Photos by Pamela Moore
BARRE – Pamela Moore and her husband were out for a drive on Sunday and they spotted a bald eagle along Gillette Road.
Moore said that was a first for her, to see a bald eagle in the county that wasn’t in a cage.
“We were very excited to experience this together for the first time in our 50 years!” she wrote to the Orleans Hub.
Moore also sent us pictures of a Snowy Owl during the winter.
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – I’ve been wanting to get a picture of the little waterfalls by Community Action in Albion for many months. This one is hard to get at. But with a fresh dusting of snow on the ground, I decided I needed to make my move today.
At about 5:45 p.m., I descended the Sandy Creek embankment and laid eyes on the creek as it rushes through a culvert under East State Street.
It’s another nice spot in Orleans County. I don’t know the history behind the stone building. It looks like it’s from the mid-1800s. Maybe it was a mill long ago.
Sandy Creek passes under the Erie Canal not far from here and heads north.
Photo by Tom Rivers – This plant, Phragmites australis, grows by the Holley Elementary School. It is an invasive plant that can take over where cattails once grew.
HOLLEY – The photo of a plant by the Holley Elementary School sure looked pretty. We had it on the Orleans Hub on Tuesday.
I wasn’t positive what the plant was. I guessed it was cattails, but I wasn’t certain. Well, it’s not cattails.
Dennis Kirby, manager of the Orleans County Soil and Water Conservation District, did some research and identified the plant as Phragmites australis. This is an invasive plant that is causing a lot of trouble in coastal wetlands.
Locally, it pops up in ditches and wet areas.
“You see it around in a lot of places,” he said.
The plant crowds out cattails and takes over a spot. Cattails provide a good home for muskrats and some waterfowl. But Phragmites australis grows close together and isn’t a good habitat for wildlife, Kirby said.
“This is a very pretty plant, but actually a very invasive one that tends to take over and crowd out where the cattails previously grew,” Kirby said.
Orleans Hub readers have sent in photos of the changing seasons. Rich Miller of Kendall took this photo of the sunrise over Lake Ontario this morning at Cleng Peerson’s Point at the north end of Kendall Road.
Another Kendall resident, Mike Campbell, took a picture of the ice on Bald Eagle Creek in Kendall. The warmer temperatures today snapped some of the ice in local creeks.
Heather Kuepper of Medina took a picture of a full moon over the weekend from Martin Road in Shelby. Thursday is the first day of spring.
Photos by Tom Rivers
HOLLEY – I drove home from Holley to Albion around 7:30 p.m. and it made for a breathtaking journey along Route 31.
The top photo shows a motorist on the bridge over the railroad tracks leading into the west side of the village.
The bottom photo shows the power lines at the Holley Business Park.
Photo by Rich Miller
The bright full moon has the photographers out in force the past two nights. Last evening Rich Miller of Kendall took this photo of the moon rising over Lake Ontario at Cleng Peerson’s Point at the north end of Kendall Road where it meets Lake Ontario. Norwegian immigrants settled in this area of Kendall.
Photo by Tom Rivers
I didn’t want to miss out in the fun. I took a picture of the moon over the lift bridge tower on Main Street in Albion. The bridge and the tower are iconic local landmarks.
Photo by Tom Rivers
I also took a picture of the moon over the frozen Erie Canal in Albion. The state Canal Corporation keeps a dredger, tugboats and other equipment in Albion over the winter with the vessels between the Main Street and Ingersoll Street lift bridges.
Photo by Rich Miller
This photo doesn’t include the moon, but it was a nice sunset at the lake on Sunday.
Photos by Tom Rivers
A very bright full moon was out last night in a cloudy sky, hovering high over the Yates Baptist Church on East Yates Center Road in Lyndonville.
File photo by Tom Rivers – A boat passes through the Oak orchard Harbor last summer. Sediment buildup in the channel has made it difficult for larger boats to use the harbor.
U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer announced today that Oak Orchard Harbor will receive a large maintenance dredge this year, valued at $420,000 and funded through the Sandy Supplemental Appropriations bill.
Schumer met with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Buffalo District Director LTC Beaudoin who confirmed the USACE’s plans and estimated the dredge is scheduled to be completed by around June 15. Schumer has long fought for Oak Orchard Harbor to be dredged, especially since Superstorm Sandy caused sediment damage to the harbor, and has specifically pushed for Sandy Supplemental funds to be used for dredging.
Schumer said this new dredge will allow recreational traffic to move more efficiently and support the charter fishing industry in the area, which generates approximately $269,000 in annual income.
“When it comes to dredging our ports, there is no time to waste, which is why I’ve kept the pressure on the Army Corps to accomplish this Oak Orchard dredging, especially since Superstorm Sandy,” Schumer said. “The timeline to finish dredging by mid-June is great news and it means we will soon get Oak Orchard Harbor moving full steam ahead – which will be an enormous boost this summer to the regional economy, family boaters and fishing charters.”
