Episode 245 - Ellen from Ravensbeard Wildlife Center

[00:00:29] The bushwhacks were some of the worst days I've ever had in the mountains, or life, really. Whereas Pantsy Mountain is totally opposite, it's a mountain on top of a crater. I think the weather challenges on this incident were particularly difficult. It is really the development of New York State. Catskills will respond to it.

[00:00:52] Passing into Inside The Line: The Catskill Mountains Podcast.

[00:01:09] Episode 245, Ellen Kalish joins us from Ravensbeard Wildlife Center, where they rehabilitate birds and other animals as well, but mostly birds, down in the Saugerties Catskill area. Phenomenal conversation you will hear later. But Ted, I want to say, we'll start this off by saying the, the, the Catskills, the podcast and the, the community and such like our sponsors, our donors and our monthly supporters.

[00:01:39] We're going to make a donations to Ravensbeard at the end of this, this episode. So thank you everybody who donates the show and such. We're going to make a generous donation to Ravensbeard for all that they do. They did awesome. And Ellen and Jenny, thank you so much for joining us tonight. It was fantastic. So. Yeah. Very cool. I'm, I'm stoked about that.

[00:02:03] It's going to be a great episode with Ellen on and rescuing wildlife, particularly birds, birds of prey. Pretty cool stuff. We're going to learn a lot about it and we're going to learn tonight the story of where Rocky Mountain got its name. That's true. And also where they keep the mountain lions from rehabilitation. Yeah.

[00:02:31] We've, we've uncovered their breeding ground, um, tonight. So that's, yeah. And you'll see firsthand, firsthand, a feral, totally feral mountain lion. Correct. On the show. Stay tuned. Bitter end. Um, I actually, I was thinking, you know, we're trying to encourage people to do the inside the line marathon. I know you're anxious to crack that open. So I'm going to make it quick.

[00:02:56] So while, while we've decided to clean up our app, act and drop no F bombs or minimal F bombs, I thought, why don't we keep track of how many bombs get dropped during the show? And then the evidence that you've listened to the entire episode. You're going to have the message stash with a number of bombs that got dropped. And we'll see. We'll see who has like the longest streak going. Yes. And it's natural.

[00:03:24] Like it's, it's not like we do this on purpose. Like I seriously, I will be at a viewpoint and I was like, God, this fucking looks great. And, and nobody will, nobody will be like, Oh God, don't say that, please. They'll be like, yeah, hell yeah. Yeah. Well, I got pretty thick skin and it's hard to offend me, but when somebody tells me I have a really difficult time naturally throwing down an F bomb, it kind of grates on me. Right.

[00:03:52] You know, as you can see, it's stuck with us. Yeah. Yeah. At my age, at my age, if I can't say what the fuck I want to say, then I got to mark that down for the thing. Then, um, I'll keep a score here. Then I just might as well give it up. Right. Okay. So I'm going to put a one side's S on the other side. T, T has got one. All right, Stosh, crack it open.

[00:04:21] I did one earlier today too. So we'll talk about that later, but I had to. Might go have my Jessica get me another one too. I got to, Oh, I don't know if I turn that back. It's calling and reinforcements. Correct. I'm keeping score. So, so two 45, uh, tonight. Uh, once again, Alan has joined us from Raven spirit. It's good. It's an awesome chat.

[00:04:45] So big congrats to Michael Finn and Francis for admitting that they both listened to the full length of the last podcast. So that's, that's, that's, that's, yeah. That takes a lot of courage. I got to admit to admit that you actually listened through our, all of our BS. Yeah. So did they do it together? Is it a group activity? No, no, no, no. Is there like Friday night podcast suffer fast? That would be fun. Yeah.

[00:05:15] I don't know about it being fun or not, but it would be a suffer fast. True. Big bag of popcorn. Can of cider or IPA. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever, whatever their, their choices. So congrats. All right. And I want to once again, point out that far and high outdoor co he did episode two 30, David from also the downstate 28. Once again, is offering an exclusive deal for the listeners and use the code inside the line.

[00:05:43] We'll get you 25% off everything in their shop. They have awesome stickers of the Catskills canister, the, the sign in sheets. They also have great canister now for trail to sign or foot trail stickers as well. Uh, can use it as many times as you like. So check out far and high outdoor co it's pretty cool. 25% off. That's almost free. Yeah. Right. I mean, 25%, any percent off. I will freaking acknowledge that.

[00:06:13] Well, you know, according to my wife, you get 25% off. You can't say no, you got to buy it. Correct. Far and high. Check out those stickers. Awesome. So Ted, you kind of live a little bit closer to this. So there has been a closure of the Taconic Crest Trail, the Madison Hollow Trail, the Berlin State Forest and the Taconic Ridge State Forest, where a bunch of our listeners were just in. I'm pretty sure James O'Boyle was in there as well.

[00:06:42] Recently and that's a Lear County are closed now from Madison Hall to Berlin Mountain until further notice due to a wildfire and ongoing emergency response. So once again, you're over in that area or if you're thinking about doing that area, it is now closed due to wildfire. And from what I've heard, I haven't heard, I haven't researched too much of this, but let me take a look at how big this is. They have no name for it.

[00:07:09] Like, while you're looking it up, just everybody be mindful that we're recording this Tuesday. Yes. November 3rd. And by the time you listen to this, either that entire area is going to be all burnt up and not worth going to, or the fire is going to have been put out and you can go over there. So get, get the recent data before you embark on that hiking excursion. Yeah.

[00:07:38] There's one active wildfire in New York state. That's being tracked. It is called the cherry plane wildfire. It is 251 acres. Right now it is 99% contained. So. Okay. That's good. That's a big area at 251. That's a large area. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, most big, like, like housing areas and stuff that, that it costs millions of dollars are a hundred and something acres.

[00:08:07] So this is 251 acres. It's been active for nine days. It was updated a day ago. That was 99% contained. So temperature is dropping, which is good. We have once again, overnight kind of frost, stuff like that. And then today there was a little bit of rain in the Catskill. So I don't know if it hit that cherry plane area. Over on the Taconic. So once again, be mindful if you're going to be going out. How is it though?

[00:08:35] You can contain 99% of it, but you just can't get that one last percent. I mean, what, what is, is that like a tree? So if that's, if that's 251 acres, the perimeter around it, I mean, what's 1%? Yeah. What's the one? It can't be that big of an area. I just, I wonder why they can't contain that 1%. I know. Right. Right. Interesting. It looks like, it looks like a majority of that was over in the Massachusetts area as well. So, uh, yeah.

[00:09:03] Well, that's, I mean, it straddles the tri-state line, you know, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut. It's the whole Taconic region over there. Yeah. So, uh, once again, be mindful if you're going to be going over there. Um, and also be mindful of the craziness that's going down in Woodstock. So, Ted, we have talked about this several times before.

[00:09:29] So, Zena Homes, uh, is now seeking a decision for, uh, calls that they have called for more reviews down in the Woodstock area. Now, this has been going on since like early October, I believe mid-October. Um, they had a hearing on the planning board, uh, that more than 40 people in the area spoke in opposition, calling in for additional scrutiny for the proposed subdivision sole access road.

[00:09:57] Now, this hurt 30 homes that Zena would be building would be in the town of Ulster, but the development would be reached through the Eastwoods Drive and Woodstock. Now, if you don't know where that is, Eastwoods Drive is some little, little bit outside of Woodstock, kind of not in the, the central town area, but on the outskirts of Woodstock, uh, kind of near the Thorn Preserve, I believe, right?

[00:10:22] The, yes, the, uh, Thorn Preserve, which is, uh, maintained by the Catskill Skinner and the Woodstock Lands Conservancy. So, uh, once again, uh, it, back in October, a hundred people attended the hours long hearing at the Hornbeck Community Center. And developers from Zena, Evan Kleinberg and Eddie Grenberg appeared with their attorney

[00:10:47] and said that what else basically said, what else have we not heard that already has been studied, reviewed and addressed at this stage, the review process. We believe that there should be a clear and infinite path towards the decision with unnecessary repeating work that has already been completed. So, once again, the town, the people are opposing against this project saying that it should not be done. They should not build near this Thorn Preserve Center and should not be putting up these big areas.

[00:11:18] They are seeking two waivers, one for a requirement for a secondary access road and another for a requirement for a four foot graded shoulders along 900 feet of road in the wetlands and wetland buffers. Now, if you've ever been through Woodstock in the past, once again, two months, they have all those signs on the side that say, protect our wetlands, protect our wildlife and stuff. Stop Zena. It's been going on for a while. And that was just the October meeting.

[00:11:45] And there has been meetings since September. And they gathered additional input and stuff like that. And we have seen this kind of explode. We've been kind of more focusing on the Wyndham Mountain Club area with that development. And now it comes back over here to Zena. So it's like bouncing back and forth between Woodstock and Wyndham and the two W's. What's up with that? So we'll see where this goes. We'll keep you guys up to date.

