudson River Valley: Today was the 35th annual New York State Mid-Winter Bald Eagle Census. It was sunny with a blue sky and only the snow on the uplands could masquerade the white heads and tails of adult bald eagles. Since the bald eagle was de-listed as an endangered species in 2007, coupled with an apparent strengthening of their numbers in the Northeast, there does not seem to be quite the sense of urgency in verifying their presence. However, this does not deter from our love of the count. Our final tally for the day would be 33 eagles from river mile 102 south to 34. From experience, given the vagaries of human observation and limited access to many areas, that number probably represented fewer than half of the eagles in attendance across those 68 miles.  
- Tom Lake

1/7 - Saugerties, HRM 102: Half an hour after high tide this morning, five bald eagles (three adults and two immature) were clustered together on an ice floe in the cove northwest of the Saugerties Lighthouse. Meanwhile, two more adult eagles perched together in a treetop on the jetty southwest of the lighthouse, watching a flock of common mergansers in the mouth of Esopus Creek. We had seven eagles total, all within a few hundred yards of the lighthouse.
- Patrick Landewe

1/7 - Stanfordville, HRM 84: I tag-teamed with my friend Adrienne today searching for eagles because we both bird the same area and knew our birds appear at various times throughout the day at our local pond. Our final count was two adults and two immatures. While the pond is now frozen, it is surrounded by a stocked game preserve of which - no doubt - the eagles take advantage since they are twenty miles east of the Hudson River.
- Debi Kral

1/7 - Annandale-on-Hudson, HRM 99: Right after Hurricane Sandy, a lone snow goose appeared just off Buttock's Island in Tivoli South Bay. It looked pretty bedraggled, and stuck it out through the fall and into December. Bard College students enjoyed seeing the bird and photographing it. I went out today along the South Bay hoping without much hope that it would still be there. It wasn't. I stood on the island enjoying watching two immature bald eagles as they scared up ring-billed gulls and one great blue heron. I walked south and there, to my amazement, was the snow goose, loitering near the mouth of the Saw Kill.
- Susan Fox Rogers

1/7 - Poughquag, Town of Beekman, HRM 71: I saw two immature bald eagles off Route 216 today. A few weeks ago, we spotted an adult bald eagle on a deer carcass in the same field. The area is over the mountain from Nuclear Lake and Whaley Lake in Pawling, where eagles are regular visitors.
- Patti Mackay

1/7 - Hudson River, HRM 68-58: The thermometer read 35 degrees Fahrenheit at dawn with a clear sky and light winds. A good day for counting eagles, if they were here. The first handicap of winter eagle counting is open water. Floe ice draws the birds from their often hidden niches in riverside trees and gets them out where they can be seen and counted, but there was no ice on the estuary today for at least the first 80 miles upriver. Across ten miles and over two hours, I found four adults, all of whom could have been local birds from at least two nests in that reach of the river.
- Tom Lake

1/7 - West Point, HRM 51: I was out walking along the river at noon when I spotted four common loons out on the river off the South Dock.  There were two groups of two, widely spaced. 
- Doug Gallagher

1/7 - Westchester County, HRM 43-34: With a reporter and photographer in tow, we canvassed the nine-mile reach of the river from China Pier south to the Croton River counting eagles. We began at Croton Point where five eagles had night-roosted: two adults, two immature, and a three-year-old on the verge of adulthood. At Oscawana, another three-year-old flew past, 100 feet over the water and moving fast. At George's Island, a bird came in from the east and perched on Dogan Point. The spotting scope revealed the dingy white head and tail of yet another three-year-old. At Verplanck, an adult was perched in a tall locust alongside a residential driveway not 150 feet from our viewing station. Across the river over Stony Point in Rockland County two more eagles wheeled over the treetops. At Lent's Cove in Peekskill, an adult was perched in a riverside oak. Finally, we pulled into the parking lot at China Pier in Peekskill, more to see the great cormorants than for any other reason, but there were two immatures circling high over Peekskill Bay. It was a pleasant morning with thirteen bald eagles.
- Christopher Letts

WINTER 2013 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS
January 19 - 2:00 PM
Discover Norrie Walk: Winter Wonders with DEC Naturalist Jim Herrington at Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free; family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

February 2 - 12:00 noon
Looking for Bald Eagles with DEC Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist Tom Lake at Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free; family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

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 E-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 sign up to receive the E-Almanac (or to unsubscribe), send an email message to hrep@gw.dec.state.ny.us and write E-Almanac in the subject line.

Weekly issues are archived at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/25611.html . The DEC website's search engine can find species, locations, and other data in the archives.

