Hudson River Almanac 3/16/2019 - 3/22/2019
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation sent this bulletin on 03/29/2019 02:00 PM EDT |
| DEC Delivers - Information to keep you connected and informed from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation |
| Share or view as a web page || Update preferences or unsubscribe |
Hudson River Almanac
|
Compiled by Tom Lake, Hudson River Estuary Program Consulting NaturalistOverviewAs a harbinger of things to come, at least two seals patrolled the upper end of tidewater this week, waiting for the soon-to-arrive river herring from the sea. Several bald eagle nests were on the brink of having egg hatches and our glass eel season was already showing robust numbers in fyke nets set in tributaries.Highlight of the Week3/22 – Montgomery County, HRM 157: It was a week of visitors from Canada at Fultonville. We found three neck-banded Canada geese within five miles of our home on the Mohawk River and reported them to a band-reporting resource. Two of the banded geese were together in a flock of about fifteen-hundred birds. Although they had different colored bands, both were banded by the same researcher in the same area in Varennes, Quebec, Canada. One was a 13-year-old female, the other a 12-year-old male. The third banded goose, a male, was spotted in the pouring rain in front of a McDonald's restaurant in Fultonville. He was a mere youngster at seven-years-old and had been banded within a few yards of a Tim Horton's coffee shop in Quebec. Natural History Entries3/16 – Staatsburg, HRM 87: While walking one of the trails at the south end of Mills Cove this morning, I came upon a partially eaten fish that was missing its tail. The forward two-thirds of the fish measured four-inches. The fish was solidly frozen in the ice of the trail, so something must have lost its meal yesterday when the air was warmer and some thawing had occurred. [The fish was a brown bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus). The easy answer as to “Who did it,” would be a bald eagle. While it seemed odd that the raptor would leave two-thirds of a catfish behind, eagles are known to be fickle feeders and often do not consume all of what they catch. Tom Lake]
3/16 – Rockland County, HRM 33: Bald eagle nest NY336 still looks good for incubation. One adult was moving around today and then settled down in the nest.
3/17 – Rockland County, HRM 33: Congers Lake was bustling with waterfowl over the last two days: mute swans were paired off and displaying courtship signs; two swans appeared to be building a nest out of Phragmites along water’s edge; mallards were paired and swimming together; drake common mergansers were chasing hen mergansers with the lucky ones already swinging off alone in pairs. I counted at least 15 great blue herons along the eastern side of the lake. 3/18 – Ulster County, HRM110: On March 2, Deb and Kevin Berry reported an unusual congregation of hundreds of eastern red-spotted newts in a thawed pothole of a frozen swamp in the Town of Windham. Our amphibian experts were stumped as to what it meant. Jacob Kubel, Conservation Scientist, Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife, knew of this phenomenon that he called a “newt ball.” Jacob explained that the exact function of a newt ball is not known. Newts are cold-blooded, and so they are not clustering like small mammals or birds might do to conserve heat. However, whether many individuals compete to be in a particularly warm, localized area in the pond, and the result is a clustered mass of newts all trying to be in the same place, has not been ruled out. “Mating balls” of several individuals are known to occur, but not at the scale of scores to hundreds of individuals in a single mass, as in this instance. Regardless, newt clusters are a temporary phenomenon – there is evidence they may assemble for only days or weeks at a time, but no data to suggest they form a lasting “bond” through the winter. In fact, this may occur more commonly near the end of winter. Jeremy Feinberg and Kristen Bell Travis also contributed to this investigation.
[Photos revealed that the bivalves were hard-shell clams (Mercenaria mercenaria), a common marine mollusk in the lower Hudson River estuary. Tom Lake] *** Fish of the Week ***
[Brown bullhead is a catfish native to the Hudson River watershed. They are one of eight members of their family (Ictaluridae) of bullhead catfishes and are found throughout New York State. They are a small species, rarely exceeding one-foot in length and feed primarily on Crustacea and small fishes. Tom Lake] (Photo of brown bullhead courtesy of Michael Kesl)
3/19 – Yonkers, HRM 18: On a sunny and mild afternoon, our 9-11 grade students from the Bio-Chem program at Saunders High School in Yonkers sampled our eel mop for glass eels and collected 19. The eel mop also held one elver (last year’s glass eel). The water temperature was 46 degrees Fahrenheit (F). 3/19 – Note: Last week we reported an eastern ribbon snake (Thamnophis sauritus) at River mile 44. After much discussion with herpetologists and reviewing photographs, it was decided that the snake was likely a garter snake (T. sirtalis), a close relative to and quite easily confused with the ribbon snake. 3/19 – Yonkers, HRM 18: We took another crack at seining in the river today, and once again, found nothing in our six hauls. We were, however, catching fish in our glass eel fyke net including mummichogs (Fundulus heteroclitus) along with huge numbers of glass eels. Today’s count was 332 eels.