[00:12:15] But, you know, once again, development in the Catskills is, I would have to say right now, is inevitable. You and I, Ted, have been hiking here for, let's see, is it decades? Yeah, yeah. It's been decades. I mean, a decade. Between the two of us, we've got a couple decades under our belt. But we like to pretend it's been longer. It feels longer. Yeah. Hey, you know, everybody wants, you know, downstate, they want a home up in the Catskills,

[00:12:45] the Adirondacks or some place. Well, I would like a, I mean, even upstate, I would like a home in the Catskills, but. Yeah. You know, and there's, you know, there's millions of people downstate. So I'm sure there's 40 of them that can afford to buy and build in this development. And according to this news article, on September 17th, the developer of record was given a negative declaration in terms of the environmental review, which is a determination by the local

[00:13:15] planning board that there will be no unmitigated environmental impacts as a consequence of this development. So that's a big milestone for the developer. And it's not a surprise that the developer is pushing for a final approval of their project. Interesting thing, though, is they want these two waivers. And that's kind of like the last foothold that the public has to oppose this project.

[00:13:41] And wetlands, at least historically, up until maybe the last two decades, now that we're talking about decades, wetlands were underappreciated and not protected enough when it came to development. So maybe they'll not get their wetland crossing permit and the project will grind to a halt or they'll get an approval.

[00:14:10] And if they don't, they'll probably sue. That's what I'm seeing. That's what you see the town would do? Well, I'm seeing it. Or Zena would do. Well, so you can't, the locals have a problem generally suing because their voice is typically considered to be that of the planning board and or the town as opposed to Joe Public suing an individual landowner would have to show particular standing or harm to sue a planning board.

[00:14:40] So if this project is approved by the planning board, then generally speaking, the planning board doesn't sue for what it does. And the town wouldn't sue because it acts through the planning board. But you might get some unique public interest group that can make a claim for standing. We've seen that in the Hudson Valley going back to when, I think it was what, Storm King Mountain, they wanted to put a power plant there back in the 60s or early 70s.

[00:15:09] And that's what generated that concept that environmental groups would have standing to sue. But this, I mean, you know, it's a shame, frankly, the planning board should not have granted the negative declaration. They should have put their foot down, pause decked it, and made the developer, you know, sharpen their pencil, scale back on the project.

[00:15:35] The fact that they're trying to avoid a second access road, you know, shows how deep into this land they're going. I mean, this is one of the things that's often overlooked is the benefit of cluster developments. And cluster developments would allow a higher density development, not necessarily more than the 40 lots, but they would pack those lots closer together and then dedicate the remaining land under a conservation easement.

[00:16:05] So it would be available for passive recreation, such as hiking trails, but it wouldn't be turned into manicured lawns and landscaped areas around houses. And that doesn't seem to have been a consideration here, which is a shame. So, like, I mean, we, with Xena, like the area and stuff like that, it comes from, there's Sawkill Passes right by it, like right below it.

[00:16:32] And the Sawkill we know comes from up in the Indian Head area. So it comes up from Overlook Indian Head and then flows all the way down into the Hudson. Or it flows in the Esopus. I forgot. Hold on. Yes, it flows in the Esopus. So the Sawkill goes in the Esopus. And this is all the wetlands from the Storm Preserve and stuff like that. Right next door, not even right next door, I would say, like a little further away is the reservoir.

[00:16:59] So it's crazy that they would think, well, once I get the negative declaration upon this, I mean, if people don't know what the environmental impacts, the release of water, right, from stuff goes like right into the creek and right into the wetlands, correct? Yeah, so there's engineering concepts that mitigate wetland impacts.

[00:17:22] And what is discussed in the news article is a road cutting 900 feet through a wetland area. So generally speaking, the road width is not going to generate all that much stormwater flow into the wetland. And that can be mitigated by things that they call bioswales, as an example.

[00:17:45] But the real problem is to what extent they salt without restriction that area, because now you start to have saltwater infiltrating the wetlands, which changes the chemistry, which then has an impact on the vegetation and the habitat for animals that live in that wetland. Yeah, the wildlife. Yeah, so there's a potential for that type of impact.

[00:18:11] But like I said, often it's just overlooked by the planning board because they don't see a unique reason for protecting this particular wetland. And, you know, do they like the people in the planning board have any like knowledge of this area and stuff like that? So are they more in tune to passing this because they want like what what what benefits does this give the town give the stuff of Woodstock? Yeah.

[00:18:41] So the town town benefits because it increases its tax base and the downtown area benefits because you have homeowners bringing their shopping dollars to the area. And the particular planning board members have educational requirements in these planning areas that they're supposed to get continuing education in every couple of years. They have to have so many credit hours.

[00:19:07] Plus, they have a legal advisor, an engineer, environmental advisor. They have a lot of resources available to them. And you find often on a planning board will be somebody who for their career, you know, is either an engineer, an environmentalist, an attorney. So there's usually a lot of collective experience on the planning board.

[00:19:30] And, you know, I don't know why they didn't pause deck it here, but, you know, they just might have minimized their impression that there would be, you know, impacts in the wetland area for this project. So it'll be interesting to see what happens.

[00:19:48] And it's a shame that this, you know, all this land eventually over time that's developable will get developed because that's what we've been doing for the past few hundred years in this country is building home sites on land that otherwise was not inhabited. Yeah. And then we see this in the Catskills, you know, I see it popping up. I went up to Mancalo today to hike Plateau and I saw this, this little area. I was going to send you a picture.

[00:20:17] I should have, that has like four small tiny homes that overlooks Sugarloaf. And it's just, I'm guessing it's an Airbnb rental property, of course. So you came in from the South? Yes. No, no, North, North coming to Elka Park. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You drove in, you drove in through Elka Park and as you're heading up the road, there's those houses that have been re like rebuilt.

[00:20:46] They're existing home sites. And I think they were just renovating them last time I saw. Well, that that's, that's one of them there. There is, was this whole new site. I hold on. I'm going to, I'll send you the picture right now of, of what it was. Maybe you can zoom in and stuff, but it's just, they're, they're, they're tiny, they're little tiny homes. And they were built right off of, you can see the, the property line goes around it is the easy property line and stuff.

[00:21:13] Um, I just sent you it and thank you for the owl thing. Where'd you get that by the way? Oh, the, the video I sent you? My brother, my brother-in-law's out riding a mountain bikes right now. Oh, beautiful dude. Like, like, like God, I'm so jealous. Yeah. He's been sending me a bunch of stuff. So, cause he, he wants me to go out and night ride with him again. Ooh, that sounds fun. Yeah.

[00:21:35] You want to talk about a great way to see owls as you go out, ride your, your mountain bike at night and all the owls fly towards you chasing the bugs. And then they think you're a mouse and then fricking. Yeah. Then they do what I call the F-16 pull up right in front of you. You think they're going to fly right into you. These things are ugly. Wow. Right? Yeah. They're, they're just like little tiny homes that are. Yeah. They look like glorified, um, you know. Pieces of shit.

[00:22:06] Bathrooms. No, they look like those composting toilet areas. Right. You know, men's, they should put like signs on these doors, men's, women's. Let me, let me see. I'm going to look really quick because I know exactly where this is to see if they're, they're on there. But I saw that if you go, once again, you're going from Alka park, you know, from Tannersville and stuff like that to the trailhead to Mink Hollow. So you'll see these on their, your left side when you're, it's called stay Alka. Hmm.

[00:22:35] Um, short-term rentals, probably you come up for the weekend. But what I think, what I find, I'm going to use the word offensive. Um, what I find offensive about these, this development is. Do they look like shit? No, look at the trees. They were all cut down. Yeah. Well, no, they, well, that's, I mean, that's the, the existing trees had to be cleared, but then they planted these evergreens, which really aren't, they don't look like they're native trees.

[00:23:06] Okay. So why don't you, if you're going to replant the landscaping area, go with native stuff to kind of have it blend in better. Yeah. Oh, well, but I'm not a landscape architect. So what do I know? Yeah. So check out stay Alka and leave your late negative reviews. I'm just kidding. I mean, it's once again, uh, I'll, I'll post it. It says modern cabin hotel in the Catskills, $285 a night. Yeah.

[00:23:34] So why is it that this place apparently didn't get any pushback, but that place up in Wyndham at a thousand or more a night got all that pushback. And just, yeah. And that doesn't make much sense. You know, and now, you know, I've, I think you've, you've kind of changed my mind, Ted. And once again, like this is more the Wyndham area that the luxury hotels are more in a confined area. I see this out here. That's already developed around the ski area.

[00:24:02] I mean, you have snow guns, snow cats, chairlifts, all that parking area. All the amenities are already built up. What's another building with 24 units in it? It's not, it's not like this, what you're showing me here. And when you, if you came up here for the weekend to stay at a place like this, what would you do outside? It's like they have, they have the gravel driveways all around these buildings. Right. Right. Cause they tried to get too much stuff on the lot.

[00:24:31] So there's really no recreational area, you know, hangout area. Yeah. I mean, uh, It's like you're going to come to the Catskills just to sit inside. That's what they want you to do. We went to the Catskills. Oh, what did you do? We sat inside. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, when you drive upon this, like you'll see the homes tucked in the back, you know, like 200 yards in the back, stuff like that. You can barely see them. This, the landscape is wide open. Yeah. Right there. Oh, well. Yeah. It's, I mean.

