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Re: [at-l] Rattlesnakes ( Make noise )

At 8:40 AM -0400 4/26/98, Clines wrote:
>>When its warm weather you get a lot more up here in NJ....

>Were there any buzzards overhead ?  :-).

We get plenty of turkey buzzards. Actually during migration season, birds fly
by NJ corridor in the millions.


>porcupines ...... WOW. I never really though about them living in the mid
>atlantic region.

Yes we also have plenty of beavers, opposium (sp?), etc. etc. and thousands
of white tail deer.

.. Have only seen maybe two bears in the wild my whole life

Well I just saw a little while back Mama bear and her two children. Actually if
you have a house or farm by the NJ AT they are probably in your back yard
all the time.

They love to tear open garbage cans. My friend had, note had, a bird feeder
attached to the wall of her house.  No more feeder, as a matter of fact,
no more wall!  The bear ripped the feeder and the wall too.

As we say up here, use those bear proof storage lockers.  I could swear those
bears learned how to pick the locks. :)


When in NJ, wear something orange for there are more hunters with guns
on the AT then hikers in several places.

 Last fall we ran across a couple of
>backpackers in Dolly sods Wilderness in W.Va. that had found some hunting
>dogs. They had gotten lost from thier owner/hunters. They looked like they
>had been lost for awhile and they were starving.  They were really skinny
>and the one was almost dead.


I guess the dogs could not hunt very well. Maybe the "hunters" left them
behind on purpose. ;(

 Anyway back to snakes. Think I'll attach
>some horse shoes to my hiking boots and stomp while hiking and hopfully I
>wont see any snakes either.  :-)

I now attach little ball bells to the back pack to let the deer know I am
coming!

That way I don't surpise them.

 What happens is the deer don't know what the sound is, stop and listen. I
just walk
right up to them as they listen with their ears wide open. Tinkle, tinkle.

That's my trick to get a nice close-up view of a deer. Tinkle, Tinke, now
who would have thought of that. I didn't. I was wearing the bells to keep away
the bears. I just noticed the deer all started looking at me rather than
running!

Glad everyone thinks of NJ as a stop on the NJ Turnpike and not how
wonderful that trail is. We have the first glacial pond, cliffs, a lake
created by a meteor in the early 1900s, expansive views, great tasting
blueberries on the trail, and the sounds of roosters in the a.m. from
the farmlands in the plateau below.

As they say, see our famous notch... the Delaware Water Gap. Even has
a natural trout stream.  Ooops, think of us as the NJ Turnpike...

See ya on the trails, Tom



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