The Hudson River Estuary Program has an e-newsletter! Stay connected by subscribing to RiverNet, which covers projects, events and actions related to the Hudson and its watershed.www.dec.ny.gov/lands/76018.html

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. For a free, no-obligation issue go tohttp://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/conservationist.html

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

Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

OVERVIEW
The year ended with ten days of winter birds, emerging ice, and feelings of renewal right around the corner. The impetus for avian migration came from a mid-week snowstorm that left up to fifteen inches of snow in the watershed. 

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
12/22 - Milan, HRM 90: There have been several bobcat encounters, both sight and sound, along the quiet road where I live. The latest was at 7:00 PM this evening when a neighbor reported that as he was driving home he had to stop because two bobcats appeared to be playing together on the road.  He was able to watch them for awhile before one moved quickly off the road into the brush and was followed shortly by the second cat.
- Frank Margiotta

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES
12/22 - Wappinger Falls, HRM 67.5: I watched for a while as a gorgeous hen common merganser repeatedly dove on what I assumed were fish. She finally surfaced with a pumpkinseed sunfish in her serrated bill.
- Debi Kral  

12/22 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: It was well after dark and snow flurries were in the air. The trees along the pathway were listing from the strong northerlies and from them I could hear one of the most haunting sounds of the season: winter winds rushing through conifers. 
- Tom Lake

12/23 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: I was driving home in mid-afternoon when I spotted a flight of vultures. I was able to both count (22) and identify them (black vultures) as they flew from northwest to southeast. What a nice Christmas present!
- Andra Sramek

12/23 - Hammond's Point, HRM 60: From the window of our speeding commuter train we were able to spot two immature bald eagles lounging in a cottonwood near the mouth of Fishkill Creek. Were these winter birds or locals? There had not yet been any real motivation for Canadian eagles to move this far south for the winter.
- Tom Lake, T.R. Jackson

12/23 - Croton Point, HRM 36: While there is nothing like a flock of bluebirds to lift the spirit, a flock of 40 American pipits will suffice. I walked the bathing beach and picked up a dozen splits of stove wood, washed down from who knows where, to be burned in the wood stove when I have time to watch the fire and consider the matter.
- Christopher Letts

12/23 - Bronx-Westchester County: The Bronx-Westchester County Christmas Bird Count tallied a preliminary total of 126 species that tied for the highest number seen on this 89-year count. Three new species were found: the barnacle goose in Van Cortlandt Park; a magnolia warbler at Wave Hill in the Bronx; and two clay-colored sparrows, one in Pelham Bay Park and one at Marshlands Conservancy in Rye.
- Michael Bochnik

12/23 - Brooklyn, New York City: A morning sea watch at the boardwalk at 35th Street in Coney Island was fairly interesting, although there wasn't a ton of diversity. The recent influx of long-tailed ducks continued as I watched about 350 fly west toward Gravesend Bay, and saw many others in the water and flying around. I also had two separate razorbills fly by close to shore, heading west
- Doug Gochfeld

12/24 - Town of Esopus, HRM 87: On Christmas Eve we were driving north on route 9W and received a lovely gift from nature: an adult bald eagle was flying in lazy circles 150 feet above the roadway. We watched it from our car for about 30 seconds. Then the bird dipped its wing, nodded its head in our direction as if to make a greeting, and soared off toward the river.
- Mark Moriarty, Linda Moriarty

12/24 - Stanfordville, HRM 84: I had stopped by Tamarack for some landscape pictures when I spotted a red-tailed hawk sitting high in a tree. Suddenly, a huge bird seemed to come out of nowhere and started flying toward me: an immature bald eagle. The hawk, on territory, flew over to drive the eagle away. What a thrill to watch! Both birds returned to their "corners": the hawk to its tree on the north side; the eagle to the "eagle tree" (a big oak) on the south side of the pond.
- Debi Kral

12/24 - Croton Point, HRM 34.5: A kestrel that I had been seeing for a while was hunting this morning on the windward edge of the landfill. When a special bird stays this long in the season, I always hope that it will winter.
- Christopher Letts

12/25 - Fulton County, HRM 209: On my way to the North Country, I was rewarded with excellent views of thirteen pine grosbeaks in Queensbury this afternoon. The birds had been reported in the general area, feeding on the numerous crab apple trees surrounding the Queensbury Middle School.
- Derek Rogers

12/26 - Rensselaer County, HRM 135: Three snow geese were present at the intersection of Schodack Landing Road and Muitzeskill Road where many had been reported earlier in December. We also counted five northern harriers hunting the nearby fields (four females and one male).
- Jesse Jaycox