3/20 – Hudson River watershed: On today’s Vernal Equinox, we began the twenty-sixth year of our Hudson River Almanac. The Almanac began in 1994 as a modest public forum for sharing stories, ideas and adventures from the High Peaks of the Adirondacks, 320 miles upstream, to the sea. Our intention has been to document events that define the seasons. The Almanac has since grown (endured) to a distribution list of more than 20,000, featuring photographs and a range of contributions from elementary school poetry to the proclamations of scientists. 3/20 – Croton Point, HRM 34: We had our first common snipe sighting of the season this morning at Croton Point. I am sure there soon will be more. Other wildlife counted on a Sawmill River Audubon walk included five American woodcock, two coyotes on the landfill, and a great horned owl. 3/20 – Manhattan, HRM 1: We checked our research sampling gear in Hudson River Park at The River Project's sampling station on the lighthouse tender Lilac at Pier 25 and were rewarded with a tiny immature blue crab, 15 millimeters (mm) point-to-point across its carapace. Our eel mop produced our first fish of 2019, an adorable 51.0 (mm) naked goby (Gobiosoma bosc). [Note: one inch = 25.4 millimeters (mm)] 3/21 – Hudson River, HRM 145-132: Last week’s harp seal as well as a harbor seal were still being sighted in the Hudson River between New Baltimore and Albany. An updated protocol was released this week from Maxine Montello, Rescue Program Director, Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation to help, if you come upon a seal, document the presence of these marine mammals in the Hudson River. - To report a sick or injured marine mammal or sea turtle, please call the New York State 24-hour Hotline at (631) 369-9829. If you have photos or videos of live marine mammals or sea turtles, please send them to sightings@riverheadfoundation.org. If you have photos or videos of deceased marine mammals or sea turtles, please send them to sightings@amseas.org. [Marine mammals began visiting the Hudson River estuary following the Ice Age and after the retreat of glacial ice from the Hudson Valley about 13,000 years ago. With lower sea levels, it took a while for the ocean waters to find the lower river, but not long after the first of us arrived, about 12,000 years ago, marine mammals were likely quite common. Tom Lake [The list of Hudson River estuary marine mammals documented in the Hudson River Almanac across the last 25 years includes: - harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) 3/21 – Saugerties, HRM 102: I checked a local road in the Town of Saugerties after dark and found a relatively small movement of amphibians heading to their breeding pools. Over the course of 90 minutes, I encountered three Jefferson/blue-spotted salamanders, 15 red-spotted salamanders, and four four-toed salamanders. Oddly, there were no frogs seen or heard on or near the roadway this night. 3/21 – Yonkers, HRM 18: On a cool, rainy afternoon, our 9-11 grade students from the Bio-Chem program at Saunders High School in Yonkers sampled our eel mop for glass eels and collected 21. The eel mop also held one elver (last year’s glass eel). The water temperature was 47 degrees F. 3/21 – Town of Poughkeepsie: On February 22, nest monitor Bob Rightmyer went out on a limb and proclaimed the start of incubation for bald eagle nest NY62. We estimate the start of incubation purely from observations of adult behavior seriously attending to and covering eggs. A more precise start date is often determined by backing up 32-35 days from when we sense the first hatch has occurred. Using Bob Rightmyer’s educated guess, we might see a hatch at NY62 around March 26-29.
|
3/16 – Bedford, HRM 35: I checked out the great blue heron rookery for the first time today and found seven herons standing guard and one settled down in a nest with just its bill showing. This may indicate that egg laying had begun. Herons typically lay two-to-five eggs and begin incubating right after the first egg is laid. The single herons were very likely males guarding the nests they had selected and were waiting for their mates to show up. In the coming weeks, there will be more activity as more herons arrive. (Photo of great blue heron courtesy of Jim Steck)
3/17 – Fort Edward, HRM 202: We searched for raptors and waterfowl today at the Fort Edward Grasslands. We found plenty of ducks and Canada geese as well as several each of rough-legged hawks, red-tailed hawks, northern harriers, turkey vultures, American kestrels and bald eagles. The highlight of our trip was Heidi's keen eyes catching an all-white raptor from an extremely long distance. We traveled, searching, for two hours and finally found it: a leucistic red-tailed hawk. It was stunning! (Photo of red-tailed hawk (leucistic) courtesy of Heidi Nicholson)
3/17 – Norrie Point, HRM 85: We saw a bird diving in the river yesterday in the south-side cove adjacent to the Norrie Point Environmental Education Center. We were fairly certain it was a grebe, and from the shape of the beak, it did not look like a pied-billed grebe. It was drifting in the sun's glare and then took off before we could get a good look. Today, walking a trail by the cabins at the campground, we saw what looked like the same bird at the north-side of the Indian Kill. The bird surfaced only ten-feet away. It was a horned grebe. It didn't seem too concerned that we were there as it slowly swam away. The grebe did not resume diving until we began to walk away. (Photo of horned grebe courtesy of Glenn Bartley)
3/18 – Haverstraw Bay, HRM 38: Our DEC Hudson River Fisheries Unit crew was back on Haverstraw Bay for our juvenile sturgeon survey today. In addition to seven juvenile sturgeon caught, we collected many live clams in our net. (Photo of hard-shell clam courtesy of Matthew Baker)
3/18 – Hudson River Watershed: This week’s fish is the brown bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus), species number 77 (of 228) on our watershed list of fishes. (If you would like a copy of our list, e-mail: 
3/19 – Minerva, HRM 284: I drilled five sugar maples in the back yard a week ago when the weather grew warm, and I collected a half-gallon of sap. Then winter returned and the system froze up. The trees were standing there now, with buckets hanging, and nothing dripping. (Photo of maple sugaring in the ADKs courtesy of ADK-VIC)
3/20 – Eastern Dutchess County, HRM 82: Our Wednesday field trip spotted a sandhill crane heading north in a flyover from the Harlem Valley Rail Trail near Wassaic. Sandhill cranes have nested in New York State since 2003 beginning near Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. Since then, the sightings across the state have increased slowly in number and distribution, including Dutchess County. (Photo of sandhill crane courtesy of Melissa Groo)
3/22 – Yonkers, HRM 18: This was another very productive day for capturing glass eels in from the sea. Today’s tally at the Beczak Center was 181 eels, bringing our total for the week to 1,207. Our one-day high count came yesterday at 644. We also caught two larval and one immature winter flounder in the fyke net. (Photo of winter flounder courtesy of Joe Reynolds)
|
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation respects your right to privacy and welcomes your feedback | Update preferences or unsubscribe | Learn more about DEC Delivers. |
|
Connect with DEC:    
|
|
| Basil Seggos, Commissioner | |