[00:25:01] You don't want me on your local planning board. I'll no vote everything. Correct. Correct. And they won't give me a price. Like, uh, I can't see a price. Oh, you said 280, 285 a night. You said. That was a guess. That was a guess. Oh, okay. Yeah. Uh, hold on. Oh, no, it's not giving me a price. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, that was a thousand dollars a night. And it's in Shandaken. Jesus.

[00:25:30] These people are freaking ruthless. Yeah. All right. I'll, I'll figure it out. I'll find it out. Let's move. Let's move to something. Let's freaking. Then. Then. Oh, wait. Well, there it is. No. Okay. Uh, anyway, the more interesting stuff is the monthly supporters like Chris Garabian, Eric Osario, Scott and Nichols, John Comiskey, Mike.

[00:25:55] Desert City Radio, Henry Burmeister, Vicky Ferreira, Jeff Jotz, David Oliver, John Dunn, Betsy A, Vanessa, and Jim C. Thank you guys so much for supporting the show. Once again, you guys have made the donation towards Raven's Beard that we're going to donate later on. So thank you so much. Uh, also our amazing sponsors of the show like Molly from Outdoor Conicals Photography. Molly specializes in adventure elopement and adventure couple photography in the Catskills,

[00:26:25] Adirondacks, and the White Mountains. She's an officiant for getting married, a licensed guide, but most important, she's a story maker. Molly won't just give you photos. She'll give you memories that will last forever. Don't hesitate to get a hold of Molly on all platforms. We're looking forward to having Molly on in the future to talk about her adventures this year with her photography business. Awesome. Yeah. So also, have you ever wanted to learn more about hiking or backpacking or even brush up?

[00:26:55] No, not at all.

[00:27:24] I know. They teach you anything from first aid, map and compass, and many other skills that could help you while, and others while on the trail. Check them out on their website and social media platforms. Maybe, Ted, if we go to the world of this first aid, they can teach us on what to do when you have a, uh, the shoulder injury that you had. Oh, well, it's, it's so rarely happens to people that are hiking.

[00:27:50] Probably not part of a, uh, no, it's apparently it's more common than I, I thought it was. I had never heard of it before until it happened to me. And I would, I would sign up for that, but I would not be able to do, uh, chest compressions. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you won't be, you won't be able to get at your CPR thing. So now when I fight, if I'm out, no, and worse yet, if I'm out hiking and I have go into cardiac arrest, I won't be able to self resuscitate myself. Jesus.

[00:28:21] And that's scary. That's when you're my age, the thought of not being able to like give yourself CPR and bring in your, that's, that's like a horrible thought. So you need to be more sensitive when you talk to older folks like me. Jesus. Jesus. What the fuck? See? Oh, dope. There's another one. That's number three. That's woo. Woo. So I've got one. I've got one. Did you have any more? No, I just, I, that's the first one. That's number two. I'm beating you. Two to one. Oh, okay. Right. So here we are. Yeah.

[00:28:50] And we're not, we're, we're a few minutes into the show. Okay. We're scoring the points. We'll see who gets the hat trick. Uh, yes. Oh, oh, hat trick. Uh, speaking of that, my, my, my team, uh, the guy had a hat trick and they called it back and then they recalled it. So nobody threw their hats out and now everybody's disappointed. Uh, so. But you just, you just like, like drop that. You have your own hockey team. I do. That's a black bears. Binghamton black bears. Oh, I thought there were, it was the mountain Kings. Oh, yes. Right.

[00:29:21] Right. The mountain King brewing. I got that right here. Yeah. Um, so, uh, speaking of that, uh, drinking anything, I cracked mine open, uh, earlier. And it's a 1911 pine, pineapple, no way, a pineapple. Jesus. That sounded horrible. Wow. Sounds good. This is going to shut down. I said pine apple, like not pineapple. Um, so we're going to shut down this podcast right now. This is embarrassing.

[00:29:50] We're off the rails. So tonight is a no brew Tuesday for me in support of all those out there that are not drinking alcohol for whatever reason. I salute you. Definitely. Um, once again, thank you for beating that struggle. It's definitely a difficult task to do and, uh, we really appreciate it. Oh, another question. Are you really outdoors?

[00:30:17] So if you mentioned the podcast and one of your hikes, your social media, we will chat about it on the show and you tag us by typing at ITL Catskill MTM podcast. So first off, Mike at Red Hand Adventure Guys was on the, should I even try to say this? I think you just did. Just, it was like skip, like there was an internet skip. There was. Trail and cracked open a fiddlehead IPA. Yeah.

[00:30:46] Congratulations, Mike. That's, that's fantastic. Uh, I buc quake trail, bucquake bill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Mike reach out to me and tell me how you pronounce it. Uh, or, or don't hike it. So, or, or just don't hike it or somebody else go down there and find out what it is. So Danny, my man, mild machievous was out with Joanne doing slide Cornell and Brittenberg and ran into Kelsey hiker Yogi.

[00:31:15] So that was great and fantastic. The smile on their faces just warms my heart once again. And that I, I think Kelsey said to them, are you real? And like, they didn't like, they didn't think each other was real. So it was pretty cool. It was pretty fun. Um, Tracy pink pony 18 did eight miles on castle rock unique area. It's pretty cool place to see. Yeah. Good for her. Yeah.

[00:31:40] Um, Jeff Jotson oral walked different blazes of trail to see the sunset over Wyanoke high point. So it was really cool. Orla. Good to see. Uh, Chrissy G did the lemon squeeze and bond to his Craig to complete the beast maker challenge. We talked about that on the last episode, I believe. Yep. Yeah. That's pretty hardcore. So Jessica, if you want to enter, you can wait until the end of the segment. Not at all.

[00:32:10] I didn't say one for me. One's for me. One's for Ted. Thank you, Jessica. He opened one. Nice. Well, I hope that recorded all of it, but thank you, Jessica. Must be nice, man. Got like a supply supply line go in there. Look at you. It is. It is. Keeps me going. So, um, off in the woods, Sean bushwhacked a blackhead from Colgate Lake and then went

[00:32:36] on trail to meet Josh from our previous episode from the devil in the day. Once again, my heart is full. Like they both recognize each other and it's, it just fills it up. And then Sean, that, um, hike that, that, that bushwhack up Colgate Lake to blackhead is phenomenal. Yeah. And this is a perfect time of the year to have done that. And this is a perfect, anybody is a perfect time of year. The bushwhack. I'm sorry, Ted. I hope that this isn't depressing you.

[00:33:07] Yeah. I, you know, I kind of got out for not this past weekend, but before out for a little walk under the canopy. It was really nice. I'll take it. Yeah. But you, you are the bushwhacking fiend. You'll be doing like slide up eight different waterways and stuff. Yeah. Um, I'm getting close to starting again. It'll be interesting. Um, how much weight I can carry this winter, but I will say I have been working hard on my rehab.

[00:33:37] So you happened and it'll be come towards a six. Like everybody wants to do the six. You're going to have like, we're going to have to register with the DEC with the six, because we're going to have over like 50. Yeah. I don't think we'll have that big. We'll have a nice, a nice crew and everybody will carry something for me. And the only thing I'll have to carry and although it's heavy, but I will carry my ego with me on this. Jesus. Nice. Nice. Yeah. Nice.

[00:34:07] I'm sharing it with anyone. Nice. Uh, Michael Finn 69 is working on downstate 28 challenge. It did storm clean. Uh, once again, good to hear from you, Michael Finn. Nigel Farrell hollows, Dick cliff and Redfield, which turns out to be an 18 mile day. And I remember he did that with Joe from a trail bomb project. So 18 miles for two mountains. That's insane. Once again. Yeah.

[00:34:36] But just think of all that time they were out there away from it and enjoying themselves. True. But then how much time did they spend on the way down that they didn't talk to each other because they had that. Like that's all. It's a long, I don't know those, the long group hikes, you know, usually the last hour or two, depending on how long it is. Everybody talks about food. True. True. Kind of, kind of brings the whole group together. It does.

[00:35:06] Ooh, I want this. Ooh, I want that. Yeah. Food talk. Yeah. Vicki, hiker goddess adventures, did Halloween hike and also breast cancer fundraiser in memory of Mary Ellen and raised $560. Awesome. Unbelievable. Once again, Vicki, thank you for doing all that you do. You were once again a goddess to the Catskills in the Hudson Valley area. And we very appreciate what you do.

[00:35:32] You are an essential piece to what we have here in the community in the Catskills in the Hudson Valley. Speaking of that, Sean, the Long Island hiker woke up in Harriman and did some hiking along the AT and on day 28 was down in New Jersey at the Ramapo area and saw the New York City skyline. Like these people, Chrissy did that, Sean is doing that, and I am getting very jealous of not seeing the New York City skyline. I am getting bummed out.