12/26 - Rhinebeck, HRM 90: There had been very few birds and very few species at the thistle feeder beyond my deck, but this morning there were three common redpolls eating together - a welcome change from the chickadees, juncos, and occasional goldfinch. Maybe I just happened to look out the window at the right time.
- Phyllis Marsteller

12/26 - Rhinecliff, HRM 88: We were sitting in the car alongside the tracks and the Hudson near Rhinecliff when two gorgeous adult bald eagles flew twenty feet over us. I fell out of the car, tangled in the seatbelt, trying to take a photograph. I had never been that close.
- Debi Kral

12/26 - Red Hook, HRM 96.5: While on the Ulster-Dutchess Christmas Bird Count, my birding partner and I spotted a merlin at Greig Farms. There was also a female northern harrier "quarter-hunting" over the fields. The merlin landed on a utility pole and, at first, with a sidelong glance, I thought it was a pigeon (is that why it was once called the pigeon hawk?). As I got out of the car to double-check, the bird, clearly a merlin, took off southwest across the fields in very swift, direct flight. We lost sight of it but took off in the direction of the bird to try to relocate it. Later we found it perched high atop a tall tree, tearing apart an unidentified songbird.
- Fred Baumgarten

[Merlins are one of three falcons that we see with regularity in the Hudson Valley. In the 1934 edition of the Roger Tory Peterson Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America, the merlin is referred to as the eastern pigeon hawk. The two others are the peregrine falcon (duck hawk) and the kestrel (sparrow hawk). Peterson offered these common names as a guide to each falcon's preferred prey size. Tom Lake.]

12/27 - Newcomb, HRM 302: Yesterday's storm dropped at least fifteen inches of snow on the High Peaks of the Adirondacks.
- Charlotte Demers

12/27 - Rensselaer County, HRM 139: The bird feeders in Stephentown were mobbed following the snowstorm. Common redpolls have been present for a week or more and have been increasing in number from two or three to now more than 40. They are usually at the feeder first thing in the morning and then gone for the rest of the day. But today they hung around all day. We counted 42 common redpolls with ten to twelve house finches and a few chickadees, juncos, and goldfinches mixed in. In addition to feeding on sunflower seed, the redpolls were stripping catkins from the white birch tree next to the feeders.
- Jesse Jaycox

12/27 - Milan, HRM 90: We got about seven inches of snow with a coating of ice from the storm. The usual suspects were at the feeders: juncos, cardinals, blue jays, hairy, downy, and red-bellied woodpeckers, titmice, chickadees, brown creepers, crows, and one wild turkey. Turkey numbers have been way down this year. I keep the feeders full - it's a full time job with the squirrels.
- Marty Otter

12/27 - Wappinger Creek, HRM 67.5:  I counted fourteen common mergansers, an even split of hens and drakes, on Wappinger Creek. There was a very thin icy covering across most of it.
- Jamie Collins

12/27 - New Hamburg, HRM 67.5: We received four inches of extremely heavy, wet slushy snow from the storm on Rabbit Island. The wooden handle of a snow shovel snapped in half under the weight. The storm contributed to a very high river level at high tide. Hooded mergansers circled around the island and rested on the rock swale at the south edge.
- David Cullen

[Like hurricanes, nor'easters can cause storm surge and storm tides. As shown by the green line in this graph from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's tide gauge at the Battery in New York City (visit http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/geo.shtml?location=8518750; in Products column click on Preliminary Water Level), the December 26-27 nor'easter pushed a five foot storm surge into the estuary. Fortunately, the surge peaked at low tide; flooding would have been more severe if the surge had occurred at high tide. Steve Stanne.]

12/27 - Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 35: The much anticipated snow storm dropped slushy, wet stuff. The birds were feeding non-stop and the squirrels were racing through the tree tops as if they didn't want to get their feet wet.
- Robin Fox

12/27 - Manhattan, New York City: An unlikely American woodcock was seen dodging traffic and theater-leaving pedestrians this evening in the area of Manhattan's Eighth Avenue and 45th Streets.
- Keith Michael

12/28 - Milan, HRM 90: It has been awhile since we've had a large flock of common redpolls at our feeders. There were more than twenty birds in a feeding frenzy from feeder to feeder (thistle, platform, sunflower). They did not stay around long and were very difficult to check because of all the movement. I had one good look at an adult male: deep pink on the breast. Probably the others were first year, female and other males. It would have been nice to identify a hoary redpoll in with the nomadic flock.
- Frank Margiotta

12/28 - Verbank, HRM 82: I was heading home on Oak Summit Road when I had to quickly stop the car for a double-take: perched in a tree alongside the road was an adult bald eagle.
- Debi Kral

