The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
State’s study of bruins in High Peaks sheds new light on these creatures of habit. By MARY THILL Three guys dressed in moss green and shouldering black shotguns are given wide berth on High Peaks trails. Hikers’ eyes widen as they let the men file past on the well-trodden path from Adirondak Loj to Marcy…
By Phil Brown
Scientists have recognized for a while that Adirondack coyotes are bigger than western coyotes, but there has been debate over whether the cause is genetic or environmental. A recent study led by Roland Kays, mammal curator at the New York State Museum, comes down squarely on the side of genetics: the Adirondack coyote is part…
By Phil Brown
The Adirondacks and sportsmen everywhere lost a friend this week when Nellie Staves passed away at ninety-two. We liked to think of Nellie as our friend, too. In 2000, Ed Kanze wrote a nice profile of Nellie that we published in the Explorer. After that, she often stopped in the office when she was passing…
By Phil Brown
We should be hitting peak foliage soon. Last weekend, I climbed the slide on East Dix and saw lots of color, mostly yellow, in the forest. But what really caught my eye were the succulent red berries of the American mountain ash. E.H. Ketchledge, in Forest and Trees of the Adirondack High Peaks Region, calls…
By Phil Brown
A friend of the Explorer just forwarded these photographs of a bull moose taken on Upper Ausable Lake. He also forwarded an e-mail from Ron Hall, who described the recent encounter. Hall was rowing a guide boat on the lake–on “a perfect morning, cool, mist”–when he heard clunking and splashing sounds near a boathouse. “Suddenly…
By Phil Brown
The brown pelican that excited Adirondack birders for a few weeks has died of starvation, according to Amy Freiman, a wildlife rehabilitator in Newcomb. The pelican was first spotted on Fourth Lake in the Fulton Chain and later on Lows Lake. Observers said it exhibited strange behavior, approaching people in boats and at campsites, apparently looking…
By Phil Brown
For the past week, Adirondack birders have been marveling about a brown pelican first spotted on Fourth Lake in the Old Forge-Inlet region. Normally, brown pelicans reside along coasts in more southern climes. They breed as far north as Virginia in summer and live year-round along the Gulf Coast. It’s the state bird of Louisiana.…
By Phil Brown
Sometimes it seems like half the people in the Adirondacks have seen a panther. Heck, I thought I saw one myself last year. But a spruce-grouse sighting–now that’s a real rarity. As reported in the Explorer this year, the spruce grouse is one of the most endangered birds in the Adirondack Park (and the state).…
By Phil Brown
Bear screws open food canisters.
By Phil Brown
When birders alight on Hamilton County