[00:36:02] So I might do that. It'll always be there for you. True. True. True. Not going to say anything. That might be a bad joke. But anyway, so once again, hopefully in December I'll be getting John down there for the wilderness first aid training for Trailbound Project. So might have to do some stuff over in the Harriman area and get us glimpse into the New York City skyline.

[00:36:31] Tad, I'll hire you as my guide. It's not my turf so much. I mean, but we do have quite a few listeners who I believe know that area really well, and one of them would be Todd Bold and Danny Mischievous. There's also somebody who gets over there quite a bit, you know, so we do have connections in that part. We do. We do. We do.

[00:37:01] We do. And like you said, Todd, Todd Tebow does outdoors with Katie and Joe on the Ramaphode Dunderburg Trail through Harriman. And then Katie tagged us as well, was with Todd and Joe on the Ramaphode Dunderburg Trail exploring the Bald Rock Ridges, which I was fascinated by. You could see Joe tagged us later. I'll talk about that. But one of his pictures, you could see the striations from the glacial things.

[00:37:30] And then you could also see it looked like I thought he was walking down snow when he first sent it to me. And I was just like, no, no, that's, that's freaking bald rock. And you can just see kind of like the pattern of the great glacial striations. Yeah. It's a great place to take a compass and see how they all go in the same direction. Correct. Yeah. No matter where you are, you just lay down a compass. I forget what it was, but one of the first times I was over there, I did that just to verify. Pretty cool. Yeah. That's. Yeah.

[00:38:00] Harriman, that whole area is very interesting, you know, has an interesting industrial history, an interesting history in terms of colonial America. And it's genuinely a great resource to have so close to the New York, New Jersey metro area for people to drive an hour, hour and a half and to be able to go out and hike, camp,

[00:38:29] canoe, kayak, whatnot. Yeah. Yeah. Take even, take the train as well. Like it's just. Yeah. So the, the train, so you would be on the Eastern side of the river when you took the train. Well, no, I guess you could get off in Cornwall if you wanted to, or you can get off in Harriman. And you can cross the bridge as well. I mean, it takes a little time. Yeah. I guess, I guess what you, if you're a person who is got a, a car deficiency and you need

[00:38:59] to rely on public transportation, you can figure it out and get yourself over there. And you do what you want to get out in nature, you know? Like I would follow this guy on, I saw one of his posts on Instagram of where he did the train up and then went across the bridge and then camped out in Harriman. And he was, he was alone by himself and I'm just like, wow, that's, that's crazy. Just to think once again, how many hours is that away? Like two hours, not even.

[00:39:27] I don't know how long it takes to do the train hop up the Hudson to that spot, but. But to be alone in that area? Like, wow. Well, certainly worthwhile. And look at all that guy did to get away from the New York city skyline. And I want to see it. I'm just saying. Just saying, hey, man, the country guy's got to get like his city time. You always want what you don't have. The grass is always greener on the other side.

[00:39:56] I haven't been down in New York city since 2017. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So I think speaking of that, we talked about James, John O'Boyle. He was out in a Taconic Crest Trail going from Petersburg past the Northern Terminus. Now, I don't know what he had to deal with the wildfires. That's pretty, pretty crazy. So Danielle, which in the wilderness was at Minnewaska State Park and was also up in the Spruce and trail going up Hunter.

[00:40:23] And she had a little bit of like quality time at the Spruce Inn, I saw. So doing her thing, they gave her like a bingo sheet. So if anybody's any looking interested in going to the Spruce Inn and check it out. It's pretty fun. Or hit up Danielle for some info on it. It looks like she stays there quite often. And I don't know if I wasn't paying attention or not, but did you squeeze in Katie Henderson? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I thought I did. Yeah. Yeah. She was out with Todd and Joe. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:53] In the area. Okay. We don't want to leave her out. Yeah. I love Katie. Yeah. I mean, she's, she's the greatest. One of the crew. Yeah, she is. She is. Steve Environmentality was out in the Shenandoahs checking out at Talos Field. I asked him where it was because I kind of thought I had an idea. I said it was Black Rock, but he said he was up on, oh, give me one sec. Oh my God.

[00:41:20] I, I kind of Stony Ridge, I believe. It was, is one of the more popular areas. Hold on. Hold on. Stony Man. Stony Man. It was one of the more popular areas. And I said, it's kind of like Catterstool High Peak. It's, it's like not even a half a mile to the summit. And then you get a phenomenal view of the area. So I, I, he said his, his friends that he was with totally appreciate it, but he did

[00:41:48] not appreciate it because he was just with too many people. And we know Steve, he's, he's always out with Scott and Sean and stuff like that. So Andy Bronski was down on Hook Mountain, the Hudson Valley and said the leaves are still at peak down in the Hudson Valley area. Uh, Scott Catskill Mountain Brew did biscuits and gravy. I learned about biscuits and gravy last year. I think when he did it and I had no clue what he was talking about and you kind of gave me

[00:42:18] the lowdown on biscuits and gravy. So why don't you give the lowdown again on biscuits and gravy? Oh, I, I kind of forget, um, if it entails South double top or not, but it's a fur, big Indian and Eagle. And does it include a side of a South double top? Those and balsam. And balsam. Okay. Yeah. So all those, I'm pretty sure it's just all those. Um, he went with, uh, Tom Marone and, uh, a bunch of different people as well.

[00:42:46] So it's pretty cool. Um, biscuits and gravy. It's on the, no, um, hikers anonymous. Yes. The hike anonymous area. They have a bunch of different, uh, kind of like catchphrases for different areas. Yeah. They, they don't want anybody to know who they are, but they sure got a lot of stuff going on. They do. Isn't there some sort of name for like round top and caters go high peak. They call it something different. Yeah. I don't know. I'm, I'm such an anti-social hiker.

[00:43:15] I don't know any of the lingo. True. True. The extent of my hiking vocabulary is scat north and canister. I think that's all the hiking terminology. I know you need to change your Instagram. To scat north canister. Hmm. I don't think so. No, no. I don't want to lose all my people. Scat north canister is pretty good, but, uh, Josh, the head banging high peaker did Thomas

[00:43:43] Cole and black dome from Barnard road. That's Sean. Uh, then went up Bramley the next day with wandering. See, damn. So that's selfie. I know that's Karen. Yeah. With Karen. Karen. There you go. So, uh, Josh or John foolish, not stupid did biscuits and gravy with Jen and Scott. So awesome. Once again, Joe, Jacob plow was out in Harriman state park. Katie and Todd Francis did plot or kill reserve.

[00:44:13] He did that, uh, today and he's notified me. And then the Joanne beyond blaze it did balsam like early in the morning and Hawke in the afternoon, completing her 35 peaks in seven days. So is this like another coming of Scott doing fricking insane amount of days? Joanne killing it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:36] I, I, I think she did more than just those two mountains on her last day of completing a full round of the 3,500 in just seven days. Now is that seven contiguous days? I think no. Or it could be any seven days, seven days. Looks like total. Yeah. Because she was, she was with me on that Sunday when her and Danny did, we did, we did black

[00:45:05] dome black head and then she did black dome. They went and did black dome black, uh, or Thomas goal. Yeah. Cause they were, she was doing a full round. I think, I don't know. We can look it up and see what she did. It's big effort. She gets out, she gets out there. She hikes a ton. Uh, it's crazy. Starting to wonder if she's homeless and she's like my daughter and just sleeping in her car and hiking. She has a Jeep. Oh yeah. She's driving a Jeep. Yeah. She's driving a newer Jeep. So she's got the room to, to be homeless. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:45:35] How many have we got? I counted 22. I counted 22 as well. I didn't, I didn't actually count it as well. I just, I'm just grateful, grateful that anybody tagged us. Yeah. But that's pretty good. We've been, you know, relatively consistent having, you know, more than 18. I don't think we've been higher than 25 yet. So, so we've got to call in more people to tag us and try to get over 25.

[00:46:02] And if we get over 25, then Stosh said he's going to shotgun a cider live recording the podcast. Okay. So let's make it happen. I will allow it. It's that time of year to do so. So as well as you're a hard sell, like you are, once again, this time of year is, is, is perfect. Number one, you're not sweating profusely.

[00:46:29] So you're not looking for hydration and you can, to be honest with me, this is my, my time to bushwhack like crazy. I'll, I'll, I'll go along a little area of trail and I'll be like, look at them like, Ooh, those ledges look fun. Like, like I did today, but it's just like, it's, it's a, it's a time of year to kind of kick ass, but also you've got to be cautious as well with these least leads on the fricking trail.

[00:46:57] Like, so Ted, I got a question before I talk about my previous hikes. Okay. Would you be opposed to somebody? Yes, I would be. I would. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the nail is like, once again, opposed. That's why you're on the town board, right? Not on the town board. Nobody would vote for me. But what about if I. Only, only for you and I best, best podcast in the area. That's the only thing people would vote for me for. Good, good call. Good call. They just want to shut me up, but yeah.

