Yesterday my younger son and I went for a three hour hike at Hudson Crossing Park. It was an inspired choice and except for the odd person walking their dog and two cross country skiers we had the trail to ourselves.
Lock 5 of the new Champlain Canal was built between 1908 and 1911 and lifts boats 18 feet.
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Saratoga Springs, NY, December 25, 2016,
We had originally planned to go to Vischer Ferry Nature Preserve, but I was worried about ice as everything around here is frozen and despite a night of rain on the 24th, there is still a lot of snow on the ground. I figured the Hudson river might offer a better chance of seeing some birds, so we decided to check out Hudson Crossing Park in Schuylerville. NY.
History buffs may want to visit the spot where General John Burgoyne built his famous "bridge of boats" on his way to the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, lashing bateaux side by side across the Hudson River so the British army could march across. Walkers and cyclists can ride along a wide path north to Eagle Point, overlooking a dam, or take the Champlain Canalway Trail south to the village of Schuylerville and then on to the historic General Philip Schuyler House.
We took the Eagle Point Trail which had the old Champlain canal on one side and the Hudson river on the other. Old growth oaks, ash and maple trees form a canopy over the wide trail. The canal was frozen solid, the river was not. We heard a number of birds, but had difficulties locating them with the exception of some White-breasted Nuthatches.
It was almost impossible to get one of these energetic little birds to sit still long enough for a decent photograph, as a result this is the only one that features more than breast or butt.
When I saw this I thought that we had come across the rarely seen North American Giraffe.
As we neared the end of the trail we came across these glorious trees. I am becoming well known for misidentifying plants in my diaries, so I will tentatively label these as Sumacs. I will leave it to the better informed as to whether they are Staghorn sumac (Rhus Typhina) or not, although in the lower photograph you can see that the bark has the telltale fuzziness.
The Eagle Point Vista looks out to where the Hudson river and the Champlain canal meet. Our timing was perfect as the light hit the water droplets and caused this lovely rainbow.
To me the water below looks like a silken fall of hair.
Old farm buildings by the Hudson.
The remains of some train trestle supports that once held a railway bridge across the Hudson.
Hudson Crossing Park is a great place for birdwatching year round because the upstream dam ensures that the Hudson doesn't completely freeze over, so there is always open water available. Bald eagles are apparently frequent visitors.
We did not realize how far we had walked or how exhausting trudging through the snow is, so the hike back was more of a slow sprint. Dark descends quickly and I didn’t want to be on the trail when it came. Squadron after squadron of geese flew by, returning from their feeding grounds I imagine. Too tired and cold to try and capture it.
As we drove home the sunset was breathtaking, so I pulled into a side road to let my son grab some shots. Suddenly a huge flock of birds emerged from behind some farm buildings, hotly pursued by a large hawk. While the flock aka murmuration, was not as enormous as some I have seen in Europe, the mosaic of shifting patterns was similarly splendid. From my research it seems likely that the birds were blackbirds possibly mixed with starlings and/or grackles.
So how do large flocks such as European Starlings accomplish these levels of synchronicity? In 2010 physicist Andrea Cavagna and his colleagues at the National Council of Research and the University of Rome used advanced computational modeling and video analysis to study this question and they discovered that starling flocks model a complex physical phenomenon, known as scale-free correlation.
Surprisingly, flocks like the one I saw are never lead by a single individual, instead they are governed collectively by the flock as a whole. I highly recommend this piece from www.allaboutbirds.org/… from which I have excerpted below.
When one starling changes direction or speed, each of the other birds in the flock responds to the change, and they do so nearly simultaneously regardless of the size of the flock. In essence, information moves across the flock very quickly and with nearly no degradation. The researchers describe it as a high signal-to-noise ratio.
This scale-free correlation allows starlings to greatly enhance what the researchers call “effective perceptive range,” which is another way of saying that a starling on one side of the flock can respond to what others are sensing all the way across the flock—a huge benefit for a starling trying to avoid a falcon.
Some did not avoid the raptor that day as he finally swooped, grabbed his prey and descended below my field of vision. The flock continued it’s murmuration until we finally lost sight of it as darkness descended.
Finally it was time to drag our cold, weary, but very happy selves home. I am so thankful to have had such a truly magical Christmas and to have been able to share it with my son.
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Now It's Your Turn
What have you noted happening in your area or travels? As usual post your observations as well as their general location in the comments.
Thank you.