The Catskills ~ Day I

Four of us journeyed up to the Catskills this past weekend, daring the iffy, drippy weather. (Considering it was close to 100 degrees in NYC last week, we enjoyed a 50-degree drop going up there.) On the way up, we stopped at the RamsHorn-Livingstone Sanctuary in the town of Catskill. At this Scienic Hudson/NYAudubon administered tidal swamp, we listened to red-winged blackbirds, common yellowthroats, yellow warblers (juveniles were demanding to be fed), Baltimore orioles, and a pileated woodpecker, among other species. An eastern kingbird, its white-rimmed tail cocked upright from the tight confines of its nest, was the first of several nesting species noted.

Then we drove up into the Catskills Mountains themselves, through the Kaaterskill Clove on route 23A. Clouds hung heavily over the tops of the mountains. The short hike up to Kaaterskill Falls (photo at the top), that most famous of Hudson River School sights, was wonderfully mossy, fungal, and ferny. Here’s what the surrounds looked like:Gold in them thar hills? A Gold-backed snipe fly, Chrysopilus thoracicus, along the Kaaterskill Falls trail:We saw our first raven of the weekend flying overhead when we came down from the Falls. Our boots were stained with reddish slate, reminding us of the color of “brownstone.”

Our lodging for the evening was in East Windham, where five states can be seen. On a clear day. We, however, were fogged in and barely saw New York below us. The hotel’s lights, meanwhile, sucked moths from the dark:Paonias exaecatus, the blinded sphinx moth.Lophocampa caryae, hickory tussock moth.One of the Nemoria species of moths, known as the emeralds.

During the trip, we saw the usual slaughter of road kill. (In fact, unfortunately, we couldn’t avoid killing a chipmunk.) One of side-of-the-road bodies we saw was a coyote. Noted alive from the windows were deer, turkey, woodchuck, and rabbit. Higher up: turkey vultures, a great blue heron, and a couple of red-tails, one perched on a bank building above a street festival in one of those cute Hudson Valley towns I didn’t catch the name of.