12/28 - Wappinger Falls, HRM 67.5: While walking to Wappinger Lake today, my wife pointed up to the sky at a bird and asked me what it was. I looked up to see an immature snowy owl gliding quite low above us, heading southward. It was low enough that I could see some barring on the underside of the wings and breast.
- Jamie Collins, Leena Collins

12/29 - Minerva, HRM 284: We received fourteen inches of nice dry snow from the other day's storm, on top of four inches of previous white stuff. Snow was needed and was very much appreciated here in the Gore Mountain region. It's snowing pretty hard again today and we have a fresh five inches on the ground with several more inches expected. The dogs and I, and our fine Korean student, Woo Seok, got out on the snowshoes this afternoon. It was Woo's first time on snowshoes and it was great (I highly recommend snowshoes whether you have a foot or only five inches of snow).
- Mike Corey

12/29 - North Germantown HRM 108. During light snowfall in the late afternoon, I was cross-country skiing along the Hudson south of Lasher Park. Cross country skiing doesn't make a lot of noise, but it was enough to disturb a large flock of Canada geese sheltering in the lee of the steep brushy bank. Alerted by their honking, I skied through the heavy brush to the bank to take a picture which, unfortunately, only disturbed them more. Upriver and downriver the geese barely moved, but right by me they went out about a hundred feet forming a perfect arc, with me at the center. There were far too many to count, but my best guess was 300.
- Kaare Christian

12/29 - New Paltz, HRM 78: It began snowing in late morning and birds started mobbing the feeders, knocking each other off the perches, so we threw black oil sunflower seeds on the ground as well. A very large flock of Canada geese was sitting in the snow in the Wallkill River flood plain, hunkering down waiting for the snow to stop.
- Lynn Bowdery

12/30 - Stanfordville, HRM 84: I have had a pileated woodpecker in my yard for the last couple of years. This morning he seemed to like the black cherry tree, feeding on some insects in the bark and making a large hole in it. I saw what looked like mating behavior last spring, with two large woodpeckers circling the tree, clinging to the bark.
- Nancy Clancy

12/30 - Town of Fishkill, HRM 63.5: While shoveling on a cold, windy, partly cloudy morning, I could hear Canada geese approaching from way overhead. I looked up to see, not the usual "V" formation of geese flying south, but an actual "W" of geese with two leaders pointing the way by being positioned right in the center. I've never seen anything like that. There had to be a couple of hundred birds. Fifteen minutes later a usual "V" formation was overhead with another flock heading south as well.
- Andra Sramek

12/30 - Orange County, HRM 44: We spent a couple of hours in the afternoon checking out several "hot spots," expecting that the recent cold and ground-covering snow would have brought in some long-expected arrivals. Near Goshen, we picked up two snow buntings flying in time with our car; they landed on the road's edge as we slowed down to enjoy them. In the Pine Island area we ran into a flock of 120 horned larks and with them seven snow buntings and two Lapland longspurs.
- Ken McDermott, Steve Schuyler

12/30 - Pleasantville, HRM 32: A large flock of vultures has made the historic district of Pleasantville its winter home, soaring overhead and roosting on trees and rooftops right in the center of town. We counted the flock as numbering at least 80. It contained a 50:50 mix of turkey vultures and the much more recently range-expanding black vultures that used to be a southern species. We wonder how so many individuals get enough to eat; they must range far and wide to find road-killed animals to scavenge.
- Joe Wallace, Sharon AvRutick

12/31 - Fulton County, HRM 209: A friend and I went to look for the pine grosbeaks [see 12/25] in Queensbury, checking several of the areas where they had been reported, but came up empty handed. We eventually found seventeen pine grosbeaks on a trail behind the Adirondack Community College before a sharp-shinned hawk flushed the birds away. Further on we saw several pine grosbeaks, many cedar waxwings plus one possible Bohemian waxwing, and a bluebird. A while later, twenty miles south at Northumberland, two birders reported seeing a greater white-fronted goose.
- Jesse Jaycox

12/31 - Kinderhook, HRM 135: Birding from our car in midday, we spotted a light phase rough-legged hawk perched in a tree at the side of the road. As we drove further on to a straightaway where we could turn, a flock of about 50 snow buntings fed at the road's edge before flying into an adjacent field. A little further on, a kestrel was perched on a telephone pole. When we finally returned to the rough-legged hawk, it lifted off, showing a pale belly, so perhaps it was an adult male.
- Danny Lynch, Clellie Lynch

12/31 - Hillsdale, HRM 119: Today and for the last week, we have had a small flock of common redpolls at our feeder. The sun glinting off that violet-red spot on their head is spectacular. We also were visited by a grackle that gulped a few pieces of suet and then moved on.
- Bob Schmidt, Kathy Schmidt