[00:47:27] Okay. So what about a leaf blower on the trail? I would be opposed to that. Okay. The sound. The sound and you, you are disrupting that area for, you know, whatever. Insects. Yeah. Whether it's slugs or whatever, you know, centipedes, you know, those, uh, uh, anything that's, that's their environment, the noise. And then it's just the next day, you know, then the next day it's going to all be covered

[00:47:57] up again because more leaves fall on it. True. True. And that's, you know, look, that's one of the, it's almost like a rite of passage. Um, these days, because you'll see people that go out, uh, in the fall expecting to be able to follow that same herd path that they followed in the late spring or summer. And then all of a sudden they realize when they get out there, it's got a fresh cover of leaves over it. And it's not as obvious as it was months ago.

[00:48:25] So, so it, you know, helps you develop your eye for, uh, following, you know, whether it's, you know, human traffic through the woods or, uh, an true animal herd path through the woods. Uh, but it's, you know, it's good. And then as you get better at it, you know, people will pick up on, you know, just how different things are worn, broken, uh, and reflect evidence of intense, you know, hiker use going through

[00:48:55] the area. So just, just leave stuff the way it is. Maybe someday the DEC will do something about trail building on the trail as mountains, and maybe they'll just spend money to do studies and talk about it. Who knows? But in the meantime, go out there, hike responsibly, enjoy yourself, leave the leaf blower at home. Okay. Okay. This is a curse with, uh, certain like, uh, situations I have today. So, uh, what have you. Tell us about it. Let's hear about your previous hike. Okay.

[00:49:25] So, uh, Tuesday, Tuesday. Oh, so. Yes. So Jessica birthday was Sunday, Sunday. She had her 40th birthday. Okay. So, uh, congratulations, Jessica, 40th birthday. We went out to a local spot, just Gilbert Lake State Park, and just walked around the lake. Beautiful. Um, little, like the leaves were kind of still on the trees here and there, kind of like brownish, dark brownish and stuff.

[00:49:53] But still, there was one or two of those, like, bright yellow trees that were sitting out there. So it was beautiful. It was absolutely phenomenal. So, you know, your man today, I like kind of over the weekend, I wanted to kind of explore the, the search of kind of like new viewpoints, not view, new viewpoints, but just like areas that I can find a view.

[00:50:19] And, uh, it's once again, it's a perfect time to bushwhack and to like, kind of like know the kind of like, see everything instead of like guess of where stuff is. And, uh, so I was like, I'll go to like Mink Hollow and bushwhack up the side of plateau to the north from Devil's Path and hit those massive ledges that are on the side. Um, it was, it was a great day.

[00:50:48] It was a beautiful day. Started out at like 54 degrees. Like you can say that November, uh, third, is it November 3rd? It's 54 degrees. And then like, it ended up being 64 degrees. Beautiful weather. Um, I started off in the Mink Hollow Trail, uh, hit Devil's Path. And when I hit Devil's Path, there was a guy laying there on the leaning on the, the actual junction sign and reading a book.

[00:51:17] And I was like, all right, Hey, how's it going, man? And he's like, Oh, good, good. Great. Beautiful day. And I'm like, you like waiting for somebody you enjoying the day. And he's like, Oh, I'm waiting for a bunch of kids from my, my group that are doing the Eastern Path that Devil's happened. And I'm like, kids like, like, what do you mean? Like, like you met them here from Mink Hollow. He's like, no, I I've hiked over from Pudger road to here.

[00:51:45] I'm like, you left them alone. Like, and he's like, Oh yeah, they're, they're fine. I'm like, interesting. All right. Um, it's just like the guys seriously like, Oh, they're, and the cool thing is, is when I'm hiking up that, that little, little kind of like, uh, is it, uh, uh, like an access area? Like it's not really official DC area because they haven't marked it. So is it, um, coming off the end of Mink Hollow. Yeah.

[00:52:16] Yeah. It's well, it's the old hall road that used to go from, you know, Hunter Tannersville down to Woodstock. Yeah. I thought so, but it's not officially marked until like, like 250 feet from the devil's path, which is weird. With yellow blazes. Yeah. Yeah. I, I generally think that the DEC and the Elka park people do not want to encourage the use of that road by people who don't live in Elka park. Okay. That's what I thought.

[00:52:46] I was just like, I've, you know, I've gone up to several times, but you hit the spring and then you'll see the trailblazes. So I'm like, is it, uh, what is it called? Uh, what is that like called where you get like all the, the years of access and then you can go up through, through there. Um, it's kind of like the area from Panther to slide. Oh, like an easement area. Yes. Like it's, is it kind of like an easement kind of? Yeah.

[00:53:14] I don't, I don't know what the, like the legal status of that access is. Um, but it's, you know, it's, there's a, there's the well-established road that you hiked up, uh, today, but then there's also old logging roads and maybe a couple of quarry roads that branch off of that going up Panther. Maybe some of them in the old days were barking roads that just got widened and they were done

[00:53:43] barking and then started, you know, tree cutting up there before the land was acquired by the state. Yeah, it was, it was once again, I always wondered about that stuff. And so, uh, I see that guy and we talk and then I see also from the, the sign hanging up is like, uh, tent stakes and tent, like, uh, like poles to make your tent with.

[00:54:13] And it's like, all right, I'll leave it here. When I come back down, I'll see if it's still here. And then, you know, if not, I'll take it. Uh, so I get up to, you know, that kind of like where you, you go up kind of like a really nice, uh, kind of like elevation gang going on a plateau. And then you hit that little section of where it's a Creek and it looks like a, kind of like a landslide, not a landslide happened, but like, there's just massive boulders.

[00:54:43] Yeah. Like, can you give me any information on that? Why that is the way it is? Yeah. Like it's, it's, was it a landslide? Like, uh, I'm going to say it's the product of, uh, heavy, uh, like a heavy storm. Like turbulence. Yeah. Well, not it carrying away all the fine material and leaving the big boulders behind. Okay. You'll see that there's, there's a lot of places like that out in the Catskills that are just like that.

[00:55:13] And so, you know, at one point in time, presumably that area was either full of snow and there was a lot of melt water that came through there and conveyed away all the finer material up, up and including, you know, rocks, the size of your fist and bigger. Um, so that, and that, that stream area could have been there for, you know, hundreds of years like that. Yeah. And then you'll see when you're hiking down these areas, you'll see some of those that

[00:55:41] are like that, but they haven't been an active flow of water for who knows how long. And trees are starting to grow in the area. Yeah. It's just part of the dynamic of dissecting a plateau, if you will. Nice. That's a good way to put a, um, and it was just, it's just cool to see that little area once again, because there's massive boulders in there and you go around that area and then

[00:56:07] you kind of hit a left and this is where I like started my bushwhack up to the ledgers. I didn't. So when you say started your bushwhack and that, so you're going, uh, counterclockwise around the mountain now? Correct. Okay. Going up devil's path, path. Uh, and when I like, you cross that field that when you're coming down, you almost think that that's the trail going down through there as opposed to crossing over it.

[00:56:36] You go further uphill and then you reach there's a rock outcropping on the trail proper. Did you get to that before you started side hilling? No. No. So you start your side hill and what do you get to? Uh, kind of like, uh, massive, kind of like massive smooth ledges. Like I hit that smooth ledge area.

[00:57:00] And like my, my first thought was to go all the way up to the top of the, like conifer forest and then bushwhack down. But then I was just like, ah, let's start right here. And that was a great decision because those ledges are, I would say if you didn't know about those ledges, they're like 200 feet tall, like they're massive ledges where I wouldn't

[00:57:27] say there's, there's decisions where you have to make to be like, you know, once again, like, can I climb this or can I get back down this? Like, that's what, like when I was going upside hilling to this area of where the ledges started, like, I was just like, well, if I, I kind of looked up and I'm like, I can climb this and then I looked down and be like, can I get the, like back down this?

[00:57:52] And I was like, well, so I, I could, but once I got up, I used a lot of like handholds. I put my, my, my, uh, my spikes, my poles in my backpack. And I was just like, now I'm going to have to do kind of like some pre point stuff. And I did, I used a lot of trees, a lot of rocks and stuff. Got to this little area right below those massive ledges. Like these ledges are seriously like a hundred feet tall, awesome stuff.

[00:58:20] And it's just, it's. So how far around did you get on a plateau side hilling? Did you get. Not too far, dude. It's not that far at all. Yeah. So you're still in the notch itself. You're, you haven't gotten over towards the ridge that takes you out to older bark. Correct. No, I'm, I'm facing more North. Okay. I'm going North. So this is the area I'm hitting. So we're at about 3000 feet.

[00:58:51] Okay. And you're, you're going counterclockwise. You're not heading, you're not heading towards Hunter. You're heading really towards. Towards the blackheads. Okay. Yep. So there's a, if, if you view on Gaia, there's a little viewpoint marker to show you this. Um, and I, that's, that was my goal. I wanted to hit that viewpoint to see what it would look like and stuff. And once again, it was a little tricky, but once you get to this, like a little flat area and you go down, it's beautiful.

[00:59:20] It's phenomenal. Uh, you get a great view of kind of like the Mink Hollow area going into this, like a sugar, uh, um, sugar loaf. And then down into the Mink Hollow far area. And then you can see kind of like, uh, it's not Minnewasca. It's High Point, right? New Jersey, like High Point area. Oh, okay. Yeah. Is it Minnewasca? Well, you're going to see Minnewasca before you see High Point. Okay.

