Ed Kanze, Naturalist and Adirondack Guide

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Ed Kanze, Naturalist and Adirondack Guide I'm a naturalist, licensed guide, and nature writer who lives and works in NY's Adirondack Park, three times the size of Yellowstone. Come walk with me!

Sometimes we go looking for things and find that the things we're looking for are looking for us.So it went on a recent ...
11/05/2026

Sometimes we go looking for things and find that the things we're looking for are looking for us.

So it went on a recent bird walk. My wife, Debbie, and I were walking in a spruce-fir-tamarack forest, hoping to see boreal chickadees, Canada jays, and spruce grouse. We'd glimpsed a couple of the jays, but the other two had not turned up. Debbie had been out of sight, nibbling on plump ripe wild cranberries she'd found, while I stood in the middle of the trail, grappling with a camera malfunction. I was looking down, not up, and maybe that was a good thing. Wild animals can be frightened by our eyes. They can be frightened by silent-running predators, too, so maybe it was also helpful that I was grumbling. I did not see, at first, the bird that had materialized about thirty feet in front of me. One moment it wasn't there, and one moment it was. The grouse was giving me a hard look. Debbie returned and saw it immediately.

A spruce grouse! This bird abounds in Canadian conifer forests from sea to shining sea. In the northeastern United States, it tends to be scarce and tough to find. I suppose we didn't really find the bird you see here. It found us.

Thanks are in order to New York State taxpayers and the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for bringing 1,000 spruce grouse from Canada and Maine to the Adirondacks over more than a decade. The goal was to supplement existing populations, increase genetic diversity, and help these handsome northern cousins of the ruffed grouse thrive. Angie Ross of DEC and Glenn Johnson of SUNY Potsdam launched and led the efforts, which continued for more than a decade. The project required the hard work and contributions of many.

For Adirondack bird lovers, this is an exciting bird to see or be seen by. This adult female made our day.

As waterfalls go, Indian Falls, high on a flank of Mt. Marcy, is no Niagara. Nor is it a mini-Niagara. I'm not sure it's...
11/05/2026

As waterfalls go, Indian Falls, high on a flank of Mt. Marcy, is no Niagara. Nor is it a mini-Niagara. I'm not sure it's even a micro-Niagara. Then again, maybe it's all of these things in spring. Snow that accumulates high on the mountain melts and sends torrents of water rushing down Marcy Brook. We visited it last week, in late October. Only a modest flow poured over the brink. The clear, cold water splashed down into a glittering jewelry box of ice.

I've hiked up Mt. Marcy twice, once as a young man from the Lake Placid side via Adirondack Loj (the spelling of "Loj," for lodge, requires too long a story for this space), and once as a gray-haired guy with my son, Ned, via Avalanche Pass, Lake Colden, and Lake Tear-of-the-Clouds. Somehow I'd failed to visit Indian Falls. So my wife, Debbie, who has just received the honor of a guide's badge from the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, and who had visited the falls once on her own, showed me the way.

The hike there and back is often described as a half-day affair. So it might be for someone short in the tooth, in a hurry, or both. For us vintage hikers interested in savoring, not bolting, the sensations , a full day was just the ticket. Why rush? The route brought us many delights, including multiple glimpses of Marcy Brook, the seductive sound of rushing water, boulders shaggy with moss and crowned by rock cap ferns, and a mixed flock of birds that included purple finches and boreal chickadees.

Before the state geologist named the mountain for Governor William Marcy, it undoubtedly had numerous names during the 12,000 years or so people inhabited this landscape before the Dutch and English showed up. Tahawus is sometimes said to be an old name for the peak. One thing, though, seems certain. People have visited and admired this handsome mountain and its streams and waterfalls since long before Ebenezer Emmons named it for his boss.

This is a big birthday year for me, with the actual day coming Wednesday. Aging not being all it's cracked up to be, I f...
10/27/2026

This is a big birthday year for me, with the actual day coming Wednesday. Aging not being all it's cracked up to be, I felt mixed feelings as the month and day approached. I consoled myself with the thought that if I wasn't about to add a year to my age, I'd be six feet deep in the backyard or somewhere else instead of where I'd most like to be, which is here.

Given that I still work full-time, have no intent or desire to slow down, live a wonderful life amid an extraordinary family and circle of friends and colleagues, and am still happily ambulatory, I thought I'd observe the milestone by climbing to the summit of a big mountain, or at least one of the mountains that pass for big in the Adirondacks. My plan was to march up Mt. Marcy. But I've climbed Marcy already, once from each side, and my wife, Debbie, made a persuasive case for climbing Jay Mountain. She'd climbed it twice and I hadn't even once. Why not? It's gorgeous, she said.