12/31 - George's Island, HRM 39: The white head feathers of a bald eagle are unmistakable, but a sighting from a hundred yards away, with the bird sheltered among branches, made it less certain. I did not want to paddle my kayak any closer to be sure and I was also thinking that it could be a patch of snow on a branch. But then an immature eagle flew over me and landed in the same tree, where the two birds began to speak "eagle" to each other.
- Stephen Butterfass

12/31 – Oscawana, HRM 38.5: We were so excited to spot our first bald eagle of the season at Oscawana Point today. Although the lakes and ponds have been frozen in this area, we didn't know if our winter eagles had arrived yet from up north, but are now hopeful that this was one of the visitors. Our sighting was a beautiful adult bird, silhouetted against the gray afternoon sky, as it perched on a high branch over the point. The river was serene and glassy, unlike yesterday's roiling white-capped water. What a perfect way to end 2012!
- Dorothy Ferguson, Bob Ferguson

12/31 - Croton Point, HRM 35-34:  The new snow on the Point was laced with coyote tracks from end-to-end. After a protracted delay due to warm weather, wintering eagles might be starting to move south. An immature was perched on the Point today. Three eastern meadowlarks were feeding up on the landfill as a kestrel watched from a well marker. The bathing beach was a barren, tide-swept, frozen moonscape, where several small flocks of pipits were foraging. A single snow bunting was having a lonely morning and a killdeer flushed ahead of me several times as I walked the length of the beach.
- Christopher Letts

WINTER 2013 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS
January 7-8
The thirty-fifth annual New York State Mid-Winter Bald Eagle Census. If you have the opportunity, e-mail us reports of any bald eagle sightings on these two days. Please specify date, location, adult/immature, as well as details and context if they add to the sighting. Tom Lake trlake7@aol.com

January 19 - 2:00 PM
Discover Norrie Walk: Winter Wonders with DEC Naturalist Jim Herrington at Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free; family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

February 2 - 12:00 noon
Looking for Bald Eagles with DEC Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist Tom Lake at Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free; family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

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 E-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 sign up to receive the E-Almanac (or to unsubscribe), send an email message to hrep@gw.dec.state.ny.us and write E-Almanac in the subject line.

Weekly issues are archived at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/25611.html . The DEC website's search engine can find species, locations, and other data in the archives.

The Hudson River Estuary Program has an e-newsletter! Stay connected by subscribing to RiverNet, which covers projects, events and actions related to the Hudson and its watershed. www.dec.ny.gov/lands/76018.html

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. For a free, no-obligation issue go to http://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/conservationist.html


USEFUL LINKS
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide predictions are available online athttp://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.shtml?gid=62 NOAA’s 2012 tidal current predictions are athttp://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/currents12/ .

For real-time information on Hudson River tides, weather and water conditions from eight monitoring stations, visit the Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System website at http://www.hrecos.org .

Historical information on the movements of the salt front in the Hudson estuary is presented by the U.S. Geological Survey:http://ny.water.usgs.gov/projects/dialer_plots/saltfront.html .

Information about the Hudson River Estuary Program is available on DEC's website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4920.html .

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

Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

OVERVIEW
The week ended with the passing of autumn and the advent of winter. While the High Peaks of the Adirondacks were white with snow and waters there were freezing over, there was little ice or other evidence of winter in the lower reaches of the watershed. As a result, the diversity of waterfowl in the mid- and lower Hudson Valley was unusual for the season. 

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK 
12/14 - Newcomb, HRM 302: Air temperatures in the teens the last few nights had frozen up most of the lakes and ponds. Snow covered the Adirondack High Peaks but there was just a dusting on the ground in town. Animals were getting ready for winter as demonstrated by our encounter with a porcupine today: My colleague and I found one apparently trying to use one of our kayaks for a winter den. We were putting boats into winter storage and when we went to pick up the kayak we were startled by some movement and noise. It seems that a porcupine thought the bow of a kayak was the perfect place to keep out of the winter weather. We thought about letting it stay where it was but the amount of fecal matter and urine in the kayak made us think the boat would be unusable, or certainly not pleasant to use, if we let the animal remain there for an entire season. Hopefully it found something more suitable. Porcupines do not hibernate during winter; they depend on body fat (up to 60% of their body mass), their ability to get nutrition from some poor quality foods, and spending their time either eating or resting in their dens.
- Charlotte Demers

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES
12/15 - Peebles Island, HRM 158: From its perch high atop a silo by the park's visitor center, an immature bald eagle quietly surveyed the waters of the Mohawk River at its confluence with the Hudson. It also kept a wary eye on human activity in Peebles Island State Park below.
- Ed Spaeth