[00:59:50] So, I mean, you see, so you see Minnewasca and stuff like that. It's great little kind of like tunnel view. And I could not get onto the ledge proper because this ledge, I could notice there's a, there's like a good three foot crack in it. So, it was a pillar. It wasn't a ledge. So, I was just like, I ain't stepping on that shit and having it fall over to the side and I'm dead.

[01:00:18] So, beautiful spot. Uh, and then I decided once again that I would not take on the route to go straight up those ledges. I would go like as far over as the ridge as I could, like the rim area. And then you encounter clockwise. Yep. Going towards the Blackheads, going north. And then I would just float up to where it would seem like easy as possible and stuff. And that's what happened.

[01:00:47] Like I went all the way around these ledges and hit kind of like the northernmost part of this ridge. I don't even know what this ridge is called. It's not called, there's a spooch drop ridge, which is right next door. Um, that's a private property. But, uh, this ridge. That goes off to the north, but you're not anywhere near that, right? No, no. I'm right across the other creek, the creeks, the side creek of that. Okay. There's a creek that separates that.

[01:01:17] Um, yeah. So you're on that side of the mountain. You're on the spruce top side of Panther or plateau. Uh, other, other side. Okay. So there's a roaring kill that separates the spruce top and this ridge that I was on. Hmm. Do you want, do you want me to send you the? Uh, no, I'm, I'm, I'm looking at that area now and I, I had you, I had you going counterclockwise

[01:01:43] towards Mink Hollow and, and looking towards Woodstock. Yeah. That's what I thought you were doing. No, counterclockwise on the other side. That would be clockwise. No, I see. No, I'm wrong. I'm going to, I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with you. So, but we, so when you left, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but you're, but you're over towards spruce top. You're on the spruce top side of plateau. So I've been over there. Somewhat. Yeah. Yeah. So this is. I'll say this.

[01:02:12] So did you, there's a really nice hardwood forest up there. Correct. Okay. With fern glades and stuff like that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful. Like I hit, I hit. So once again, like hitting the, I, I was going to zoom in. There's a red, there's a red pin. I put a red pin where that one fern grove is. Yeah. Yeah. So it's beautiful. It's phenomenal.

[01:02:37] And it's such, I wouldn't say it's such an easy climb, but it's such a, uh, an elegant bushwhack. Like you, you go up and you kind of like, like once again, you're sitting on the ridge and you're just like, okay, I'm too far to the right. Let me go up to the middle. And you're going up these ledges. You can go off to the right or the left, which has these amazing, huge, massive, once

[01:03:06] again, 100, 200 foot ledges to where you're overlooking, but you can't see shit because there's trees out the way. But over to the right is the roaring kill and it's nice, easy grade and stuff like that. But once again, you said like, I marked a spot also going up to plateau that has kind of like a bog area. And I looked it up on Kudish's stuff. Like you need to send me his stuff on the bogs because, um, I didn't see anything in his,

[01:03:34] uh, the forest history or Kudish and the Catskills. So I gotta, I guarantee he's been here, but it's, it's not that difficult to get an off of the trail. Yeah. I was, I, I hiked that ridge that you were on last year. Um, the day that I was going to whack up, um, Thomas Cole, but I fell into a washed out culvert pipe. Remember that story?

[01:04:04] Yes. And, and I, so I, I got myself in the Jeep. I had to go over to the tops market and pick up some real first aid supplies. Not like the little band-aids that I had in my, uh, backpack. And I did a little, I did a little triage, like a mash triage unit in my Jeep to make it authentic out in the tops parking lot. And then I, I headed over like you were to the end of Minkalo, started out on Minkalo. But before I got to the devil's path, I just started looking for old logging roads

[01:04:34] and made my way up that ridge. It was like you said, it's a nice pleasant hike. Yeah. You go through a really young, uh, forest area that was obviously logged within the last 75 years. Then you go into, um, after you go over a couple of ridges, you get into that hardwood forest that they didn't log out with the, uh, fern meadows, which was really beautiful. I, I'm thinking of a photo I took and posted to that area that day.

[01:04:58] And then eventually you go through, um, not so bad, thick balsam for to get to plateau. Correct. Proper. And then, and then the, the prize of the prize of plateau, which you haven't mentioned, it's like the crown jewel, the ruby of the mountains and the Catskills is what? The essential ridge going across plateau. No, no, the, I gave it away.

[01:05:28] I gave you the big hint. The ruby of the Catskills mountains, the jewel is the red disc. Oh. Nailed to the balsam fir tree that says, what does it say? Plateau mountain. It says plateau summit. Oh, summit. Sorry. Yeah. I cracked open a cold one there for. Yeah, you did. I saw that. Yeah. It was for Samantha and I. Right. Yeah. I'll have to show you. I didn't post the video yet. Where was she? Where was she this week? I know. Right.

[01:05:58] He would have been 23. All right. Okay. Yeah. So like, dude, like I got a bit, that was one of the finer bushwhacks that I've had. Yeah. And it, yeah, it had a little, sounds like it had a little challenge to it. A lot of forest diversity. And then, like I said, the big payoff was that red plastic disc prominently nailed to a endangered balsam fir tree on plateau.

[01:06:24] It was just, it was just the, once again, going below the kind of rim and then going up the rim and feeling like, once again, I'm, I'm on like the left side or right side. I want to stay in the middle and just going up that and then bouncing back and forth to be like, oh, is there a viewpoint over here? No. Is there a viewpoint over here? No. Like it added more mileage, but you know what? It didn't matter. I could have seen a viewpoint.

[01:06:51] My, my, my goal once, once again was to see that, that, that ledge. But then I also kind of looked to the North and I'm like, man, it would be phenomenal to get a view of the blackheads from this perspective. I didn't, I didn't get that, but those firm blades were awesome. Like once again, you, you hit some, some dick conifers and stuff like that. And then you get to the firm blades. Did you see a fire ring?

[01:07:19] One of those areas has a recently last year when I was there has a recently used fire ring. No, I don't. I didn't. Oh, what are you talking about to the left going towards South or no? Well, I'm talking about we're going to have the whole same. No, this is not on spruce. No, this is on that ridge. You were going up. Oh, interesting. No. Yeah. So it was really cool. But, but it was, it was phenomenal the day.

[01:07:44] I, when I got back down, I unfortunately like towards the end of the devil's path, I smelled some smoke and I was just like, you got to be kidding me. Somebody is either started a fire right now, which is fine. It was like, like one o'clock, two o'clock in the day, um, or did not put out their fire. So I go to make hollow. Somebody didn't put out their fire. So I had to use the rest of my bladder, which I brought.

[01:08:14] And then my electro like bottle, which was like three quarters of the way full to put out this fire. I posted this on Instagram and I was just like, come on. Like, I don't think it was the, the boy scout kids because once again, they were doing the, the four peaks in the day they were doing the Eastern path. So, um, I was just like, come on, like really like at this time when we haven't received rain for like three fricking weeks, like, yeah.

[01:08:43] But I put it out, got back down, went over the tops, got some fricking fantastic hard ciders from Hudson North caramel apple and a big apple. So it's not what I'm having tonight though. So you had a good haul. Well, that's nice. Yeah. It was a good day. Awesome. What'd you do? Uh, so I, for the first time in five months on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I rode a bicycle

[01:09:13] outdoors, which was kind of a big thing for me. And I didn't get out hiking because between it being perfect cycling weather to reacquaint myself with, uh, cycling and because of other family obligations, I had limited time to go out and do things over the weekend. But yeah, I rode three days in a row.

[01:09:37] Uh, it was lovely testing out the shoulder, which is a work in progress. And, uh, I did okay. So I was happy about that. Looking forward to, I don't think I'll be out hiking this weekend because again, this is like, um, birthday weekends and are my, my family and my wife's family. So we've got weekend activities.

[01:10:04] In fact, I am excited because on Thursday I will be picking up my daughter from the airport. She's coming to town for a few days. So that'll be nice. Yes. Yeah. I haven't seen her in way too long, but she's having a good time. I mean, the last time you saw her was when we did the podcast. Uh, no, last time I saw, yeah, last time I saw her was new year's. No shit. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it's been 10, 11 months. Wow. That's going to be fantastic.

[01:10:32] We're like, we're like spiritually we're together, you know, we're like we're every day we're connected. So I'm, I'm with her every handhold that she, she makes. So, and that experience that you were relating about, uh, searching out those viewpoints and, you know, the unknown and the uncertainty, whether you can make it up, make it down and whatnot. And, and her community and the rock climbing community, there's a, it's a big thing for

[01:10:59] climbers to be able to do a pitch, a climb without having any knowledge. They call it beta. Uh, they, and they refer to it as flashing is when you show up not knowing much, if anything about the rock, the route and just climbing it because it's that thrill of, you know, being out there and, you know, thinking in the moment your ascent and, and nailing it. So it's a pretty cool thing. Nice. Nice. Yeah.