So Debbie, who is also gorgeous and much else, our dear friend Jamie Whidden, and I climbed Jay on Tuesday. The summit rises only 3,600 feet above sea level, but reaching it offered plenty of exercise for a man of my superannuated youth. We climbed to a couple of high viewpoints and might have reached the highest point of all if a couple of boreal chickadees hadn't convinced us to declare victory on a high mountain shoulder.

Two days later, I climbed Jay Mountain again, this time solo, which wasn't half as much fun. But it was a good day, and this time I reached the top. The photo you see here was taken shortly after the summit was vacated by a lively and well-mannered crowd of students from Yale. I was astounded by how young they looked. They were probably astounded by my wrinkles and gray hair. One young man learned where I live and what I do for a living and exclaimed, "You're living the dream!" Indeed I am.

Reaching the summit represented a disappointment. I'd huffed and puffed to the heights again in hopes of a repeat audience with the boreal chickadees. On Tuesday I'd brought along only a short lens and a backup camera I hadn't used in years. The results were disappointing. So the urge for a second climb could not be resisted. I saw plenty of black-capped chickadees on Thursday, but no boreals. The summit was my consolation prize. A handsome prize it was.

"Go with the flow" is good advice as far as it goes. Would you want to fall into this raging torrent and carom downstrea...
10/19/2026

"Go with the flow" is good advice as far as it goes. Would you want to fall into this raging torrent and carom downstream? I wouldn't. The conscious part of the ride would be brief, the chances of crawling out alive nil.

Better to stand back in a safe spot, well away from the brink, compose a few photos, and let the occasional falling leaf run the rapids.

We've had a good deal of rain lately. Waterfalls are looking their best. At this one, I was grateful for a leaning paper birch whose yellow leaves added a touch of warming color to this otherwise chilly image.

Al Jolson first recorded "I'm Sitting On Top Of The World" in October 1925, an astounding 101 years ago. It's a stirring...
10/15/2026

Al Jolson first recorded "I'm Sitting On Top Of The World" in October 1925, an astounding 101 years ago. It's a stirring song and an exuberant rendition, and it often plays in my head when I sit down on top of an Adirondack Mountain to eat a snack and count my lucky stars.

The song always brings to mind another rendition, one Debbie and I heard al fresco in a campground at Wilpena Pound, in South Australia in 1996. We were just starting up a trail, and there, sitting on a rock behind a screen of trees, sat a young man with an American accent belting out this song at high volume. Perhaps he was channeling Jolson. Or maybe the sun was already over the yardarm, and he'd already had a few stiff morning drinks. Or maybe he knew the lyrics and the melody, was feeling happy, and the urge to sing it could not be resisted.

The mountain we're seeing here is Poke-O-Moonshine, in the Champlain Valley side of the Adirondack Park. We're looking toward Lake Champlain. Somewhere out there in the hazy green of the far shore is my dear old alma mater, Middlebury College. A lot of water has flowed northward up the lake and under the Crown Point Bridge since my late parents dropped me off there one early fall day as a shy, green seventeen-year-old freshman. My life was about to take off in exciting new directions, but I had little idea where I was headed.

Now here I am, looking back, feeling grateful for all the great places I've been and all the fine people I've met along the way.

Debbie and I climbed Poke-O-Moonshine, a small but still substantial mountain in the Champlain Valley a couple of days a...
10/15/2026

Debbie and I climbed Poke-O-Moonshine, a small but still substantial mountain in the Champlain Valley a couple of days ago. The weather was cool, cloudy, and breezy, with occasional bursts of sunshine.

Colorful leaves at our place are mostly down now, so it was a treat to go back in time a week and see sugar maples still in brilliant orange prime. Red maples, white ashes, striped maples and a few other trees jazzed up the landscape, too, while American beeches remained mostly green.

This beaver pond offered one of my favorite views before the summit. I could have ogled it for an hour or two. However, we had miles to go before we slept, so after a few sips of water and a few photos, we moved on.

Friends influence us, good ones for the better.My pal Josh Clement, with whom I made videos for several years in the mid...
10/09/2026

Friends influence us, good ones for the better.