12/15 - Ulster County: Our sixty-third annual Mohonk-Ashokan Reservoir Christmas Bird Count documented a total of 10,461 birds of 78 species. Diversity was very good, falling just one species short of our all-time high of 79 in 2007, and well above the most recent ten-year average of 67. Highlights were dominated by waterfowl, including the addition of a new species to the 63-year composite. Two lingering northern pintail represent a first record and advanced the historical total to 144 species. Four green-winged teal were counted for only the second time; three American wigeon represented our third historical record; one wood duck represented a fourth record; and a gadwall and a lesser scaup were both encountered for only the fifth time. New high counts were set for several species, including 425 snow geese (eclipsing 286 in 2008), and 145 eastern bluebirds tied our previous high count from 2006. [Northern pintail photo from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.]
- Steve M. Chorvas, 34 colleagues

12/15 - Eddyville, HRM 92: While out searching our part of the Mohonk-Ashokan Christmas Bird Count, we stopped at the DEC boat launch site on Rondout Creek. It was totally windless and the surface of the creek was completely still. Two female common mergansers took off and quickly became four mergansers as they flew low upstream. Remarkably, two were flying upside down directly beneath the other two. We thought for a second and decided to do the right thing and only enter two mergansers in our tally.
- Lynn Bowdery, Lin Fagan, Maeve Maurer, David Arnett

12/15 - Ulster County, HRM 81: This afternoon a female white-winged crossbill spent about an hour happily eating sunflower hearts out of our feeder in Tillson. I'd never seen one before.
- Jason Taylor

12/15 - Wappinger Creek, HRM 67.5: I was moving along Creek Road when I looked up to see an adult bald eagle flying low, heading toward the Hudson River. There was no way to tell for sure, but it may have been one of the mated pair from the local nest. On the creek below were five common mergansers, two drakes and three hens.
- Jamie Colins

12/15 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: You had to be very quick to notice it, but the sun set a minute later today for the first time since the fourth of July.
- Tom Lake

12/15 - Yorktown Heights, HRM 43: Nine redhead ducks, five drakes and four hens, were seen at the Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park this morning and then again in late afternoon. They were in with a group of 24 ring-necked ducks. Also present in the same area were two pied-billed grebes, eight bufflehead, and four gadwall.
- Anne Swaim

12/15 - Brooklyn, New York City: The highlights of the Jamaica Bay section of the Brooklyn Christmas Bird Count included an American white pelican that flew in from the direction of the Marine Parkway Bridge and then cut over Terrapin Point before disappearing from our view. This was a first for the Brooklyn Christmas Bird Count. Also sighted pre-dawn was a male Barrow's goldeneye on the West Pond of the Jamaica Wildlife Refuge, in company with sixteen common goldeneyes. We also had a Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrow, seaside sparrow, American bittern, clapper rail, canvasback, and a flock of 69 boat-tailed grackles feeding on the mudflats. We got shut out of ruddy ducks for the first time in our memory after having counted more than 3,000 last year.
- Doug Gochfeld, Bob Gochfeld, Steve Walter, Jeff Ritter, Eric Miller.

12/15 - Brooklyn, New York City: The Kings County Christmas Bird Count documented 135 species, tieing our all-time record. The list included a juvenile drake Eurasian wigeon photographed by Barbara Wasserman. Of species counted, brant were the most numerous. Among the rare sightings (seen three times or less in the last decade) were Barrow's goldeneye, American white pelican, semipalmated plover, Wilson's snipe, Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrow, seaside sparrow, red crossbill, white-winged crossbill, common redpoll, blackpoll warbler, and Nashville warbler. A cave swallow was new to our count. 
- Peter Dorosh

[The cave swallow is a locally common swallow of Texas, Mexico, and the Caribbean. True to its name, it often roosts and nests inside the entrances to caves, sharing the space with bats. Roger Tory Peterson describes the cave swallow as an "accidental from the tropics," a stray in our area. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.]

12/16 - Brockway, Dutchess County, HRM 62: It was a wonder that we spotted the bird. The snowy owl was perched on the white roof of a white building, with a white sky as backdrop. Our consensus was that, given its mottled plumage, this was a first year bird.
- Barbara Michelin, Barbara Mansell, Margie Robinson, Rosa Corbeels, Tom Lake

[Fall and winter incursions of snowy owls are more or less regular occurrences every few years and are thought to be caused by the low numbers of their prey to the north: hares and lemmings. Unfortunately, many of the snowy owls that show up in our area are badly malnourished. Eric Lind.]

