Saturday, September 8, 2007
MNWR official site (older info - under reconstruction)
Friends of the Montezuma Wetlands Complex site
photo slideshow
For years I've driven past (actually - through!) the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge as I've travelled back and forth between Albany and Rochester. Ann and I have driven past the entrance to the driving path through the refuge on a couple of occasions, as well. But neither of us had ever visited Montezuma. I expected we'd have a few hours of daylight left after the brown belt testing wrapped up in Utica, and really wanted to stop somewhere on the way to Rochester and spend some time in nature. So Montezuma was the obvious choice... even though it's looked pretty darn dry this summer and it wasn't at all clear just how much wildlife we'd end up seeing.
We started out at the visitors center, which was closed and not terribly scenic due to some major work they've been doing in the wetlands (we got to see lots of bare dirt.) From there we drove the 4 mile dirt road through the main part of the refuge. Unfortunately, other than geese, gulls, and some small ducks that fled in terror when we stopped at a viewing area to look at them... there wasn't much to see other than the trees and wetland plants.
Once we left the driving path, we headed down the road a bit to visit a couple of other spots. At one observation deck we had a great view of a dried up stream, complete with a multitude of gulls and what turned out to be many dead fish. (That area didn't smell so great...) We also watched several heron soar in to land off in the distance. A bit further on we spotted several large birds in a distant tree... from the picture I took, I suspect they were cormorants.
Our last stop was at an observation tower, where we were able to see why several cars had pulled over down the road - a large flock of great egrets off in the distance! Unfortunately, they were too far away for me to get a decent photo...
By the time we wrapped things up at the tower, it was getting darker, so we decided to skip visiting the hiking trails and finished the drive back to Rochester, where a more-than-ample dinner at a Chinese buffet awaited. I had hoped today's visit to Montezuma would allow us to see more wildlife than we actually did; I think another visit (definitely with binoculars) at another time of year is in order...
JMH
