Four days at the Bolt Hole

Saturday, around noon after birding at Hills Creek State Park in PA, I packed the truck and headed up to the Bolt Hole in the Adirondacks.

The Bolt Hole is 34 acres about 25 miles north of Utica, NY, and just inside the Blue Line of the Adirondack Park. It is at the end of a paved road and the power line. The last three miles was dirt until about five years ago, but the pavement now stops right at the gate to the Bolt Hole. There are four hunters’ camps a little further up the dirt portion of the road that remains. To the north and east of my property there are approximately 10,000 acres of state land that is held as “forever wild” as per the AP mandate. The Bolt Hole is nowhere near the more visited portions of the park and is, therefore pretty damned remote and quiet—which suits me fine.

The trip took me a little over four hours with a stop at the “local” Stewarts (14 miles away) for some groceries. It started to drizzle a little as I traveled those last 14 miles. I had just unpacked my things when Mark, my buddy who owns a small camp across the street, came out of the woods where he had been checking two game cameras he has set behind my place. We looked at the pictures the cameras had taken during the last few days and saw a few deer (one or two doe and yearlings as well as at least one buck sporting the beginnings of antlers) and lots of red squirrels. Mark was heading back to his apartment and I built up the fire in the wood stove and settled back to watch the completion of the Mets-Yankees game on Fox.

Sunday was a beautiful day and, as soon as the sun and breeze dried out the grass, I spent three hours or so walking behind the new lawnmower. There were a few black flies about but the liberal use of Deep Woods Off and the strong breeze meant that I only got attacked when I was in the lee of a building or shed. The temperatures were such that I only raised a light sweat while pushing the mower about. However, the combination of walking several miles back and forth on the uneven surface as I cut grass, two birding expeditions (Thursday and Saturday), hauling sheetrock into the basement of the Aerie with Rick’s help (Thursday afternoon) and digging post holes and hauling concrete at the Muck (Wednesday) had done my back no favors. While most of the birders on Thursday and Saturday had “warbler neck” I found the pressure of leaning back to look in the treetops affected my lumbar region more. It was time for a good lie down and an ice pack. I finished one Terry Prachett book (Feet of Clay) and began another (Maskerade) while flat on the couch atop the ice pack.

Monday morning dawned way too early (something it seems to do at the Bolt Hole from May through August as the sun rises north of the hill to the east-southeast of the cabin) but I fought off the urge to rise with it and rolled over and went back to sleep several times despite the bird calls and chittering of red squirrels telling me to get up. I did, eventually, get up and get dressed around 8:30 AM. After a cup of coffee I decided to take a walk through the woods along some of the logging trails to see what was about.

I put on my jacket and a hat—forgetting the Deep Woods Off—and stepped outside. It was sunny but quite cool with the temperature just above 40. That didn’t seem to bother the black flies any as they swarmed about me whenever the breeze died. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much breeze along those logging trails as the surrounding shrubs or forest protected them. After an hour of ineffectively swatting at the flies as they propped my ears and eyes, I beat a hasty retreat to the house.

Clearly, the Adirondack Air Force has begun its summer season. For those of you not familiar with the AAF, it consists of the aforementioned black flies, mosquitoes, deer flies and no-see-ums.

Here’s a brief list of the birds I saw when I wasn’t swatting at black flies:
Ruby-throated Hummingbird (2)
Chipping Sparrow (7)
Gray Catbird (2)
American Robin (6)
Chestnut-sided Warbler (5)
Eastern Phoebe (2)
Black-capped Chickadee (5)
Least Fly Catcher (4)
Wood Thrush (1)
Ruffed Grouse (1)
Hooded Warbler (1)
Woodcock (1)
Magnolia Warbler (3)
Northern Flicker (1)
Common Raven (1)
Black flies (103,482,938)