12/16 - Rockland County:  A total of 13,826 birds representing 87 species were counted for the sixty-sixth annual Rockland County Christmas Bird Count. The number of species documented was fairly typical. The range from 1947 through 2011 is 47 to 92, with an average of 74. Among the notable sightings were northern shoveler (133), the highest number ever recorded (previous high 94 in 2011), and bald eagle (44), the highest number ever recorded (previous high 29 in 2007). Canvasbacks continued to decline; only sixteen were counted compared to the average of 181 (1947-2011).
- Alan Wells

12/16 - Queens, New York City: Preliminary results for the Queens County Christmas Bird Count included 109 species. Among the unusual birds were dovekie, American white pelican, common eider, razorbill, bald eagle, white-winged crossbills, and indigo bunting.
- Arie Gilbert

12/17 - Town of Warwick, HRM 44: I counted eight red-tailed hawks and one red-shouldered hawk across seven miles of the Pulaski Highway as it bisected the agricultural fields of the Black Dirt region of Orange County. The coal black of the soil was accented by the new, light, bright green cover crops of barley and Sudan grass.
- Tom Lake

[This part of Orange County, known as the "Black Dirt," between Florida and Pine Island, is an important agricultural area, growing enormous amounts of produce such as onions, potatoes, lettuce, radishes, cabbage, carrots, corn, pumpkin, and squash in the highly organic soil. The soil is black from a millennia of decomposing organics - in some places it is essentially a compost heap. The black dirt topsoil,  feet deep, originates from a late Pleistocene lake and swampland and is filled with bones of extinct animals such as mastodont, ground sloth, peccary, and stag-moose that lived and died here 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Tom Lake.]

12/17 - Town of Warwick, HRM 41: A low-hanging fog hung over Liberty Marsh, keeping most of the birds on the water - including no fewer than a thousand mallards. I hiked the Liberty Loop Trail (2.75 miles; highly recommended) in search of the sandhill cranes that were seen here recently. While the cranes proved elusive I did spot four common pintails and four gorgeous northern shovelers. As I rounded the far bend of the trail my binoculars picked up two charcoal-gray coyotes nimbly making their way through the wet grass on the far side of the marsh a quarter-mile away.
- Tom Lake

[Liberty Marsh's 335 acres are part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge, adjacent to and near the headwaters of the Wallkill River. Tom Lake.]

12/18 - Newcomb, HRM 302: The weather has been hit or miss lately: snow, sleet, ice pellets, rain, and everything in between. There is not much on the ground. We had two inches of snow last night but it won't last long given that it's raining now.
- Charlotte Demers

12/18 - Crugers, HRM 39: After several rainy days and a very heavy downpour last night, the sun finally showed itself this afternoon and sparkled on the calm, still river. We went looking for Ogilvie's Pond’s great blue heron with no luck. However we did spot four beautiful hooded mergansers, two drakes and two hens. The white crests on the males' heads caught our attention at first, but it was a while before we spotted the reddish-brown-headed females behind them.
- Dorothy Ferguson, Bob Ferguson

12/18 - Croton Point, HRM35-34: As I began my walk I worked hard on conjuring up a flock of bluebirds, but with no luck. What I did get was a nice look at two very tame fox sparrows. As I passed the marshy woods on the southwest side of the point a great blue heron launched from a low branch; it was so close that I could hear its wings as it passed overhead. What was it doing - mousing? A few minutes later, there was a handsome mature peregrine falcon on the verge of the marsh, perch-hunting at the edge of the phragmites.
- Christopher Letts

12/19 - Town of Warwick, HRM 41: With a steady west wind at 20 miles per hour, this was decidedly not an optimum day for birding. As I walked the Liberty Marsh Loop Trail no fewer than a hundred mallards took flight all at once. Had they heard or seen me? I looked overhead and there was the answer: an adult bald eagle canting its wings into the wind, making lazy circles over the fleeing ducks. At the far end of the trail I came upon an eagle 'kill site" where a mallard had been taken. There were feathers everywhere but all the good parts were missing. Three northern harriers plied their trade over the hummocks with their artful maneuvers, making slow glides over the marsh in the face of the stiff wind. They dipped and darted, teetered and swayed, showing off their incredible dexterity while hunting. On the way out I flushed a rough-legged hawk and spotted the only unexpected birds of the day: red crossbills.
- Tom Lake

12/19 - Croton Point, HRM 34.5: It was a brisk and blowy morning and as I crested the landfill I was glad to have opted for an insulated jacket. A day ago I had counted more than two dozen species of birds; today allotted me fewer than half of that. I did see a fleet flock of cedar waxwings, in short supply this season. They wheeled and whirled over my head like a tightly choreographed snowflake ballet.
- Christopher Letts