Oak Orchard Harbor is located on the southern shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of Oak Orchard Creek. It supports 33 fishing charters and is in need of dredging.
Since Superstorm Sandy left sediment damage, the need for a maintenance dredge has increased. Schumer explained that using money from the Sandy Supplemental Fund will help alleviate the problems posed by the current shallowness of the harbor and return Oak Orchard Harbor to a better-functioning depth.
Photos by Tom Rivers
Most of the Medina Waterfalls are suspended in ice. But a narrow spot is still roaring and flowing with water from the Oak Orchard Creek near the Erie Canal.
MEDINA – There’s been a lot talk in the news recently about the frozen Niagara Falls. It’s a spectacle getting world-wide attention and drawing tourists to the natural wonder when we were in our deep freeze recently. (Click here to see a story about the phenomenon.)
I wondered about the most powerful waterfalls in Orleans County. How has it held up in the freeze?
A good portion has been held up in ice. But the fast-moving part is still flowing strong, plummeting over a gorge.
The Medina Waterfalls as it appeared in early November.
I had never seen the Medina Waterfalls until November. I had heard about it and wanted to see it. It has the “wow” effect.
It’s disappointing to me how difficult it is to reach the falls. I stopped by on Saturday morning. It’s somewhat of a perilous journey through a wooded area, climbing over fallen trees. There are steep embankments and one slip could send you into the Oak Orchard Creek.
To get to the waterfalls, you can walk through this path or venture into a wooded area with fallen trees.
The powers-that-be should recognize this is a great untapped resource for tourism, recreation and improving our quality of life. I’d highly recommend a safe walking trail to the waterfalls, a ladder from the towpath, perhaps a pavilion area and some guardrails to improve the safety.
A stone wall is a relic from when powerful mills did business near the waterfalls in the 1800s.
Here is one more photo of the waterfalls, which are located near the Erie Canal, close to Horan Road bridge.
Photo by Tom Rivers
MEDINA – Stephanie Ferris walks her dog Marti this morning along the towpath by the Glenwood Avenue canal bridge. Ferris said a group of regulars are usually out walking the canal on Saturdays in Medina.
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – The stretch of bitterly cold weather in recent weeks, with some slight warm-ups, has produced a bumper crop of icicles. I’ve been on the lookout for some of these fine formations. Some of them I didn’t dare get too close, not wanting to get impaled.
I’ve admired the nice row of icicles on the Center for Worforce Development building on Route 31 in Albion, right next to the GCC campus. I stopped by around 5 p.m. today when the place was desolate without the hustle and bustle of college students and job hunters.
Photo by Lisa Sietmann
ALBION – While looking out her back window on Tuesday, Lisa Sietmann spotted a deer standing upright for about 10 minutes. Sietmann said it was an amusing sight. The deer was nibbling on fallen limbs in her backyard on Route 31A.
It’s the coldest winter in about four decades. It feels like day after day of brutal, bitter cold.
But Orleans County somehow shines amidst the snow and ice. Rick Baase of Carlton took the top photograph of the sunrise on Tuesday when it was 2-below zero.
It looks like steam is coming off Lake Ontario in the photo about 2 miles east of Point Breeze.
Peggy Barringer took this picture of the frosted window on her front door at Albion. The iced windows have revealed some wondrous artistic patterns.
Julie Miller of Barre last week took this picture of a sundog, which resembles a rainbow on a blistering cold day. She took it of a scene on Route 31A, west of Route 98 near Barre Stone Products.
Photos by Charles Price
Charles Price took these photos of a Snowy Owl last Sunday on Route 63, north of the village of Lyndonville. Price captured the owl in flight. Orleans Hub has posted a lot of Snowy Owl photos the past month, but we haven’t seen too many of the owl in action.
This has been a historic, record-breaking winter. And I’m not talking about what feels like near-constant cold.
Snowy Owls have appeared in big numbers, perhaps the biggest migration in a half century, according to bird and wildlife experts.
The owls with luminous yellow eyes are showing up in Western New York at open fields and airports. The owls generally don’t migrate below Canada. This year they have been spotted as far south as Cape Hatteras, N.C.
Dan Mawn of Holley took this photo of a Snowy Owl near the Genesee County Airport on West Saile Drive in Batavia.
GAINES – The plunging temperatures and snow-covered landscape may be a harsh reality of winter. The past month has been particularly brutal, with an ice storm followed by many very cold days.
The photo on the top shows the Erie Canal with a barn just north of the historic waterway. He picture was taken from canal bridge.
I took this picture about two months ago on Nov. 16. It was a warm fall day back then.
Those of us in Orleans County have the pleasure of experiencing a variety of weather, from sub-zero temperatures to 90-degree summer days.
I think the changing seasons is one of the appeals of this area. I wouldn’t want to live in Florida with all of their insects and alligators. Their constant warm days would get a little boring after a while.
