Aerie Report, December 04, 2010

Nada. Zip. Zilch.

That's how many deer I saw this morning while sitting out in the woods. I did see where those deer that visited the yard yesterday walked within a few feet of where I've got my seat. They seemed downright curious about that little board...or maybe they were looking for the remnants of the apple core from Thursday's snack/lunch.

What I did see was a flock of turkeys. Eight or so of the huge birds flew off the lawn of hunting cabin atop the hill and wheeled over my head before heading into the trees on the other side of the glen. Two others walked down the hill and then back up, talking to one another the entire time. The turkeys and a group of three ravens doing aerial maneuvers overhead were the excitement for the morning.

At least until the snow squall hit. At 1030, when I couldn't see more than forty to fifty yards and there was no sign of the snow ever stopping, I decided to make my way back to the Aerie for a hot cup of coffee.

There were a few shots fired within my hearing, but they were mostly more than a half mile away and all were just about sunrise. The hunting camp at the top of the hill (Jersey guys) is empty and so is the one just below the Aerie (Lancaster guys).

What the heck. Just think of all the money I'm saving on ammunition.

******

The temperature was just 25 degrees when I left the house at 0615. It rose all the way up to 30 degrees by 1300. Big whoop!

The winds blowing south-southeast over Lake Ontario produced streams of snow all along the southern shores and extending as far south as us. We were in one of those streams from around 1000 through around 1300.

When Terry went down to Mass at 1600, she found that there was virtually no snow down the bottom of the mountain. Looks like we're back to our usual winter weather. We'll get a couple of inches of snow up here, but a few hundred feet down the hill there will be nothing.