12/20 - Rhinebeck HRM 95: As I crossed the Kingston- Rhinecliff Bridge, I counted six snow geese: three going north and three going south, all at about bridge level. A first for me!
- Marty Otter

12/20 - Croton Point, HRM 34.5: It was a good day for a walk: calm and crisp. A kestrel was hunting for breakfast while an eagle observed from a cottonwood, white head outlined against blue sky. Half-a-dozen red-winged blackbirds glided in and joined a big flock of starlings while golden-crowned kinglets were busy in the canopy.
- Christopher Letts

12/20 - Croton River, HRM 34: I watched a red-throated loon struggle to swallow a good-sized white perch, diving with the fish several times, then surfacing to try again. I did not stay to see the conclusion.
- Christopher Letts

12/21 - Town of Wappinger, HRM 67: Winter arrived an hour before dawn on the solstice with driving rain pushed by 30 mile per hour winds and gusts over 50. Despite the presence of coyotes, owls and songbirds, the woods were eerily silent except for the screeching of branches against limbs and tree trunks - it sounded like a forest full of banshees.
- Tom Lake

12/21 - Furnace Woods, HRM 38.5: A lone wood duck was still at the Croton Mill Pond and it was nice to have a peek at it as I passed on the winter solstice. The seasons seem out of joint, somehow, with birds still present that generally are long gone, and migrants from the north not yet arrived. I was thinking about this while doing some gardening and noticed crocus and daffodils pushing green tips up. Some of the daffodils were up six inches and I gave them a little cautionary admonishment. When we moved to Furnace Woods 25 years ago there was no doubt that we were solidly in Growing Zone 6. Now we surely are in Zone 7, and last winter may have been Zone 8 - food for thought.
- Christopher Letts

12/21 - Brooklyn, New York City: Watching from the end of Bay Parkway, I counted seven fly-by dovekies over Gravesend Bay, heading southbound in three groups.
- Doug Gochfeld

[Dovekies are a tiny north Atlantic species of the Alcidae family, a group of birds very similar to penguins, except that they can fly (the extinct great auk however, was flightless – a good example of convergent evolution). The other alcids include the Atlantic puffin, black guillemot, razorbill, and common and thick-billed murre. A dovekie is only about the size of a starling; ornithologist Paul Guris describes them as "fluffy little black-and-white nerf footballs in flight." They nest in colonies estimated to number in the millions in the very high Arctic latitudes and winter at sea as far south as New England and New York. In our area, dovekies winter in huge numbers on the water, well offshore. Despite their large numbers they are rarely seen from land. In past years, however, severe storms have driven large numbers of dovekies inshore. It's a rough life for these small seabirds that have to survive eating plankton in an ocean environment where storms can kick up waves in excess of 50 feet high. Rich Guthrie.]

WINTER 2013 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS
January 7-8
The thirty-fifth annual New York State Mid-Winter Bald Eagle Census. If you have the opportunity, e-mail us reports of any bald eagle sightings on these two days. Please specify date, location, adult/immature, as well as details and context if they add to the sighting. Tom Lake trlake7@aol.com

January 19 - 2:00 PM
Discover Norrie Walk: Winter Wonders with DEC Naturalist Jim Herrington at Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free; family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

February 2 - 12:00 noon
Looking for Bald Eagles with DEC Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist Tom Lake at Norrie Point Environmental Center, Staatsburg [Dutchess County]. Free; family-friendly, all ages. For information: 845-889-4745 x109.

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 E-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 sign up to receive the E-Almanac (or to unsubscribe), send an email message to hrep@gw.dec.state.ny.us and write E-Almanac in the subject line.

Weekly issues are archived at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/25611.html . The DEC website's search engine can find species, locations, and other data in the archives.

The Hudson River Estuary Program has an e-newsletter! Stay connected by subscribing to RiverNet, which covers projects, events and actions related to the Hudson and its watershed.www.dec.ny.gov/lands/76018.html

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. For a free, no-obligation issue go tohttp://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/conservationist.html

USEFUL LINKS
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide predictions are available online athttp://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.shtml?gid=62 NOAA’s 2012 tidal current predictions are at http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/currents12/ .

For real-time information on Hudson River tides, weather and water conditions from eight monitoring stations, visit the Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System website athttp://www.hrecos.org .

Historical information on the movements of the salt front in the Hudson estuary is presented by the U.S. Geological Survey: http://ny.water.usgs.gov/projects/dialer_plots/saltfront.html .

Information about the Hudson River Estuary Program is available on DEC's website athttp://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4920.html .

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