Friday, March 12, 2010

Winter - Part 4

Since we still have a week or so of "official" winter left, I thought I'd squeeze in one more winter blog update.

Many people ask us about the wildlife here in NY. While the Adirondacks are home to nearly 4,000 black bear, a growing moose population, some big cats and more, we have yet to lay eyes on anything more exciting than a hungry deer nibbling on our bushes! Apparently having a 300,000 acre backyard (our property adjoins the High Peaks Wilderness) does not guarantee wildlife sightings. With all that land to explore, I guess the wild things don't need to visit us ... at least during daylight.

BUT the snow makes it possible to see "where the wild things are" while we're sleeping! Here are some of the tracks that we've found around our home and a few actual animal sightings thrown in for fun.

These are the tracks of a Grouse

And here is the Grouse itself - playing in the shrubs along our driveway


Deer tracks

Snowshoe Hare (we think) tracks

Dainty little raccoon tracks

A flock of wild turkeys that ran across the road in front of us (photo courtesy of our friend, Wes, who had his cell phone handy!)


Apparently the coyotes are smart ... they use the bridge to Snow Mountain!


This is our barn. The photo is taken standing at the side of the house. THAT is how close the barn is ...


And THIS is the bear track found in the snow right behind the barn! YIKES!


Here is where the bear dug in the snow looking for whatever bears look for


While we have had no moose sightings here at the Snow Goose, Wayne was privileged to see a moose one morning on his way to work. This photo is of a moose that meandered its way into Wayne's boss' yard early one morning.


This final picture is not of a wild thing (well... some of you would argue that!), but it is a really cool picture of Wayne snowshoeing Round Mountain and since this is my last winter post, I just had to include it!

Happy Spring to all of you ... we'll be joining you in a few months!