[01:11:28] So looking forward to hearing our stories and stuff. Yeah. Well, I'll, I'm sure I'll hear them. We're talking about our next excursion. So nice. Nice. It'd be fun. All right. All right. So once again, volunteer 3500 club Catskill, Shrill Crew, Catskill mountains club, British center, Jolly Rover, trickler, Bramley mountain fire tower.

[01:11:51] Uh, anywhere you can volunteer benefits, uh, as well as the Raven's beard, uh, wildlife center volunteer anywhere. It helps out anywhere possible. Also, if you need stickers, get ahold of me. I can send you a sticker or go to camp Catskill and you can get free stickers or just go to your local trailhead. There might be free stickers at your local trailhead register. Not really. That's leave no trace.

[01:12:21] So, um, also weather forecast. What are we seeing this weekend? Hopefully some good stuff, but it's unpredictable. So let's go into the weather forecast. Here is your weekend weather forecast. This weekend looked to be a mixed bag with Friday being mild. Saturday brings a chance of showers and Sunday looks for the best for getting out in the trails

[01:12:49] on Friday, November 6th. Expect mostly cloudy and mild with valley temperatures starting in the upper 40s and climb to the lower 60s during the afternoons. The summits will be a little cooler starting around the upper 30s in the morning, reaching to the mid 50s in the afternoon to evening. Winds look light and only a small chance of showers. On Saturday, November 7th becomes a change with the fall weather.

[01:13:14] Cooler temperatures and a chance of showers throughout the day with the valley starting in the low 40s to reach mid to upper 50s. On the summits, expect temperatures in the 30s during the morning to reach the mid 40s in the afternoon. Rain will be on the chance, especially mid morning in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 75%. On Sunday, November 8th, it looks to be the best hiking day. Expect partly sunny skies with valley temperatures around 40 degrees, reaching the low 50s.

[01:13:43] Summits could start in the low 30s and climb to the mid 40s during the day. Winds will be a bit breezier on Sunday and there's a slight chance of showers later in the day to the late evening. Overall, it looks to be an okay weekend to get out except Saturday with it being the most chance of precipitation. But just remember when you're out there to be safe, be prepared, and don't become tomorrow's rescue story. Back to you guys. Alright, last set of sponsors. Sounds good, right?

[01:14:13] Awesome. Let's move along. So, is it time for some new gear for hiking in the Catskills? You need to say no more. Camp Catskill in Chansfield has all your hiking needs. Footwear socks, moisture wicking shirts, freeze-dried meals, Catskill merchandise, and more. They have all the essentials for your hiking needs. Located in Tannersville and online, check out Camp Catskill. Also, if you want free stickers, you need to stop there in Tannersville.

[01:14:41] Also, you need to check out another summit, a non-profit program that leads outdoor adventures, activities for veterans, for veterans, and first responders for free. Outdoor activities like walking, hiking, paddling, and even backpacking. We welcome guardians of all ages and ability levels, including those with accessibility needs.

[01:15:02] Our adventures are located throughout New York and the Northeast, and we organize transit-accessible adventures throughout the Hudson Valley and New York City area. Apply today on anothersummit.org. All right, so let's get on to the guest of the night. Let's go! Tonight, Ellen Collers joins us from Ravensbeard Wildlife Center down in Saugerties, where she rehabilitates not only just animals, but more specifically birds and stuff.

[01:15:32] So we're talking about just any bird possible, right, Ellen? Hummingbirds to bald eagles and everything in between. Teeny tiny too. Massive. I love it. So welcome to the show, Ellen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. You know, I remember hearing about you guys, and I was just like, I got to reach out.

[01:15:54] And we connected, and we're very eager to learn about Ravensbeard, because I'm pretty sure not many of our listeners know about Ravensbeard. You guys are like under radar for some reason. We are, basically because we're not open to the public. And that's because our license forbids us to show any bird that might be going back out into the wild in front of people.

[01:16:20] So we do have tours, and we do have a lot of volunteers. But we really have to keep, you know, a low profile as far as open to the public. Okay. Okay. That's good to know. So, Ellen, how about yourself? How about you get a little background about yourself? You know, like where you lived, how you came into Catskills, and then how you kind of integrated in with Ravensbeard. Okay. Okay.

[01:16:47] I moved here in 87 from New Jersey. I raised a family and decided when I turned 40 that I wanted to quit the corporate world and give back. And so I decided I was going to be a wildlife rehabilitator. I had been kind of doing this work for my whole life. My dad worked for Audubon.

[01:17:15] So we were the family that had exotic animals growing up. And people would bring us, you know, injured animals in New Jersey. You know, squirrels and baby birds and so on. And then I read an article in the Conservation Magazine that talked about three wildlife rehabilitators and interviewed them. And I just ate that up.

[01:17:43] I had no idea there was actually a license to do this. And so I interviewed two out of three. And I said, oh, it's a passion of love. And I set up one room in my house as a clinic. And I live for the release. That's the best part of all of this. And the other person said, well, it's a money pit.

[01:18:11] You spend all your money on food, on caging, on medications, vet bills. So you better think about it before you jump in. And so I just took the first woman's answer and ran with it and said, I'm going to try it. See what happens. You know, if I fail, I fail. So, yeah, I got licensed through the DEC.

[01:18:39] Two years of working as an apprentice under a few other rehabbers, licensed rehabbers. And then I got my license to work with birds. So that's then a U.S. Fish and Wildlife license. So at that point, I decided that I was going to specialize.

[01:19:04] It seemed as though the people that I worked with felt as though if you do everything, you can't do anything really well. But if you specialize, then what you do becomes a little bit better quality. And I like that answer. So I basically just decided birds were my thing.

[01:19:29] I was a birder all my life and just jumped in with both feet. So Ellen, why don't you, for our listeners, give them a little more of the info in terms of what it takes to become a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. You know, is there a classroom instruction or some type of formal instruction? I assume there's testing involved. And you mentioned an apprenticeship.

[01:19:57] So why don't you give us the lowdowns on all that? The New York State DEC is where you get your first license. And that's for general rehab. You can rehab just about any small mammal. And some game birds, crows, pigeons, geese, things that are not endangered.

[01:20:25] And so from there, you get a study guide after you send in your application and a test booklet. There are at least two tests a year that you can take through the DEC. Some of them are at a conference put on by New York State Wildlife Rehabilitation Council. It's called Nice Work.

[01:20:52] And they are really the mother of all the wildlife rehabilitators in New York State. So they have three-day conventions where you just go, you sign up. They're held at a hotel in New York State. And from there, it's back-to-back three days of education.

[01:21:15] From ABC learning about the basics to turtle repair, bone fractures in birds, raising baby mice. You can go in any direction. And it really depends on what your preferences are. So I passed the test.

[01:21:42] And then the requirement was you need to spend at least a year, probably two, working as an apprentice under other rehabbers. Other than that, there's really no education other than the study guide in the booklet to pass your test. So all the hands-on happens in those two years of apprenticeship.

[01:22:07] And there were just days I would just go and hang out with these rehabbers. And I learned how to make up baby food for baby birds. It's not just crushing up a worm. You know, different diets as far as different species. Each species needs, well, you need to ID the bird.

[01:22:35] You need to figure out what it eats. And you need to figure out where it lives. And after you kind of determine those three things, then you know what type of habitat it needs and how to keep it comfortable. Because most times the birds are here for anywhere between, you know, one day to maybe a month, depending on if it was a fracture or a window strike.

[01:23:04] So really those two years were constant learning. I went to every nice work conference that they put on, and that's once a year. And it was kind of like walking into a home and feeling like you belonged or you didn't.

[01:23:26] And I just knew that being a wildlife rehabber was something that I was really, really going to love. So it turned out that I followed my passion. And, you know, it's not hard to achieve. It just takes time and dedication. Amazing. Awesome. And so how long have you been doing this now?

[01:23:53] Since you finished your apprenticeship, how long did you say you've held your license? I got my license in the year 2000. So it's going to be 27 years in January that I've been doing this work. Congratulations. Thank you. That's phenomenal. Yeah. So now as you've progressed with your license and stuff, 26 years, when did Ravensbeard come about? And, you know, what is Ravensbeard? What is your organization?

[01:24:23] Ravensbeard happened because I was rehabbing out of my garage. Most of us start that way where we have to use our kitchen, our bathtub, those kind of things. Because we don't have a facility. We can't afford to just jump in and buy a vet practice. So most of us have home-based clinics.

[01:24:52] And it basically was my garage. I had a slop sink. I bought a few vericandels and stacked them up. And as I got calls, you have an option whether you want your phone number public or not. And I said, yes. How else am I going to get calls? True. So it just kind of evolved from there.

[01:25:21] I realized that just me, myself, and I was not really a draw. And that maybe if I named it, it would be a little more professional. So I woke up and thought of Ravensbeard in my dreams and said, I think that's what I'm going to call it.

[01:25:45] But I had someone who was also working with me, also a new rehabber. And she and I decided that we wanted to go for the not-for-profit status. So once you're not-for-profit, then you can give tax receipts. And people are a lot easier convinced to give you money.

