Adirondacks, July 26-29, 2021

Just spent 3 days in the Adirondacks. It was a family trip, so only a few mammals worth reporting. We were based in Wilmington, a good place to see northern raccoons, white-tailed deer, eastern gray squirrels and deer mice in various parks. On the first morning, just before 10 am, I saw a mink in the boulder pile (44.3897N 73.8168W) below the dam in Bridge Park; it wasn’t tame at all, so best viewing was from the top of the dam. Couldn’t get a photo or find that mink again on subsequent days.

High Falls Gorge and Silver Lake Bog Preserve, two most interesting habitats around Wilmington, had no mammals at night (although I saw a long-eared owl grab a deer mouse from the road to the latter place) and only, respectively, Eastern chipmunks and American red squirrels during the day.

My plan for the next visit is to hike to the summit of Whiteface Mt. at night. That road is only open during the day and I saw nothing but red squirrels and Bicknell’s thrushes there, plus an unusually long-tailed deer mouse below the toll gate at night. But the subalpine habitat at the summit should have lots of cool stuff.