Adirondack Naturalist: March 2012

Donna at the end of the Ferd's Bog boardwalk (Sept. 20 photo) -- © Dave Spier

Ferd's Bog

Anders Peltomaa recently posted a link on the group, Northern New York Birds, to a photograph of a Black-backed Woodpecker perched in a tree along with a Gray Jay near the Ferd's Bog boardwalk. This Black Spruce bog, stream and bog pond are roughly 50 acres of wetlands surrounded by another 50 acres of boreal forest. The Central New York Hiking website lists the site as 170 acres, but that likely includes the upland forest between Uncas Road and the boreal forest.

Ferd's Bog is in the Pigeon Lake Wilderness of west-central Hamilton County. The eBird hotspot coordinates are 43.788692, -74.74973. If you use eBird and zoom in using satellite view, you'll see that point next to the boardwalk, the end of which is a mere 0.3 mile north of Uncas (Brown's Tract) Road.

The Adirondack Experience website has a Ferd's Bog page with an interactive Google map. The page also contains a list of birds and when they can be expected, based on information taken from or used by the Hamilton County Birding Trail Map. Directions indicate the tiny parking area is about 3.5 miles east-northeast of Route 28 after they split east of Eagle Bay. However, the CNY-Hiking site gives the distance as 3.2 miles. I've never had the foresight to record my odometer readings, so I'm no help on that point. There's a small D.E.C. sign, usually in the shadows, so it can be hard to find. A search of the D.E.C. website came up empty-handed.

Questions and corrections may be sent to northeastnaturalist@yahoo.com