RED HOUSE — Several hundred nature lovers had checked in Friday, May 31 — with some stragglers coming in the next morning — at the 55th annual Allegany Nature Pilgrimage in Allegany State Park.
Sponsored by the Audubon Societies of Buffalo, Jamestown and Presque Isle, Pa., and the Burroughs Audubon Nature Club of Rochester, the event typically draws between 400 and 600 family members and friends.
They come year after year to attend several nature walks of their choosing from among dozens offered, including bird watching, tree and plant identification, salamander walk, owl prowl, carnivorous native plants, general nature hikes, wildflower photography, nighttime frog walk and the popular beaver walk.
State Department of Environmental Conservation Wildlife biologist Timothy Spierto spoke Friday night in the main tent on his experiences with black bears during the past several years — including in Allegany State Park, where there was increasing bear-tourist interaction and the reintroduction of several orphaned cubs a few years ago.
One of the most widely attended events isn’t a walk at all. On Saturday and Sunday morning, Linda Ordiway and Jack Skinner identified and band birds caught in fine nets. Also popular are the 6 a.m. bird walks Saturday and Sunday by Mark Denecke, beginning at the McIntosh Trailhead.
Friday’s offerings were varied and well-attended. Hot, humid weather didn’t deter participants of the five-mile hike led by Peter and Theresa Corrigan, who have climbed all 46 major peaks in New York. Steve Daniel also led a four-hour tour for hardy naturalists to Blacksnake Mountain for a flower, ferns and birds walk.
On Friday afternoon, Jeremy Martin of West Clarksville led a group of amateur photographers on a wildflower walk, pausing along the way to give tips on taking pictures of wildflowers.
Martin, who works at Cooper Industries in Olean, said the interesting part of photographing something new is identifying it. He and his wife, Karen, have been coming to the Allegany Nature Pilgrimage for eight years. They have three boys who are also making a family tradition out of attending.
Five years ago, he started leading the dragonfly walk, which he will lead today, and last year started the wildflower photography walk.
“You learn a lot here,” he said. “It’s nice to come back and share.”
He has sold a wildflower photo, which now adorns stamps, to the Canadian Post. He also had the cover photo of a dragonfly on the June 2012 issue of Conservationist magazine.
Another popular event Friday night was the beaver walk led by Kristen Rosenburg, an environmental educator at Rhinestein Woods in Cheektowaga. She did SUNY Environmental and Forestry School graduate work on beavers in Allegany State Park in the late 1990s.
Rosenburg said beavers, the world’s second-largest rodent, can grow to 4 feet from the tip of their nose to the tip of their tail. They average 40 to 60 pounds, but have been trapped as large as 110 pounds. The biggest one she live-trapped in the park for her research was a 57-pounder.
She had tape recordings of different beaver sounds, including the warning slap of a tail, a whining young beaver crying for food and a beaver chewing bark off a tree.
“(They) are great swimmers, but are not fast on land. It’s like a waddle. Their favorite food is aspen,” she explained.
They eat it much like people eat corn on the cob. They will also eat willow and dogwood, but avoid pines and red maples, which are apparently not as tasty.
Beavers don’t hibernate in winter, instead leaving a store of tasty aspen branches in the water outside the lodge. She said the image of a beaver slapping mud on a beaver dam with his tail is cartoon myth.