My pal Josh Clement, with whom I made videos for several years in the mid-two-thousand-teens (see the full set on our Curiously Adirondack channel on YouTube), handled the motion picture shooting and editing, while I did the writing and shot most of the stills. In my location work with Josh, I could see how delighted he was when rays of sunlight shot into his lens and did weird things. This phenomenon is called flare. Until this time I'd tended to see flare as the enemy of a good image. Josh saw it as an opportunity to go a little wild, and maybe viewers would say, "Wow!"

When Debbie and I spent an hour on top of a mountain with our friend Jamie a few days ago, we were sometimes shooting toward the sun. Flare flared up in our lenses. The old me would have seen the ricocheting light in my lens as a problem. The new me, or at least new since I had the pleasure of working with Josh, saw it as an opportunity. So I invited the flare in for a visit, aiming to see what weird things it might do. This is one result.

Big things often start from small beginnings. So it goes with snapping turtles.When a friend spied it, this little hatch...
10/01/2026

Big things often start from small beginnings. So it goes with snapping turtles.

When a friend spied it, this little hatchling, which one day might way 50 pounds (23 kg), was slowly making its way across a lawn, heading for a lake. I'd guess the turtle was only minutes out of the nest because we'd intercepted it not far from the water, and not far from water is where snapping turtle eggs are usually laid.

Look how ferocious the fearsome snapper is! Terrifying, isn't it? Not really. They are peace-loving creatures and good citizens of their communities, where they play important roles as scavengers. I've been swimming with snappers all my life (chlorinated pools are not for me, thanks), and I still have all my fingers and toes.

The most interesting thing about this photo is the little white pointy thing below the turtle's nostrils. It's an egg tooth, also called a caruncle. The little turtle used the tooth to break its way out of its egg. Soon it will be shed.

Note to myself: leave at least fifteen minutes early for work. I was bustling off yesterday morning, running significant...
10/01/2026

Note to myself: leave at least fifteen minutes early for work. I was bustling off yesterday morning, running significantly early (unusual for me), when this scene caught my eye.

Fall color was ramping up in the Saranac River valley. Moose Mountain and the ridge connecting it to McKenzie were in the shadow of the rising sun. At the base of the high country, a band of clouds, a vestige of the preceding night's fog, was just beginning to rise. On the front passenger seat lay a camera and lens, ready to go. The gear is always there, because you never know.

I pulled over and hopped out. The grand view was blocked by a screen of aspens, maples, and other roadside trees. I hoofed it quickly up the road, knowing that lighting effects like this can be over in a flash. Happily, I reached a gap, and there was the scene I aimed to catch. I had just enough time to take a half dozen bad photos first before my brain, never fast out of the starting gate in the morning, realized that camera settings needed some tweaking. I tweaked, I shot, I bolted back to the car, and I arrived at my destination five minutes early.

Lately I find myself feeling small. But not to worry. It's because I've been spending time poking around the bottoms of ...
09/21/2026

Lately I find myself feeling small. But not to worry. It's because I've been spending time poking around the bottoms of very big trees.

How big is very big? That's a good question. I'm not sure. The white pine in the photo stands 150 high or so, I believe. It's in a grove, sometimes called the Elder Grove, in the Adirondacks on land owned by our fine local liberal arts and sciences, forestry, and culinary arts college, Paul Smith's.

I also had the pleasure one recent day of wandering through an area of old growth trees in the New York State Forest Preserve. There the giants weren't quite as tall as this pine, but they were massive all the same. Some were sugar maples, others eastern hemlocks, others yellow birches. We found some big hop hornbeams, too, but big is relative. Hop hornbeams are related to birches and produce fruit clusters that resemble (only visually) the fruits of hop vines. Big ones might be as thick around as a liter bottle of soda. They grow slowly and produce heavy wood dense with growth rings.

How old were the biggest, oldest trees I saw? I don't have good answers. Speculating, the towering pines might be 150 or 200, the grand sugar maples 400 or so, the old yellow birches nearly that or maybe just as old, and the biggest hemlocks 500 or more. Those are big numbers relative to our own time scale, but I've read that there are northern white cedars in our part of the country nearly 2,000 years old, and out West bristlecone pines live that were growing when the pyramids of Egypt were built.

I own a tool called an increment borer that can drill a hole in a tree and extract a cylinder yielding all the growth rings. Problem is, I never have the heart to use it. Who wants to inflict a wound on a being that has endured centuries of good times and bad, leaving an opening that could leave it vulnerable to a pathogen? Not me. The tool gathers dust on a shelf.

Seeing these trees and contemplating their great age made me think deeply about time, which begins and ends for us all.

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