Day 198: July 16th – Back to the “Flow”

Continues to be hot and sunny

       We have returned to Higley Flow along the Raquette River from our weekend at  Mt. Tremblant.  I decided to check out a bird’s nest up at our friends’ barn we found just before we left.  Turns out it is a Robin’s nest and the mom was apparently tending to her eggs.

       John mentioned that this was a second clutch for this robin, a practice common to this species.  The young had fledged from this nest earlier this spring and it was apparently time to get started on family number 2.

       We decided to make one last attempt at picking up a loon shot from Higley Flow, the impoundment on the shores of which John and Rosie live.  We spent about an hour skulking along the shorelines of the quieter areas of the flow where loons have been spotted before.  Not today, however.  We were out of luck with only a Mallard hen and one of her chicks to offer up a shot for the day.

       We did pick up one more interesting shot at the feeders.  I never saw this technique used for setting up suet feeders, but John’s method is certainly worth passing on.  By hanging the feeder horizontally rather than vertically, peeling the cellophane away and keeping the suet block in its original plastic tray, you can expose just the bottom side of the suet block and discourage birds like grackles and jays from eating you out of house and home.  Only those birds which don’t mind or in some cases prefer eating upside down (woodpeckers and nuthatches, for example) were coming to his set-up today, and I will give it a try when we return home.

       We did add one more species of interest as we scouted the shoreline from land…. a twelve-spotted skimmer was found and made for a nice documentary shot.

       Tomorrow morning, it’s back south to the Hudson Valley.  The birding was  sparse to be sure this time around, but I have to believe that temperatures constantly in the 90’s did not help the situation.