[01:26:08] And so once we got our not-for-profit established, then we decided we really were going to do this in a big way. And started to, at that point, be a little more diverse. And we started a, I guess, lecture series of some of the birds that were unreleasable.

[01:26:33] We adopted as an ed bird and started to do little senior citizen clubs and libraries and book fairs and things, bringing a bird here and there. And so that became the avenue that allowed us to afford what we were doing. Because we're not allowed to charge by law.

[01:27:02] It's kind of like having a driver's license. It's a privilege. And so we had the privilege of working with birds. But how do you successfully keep yourself from out-of-pocket expenses? And so we were able to charge for our lectures and programs. And that went right back into Raven's Beard to buy food and caging and vet bills.

[01:27:30] So that sounds incredibly difficult to start up from your house, you know, from your bathroom, from your sink and stuff like that. Where are you guys now? Do you have your own facility that you have down in Saugerties? Five years ago, I bought a house where the entire basement was finished. So I have a kitchen, a stove, a refrigerator, a sink. We tore out the tub and put in a washer and dryer.

[01:27:59] And so the entire basement is now 1,000 square feet of clinic. Wow. It is an ideal location. We're right at the bottom of Blue Mountain. And the Palinville and, oh, I forgot the name of the creek comes right down through our backyard. So I'm sorry?

[01:28:29] Catskill Creek? Plat Clove. So that's Platica. Yes, Plat Clove. So yes. Yes. So that creek runs through our backyard. Nice. Yeah. It's a perfect place. We have 14 acres, about five acres of wetlands. And it's a perfect place to release birds. So it's right along the migratory flyway. Awesome. Awesome.

[01:28:58] Now, with this being about and stuff like that, what was, besides, you know, starting off in a sink and bathtub and stuff, what was the hardest part? Was it like gaining money? Was it, you know, taking on all these? It was raising money. It was? Okay. Okay. Yeah. We didn't have any corporate sponsors. We still don't. And so most of our donations are private donations, people that bring us animals.

[01:29:24] Once we put on our intake form, would you like to leave a donation? It occurred to people that we didn't get money, you know, from the state or from, you know, corporations. And we started to get more and more, you know, small donations for each animal that we took in. And so that really, you know, was the beginning of raising money and releasing birds.

[01:29:52] Is that still the challenge, is raising money? Always. Yeah. Always. Okay. Good. Yeah. I mean, not good. Not good. Let's hope the people listening are thinking it'd be like, oh, let's give a donation. So everybody give a donation instead of giving a hard cider to the podcast, give a hard cider to Ravensbeard. Yeah. Well, Stosh says he's going to match all donations up to $100,000. So very, very glad. Alan, don't believe a word I say. I was just joking. I was going to say, what? Okay.

[01:30:22] I can close my mouth. Or a bird will fly in it. But I'm assuming you're all caged up right now. You got a hummingbird loose up right there. Yeah. So speaking of cages, you told us about your thousand foot facility located in your house. Give us a little more info about what you have there. You know, how many birds you can keep on the premises, what type of special facilities you have. Okay. For the work that you do.

[01:30:49] Kind of give us a little more fine grain detail on that. Sure. And one of the things I want to know is, so you're rehabilitating a bird. Do you have a place for the bird, like a flyway or an area for them to practice flying? Oh, all right. So let's hear all about that. Yes. Three years ago, we had one donor, anonymous donor, who wanted to build us a 100-foot flight

[01:31:16] cage, which is minimum standards for U.S. fish and wildlife in order to be able to rehabilitate bald eagles, vultures, falcons, you know, the larger raptors. And so up until then, we had a 27-foot flight cage that the back was about 20 feet tall and it was built on a hill. So the front was only eight feet high.

[01:31:44] So the birds needed to fly back and forth and from the ground up. And we got a pretty good sense of whether they would be able to be released. So we moved from that location and during that time, we had portable 10-by-10-foot cages that were actually built to house a lion.

[01:32:13] So real heavy-duty gauge metal. A mountain lion, correct? Yeah. The ones? Yeah. Yeah. Precisely. Yeah. And so we never had a mountain lion, nor would I accept one because we don't, you know, we're not- What I'm really hearing, Ellen, is you wouldn't admit to having a mountain lion. No, I probably wouldn't. Yeah. Tell us more about the flight cage. So, yeah.

[01:32:40] So I'd researched flight cages all over the country. I even went to Canada to Kay McKeever's place, the owl project. And so after basically taking photographs and measurements and compiling all these dream cages,

[01:33:05] I came up with a 100-foot cage, 20 feet wide, 20 feet high, and got someone in Woodstock to come and build it for me. So it took about four months. It's basically a pole barn. There's no footings, no foundation. It just stands up. The base is solid plywood.

[01:33:30] The top half is all four-inch, four-by-ones with an inch in between. So we could put something as small as an American kestrel or a songbird in there and it can't get out. And so this now has become a state-of-the-art facility where we can rehab anything and everything without having to worry about how it's going to be released and if it's going to be released.

[01:33:59] So we have a camera in there just in case we don't want to stay in to watch the birds as they recuperate. This year we had a peregrine falcon that came out of nowhere just in the middle of this guy's lawn and he couldn't fly. So we took him right to the vet.

[01:34:23] Anything that has been injured, we want to make sure we know what the injury entails. So all the birds that come into Ravenspeard, if they have an injury such as a wing or leg, we have x-rays done. So once that revealed, it had a break in the radius, which is one of the wing bones.

[01:34:49] We said this was a lucky bird because there are two wing bones in that area from the elbow to the wrist. And it was the smaller one that was broken. So we didn't need to even tape it or constrict it.

[01:35:06] We just kept him in a very small enclosure for two weeks, got him into a bigger enclosure, the 10x10, after three weeks when he could start exercising and using that wing. And then he eventually went into the 100-foot flight. And between the camera and standing and watching, we could see exactly how those wings were even. They were level.

[01:35:33] There was no hesitation with the wing beats. It was really, really perfect. And then to see him cut a turn, we have to make sure he can turn both ways, not just one. And after about two to three weeks in the large flight cage, we decided he was ready to go. So we took him back where he came from, released him, and it was just spectacular.

[01:36:02] Falcons can just fly and fly and fly. And that's what he did. We let him go in a big soccer field. So we watched him take off, and he just went around almost 360 and just flew so beautifully. It's really what keeps me going because the national average is 50% of the birds that come into rehab pass.

[01:36:30] Our numbers are a little bit larger than that simply because we work with our veterinarians, and we do what they tell us. So our statistics are about 60% of birds that come in we can release. And it's having the right equipment, having the right facility just makes everything so much smoother and easier to accomplish.

[01:36:58] So I'm just so grateful for what we have and how well it does work. So when you get these birds of prey, like falcon stuff, they're federally protected, correct? Yes. Okay. So the falcons and stuff, you know, the bald eagles, other birds of prey, are they, or any birds really, are they aggressive when you first approach them and try to save them? Like, I've always wondered this.

[01:37:29] That's a great question. You could call them aggressive, but I don't because they're fearful. And so because they can't fly away, they're going to defend themselves. Most animals will defend themselves the way they hunt. That seems to be their strongest attribute. So a cat is going to pounce and grab with claws and teeth. A dog is going to bite.

[01:37:53] A hawk, owl, or falcon is going to roll on its back and show you its talons and say, come get me. That's, wow. It's basically like a snapping turtle. If they grab you, they don't let go. And most animals are completely fearful when they do see a bird and the whites of his eyes and his talons come up. They just walk in a very big circle and walk away.

[01:38:23] How about you, Ellen? Are you fearful when one of your rescues rolls on its back and shows you its talons? I fight that instinct to fly away. But it's there. I mean, every animal that I pick up is dangerous, especially birds of prey.

[01:38:46] I worked for a couple of years with a master falconer, and I got my falconry license as well. So that gave me the courage to be able to walk up to a bird that's lying on its back, showing you its talons. You can distract them with one hand and grab their thigh with another. And once you have their thighs, usually they don't bite.

[01:39:11] But once the talons are confined, then if you just throw a towel over them, they come right down. And they're pretty workable. Yeah. That's crazy. It's just, once again, I've never, you know, you see these things on Instagram and, you know, Facebook and stuff of them catching a bird. And I've never seen them on their back showing their talons and stuff like that.

[01:39:37] It's always been them kind of like, of course, grabbing their waist and stuff and them saving them. But, I mean, it's, and this is all, you've done this all from passion, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's unbelievable. So going, once again, going from, like, little to this. Now, do you have, like, paid staff volunteers that come in once in a while? How long, like, who do you, do you have to monitor the birds kind of 24-7? Like, is it?

[01:40:06] Yeah, but not 24-7. It depends on the injury. And also, you know, we take in orphans. So baby birds that have been orphaned, found on the ground. I took in a great horned owl, puffball baby that was in the middle of a field. No trees, no nothing. How did it get there? It was probably plucked from the nest and dropped somewhere along the line.

[01:40:33] So the baby birds are the real labor-intensive ones. They need to be fed either every 20 minutes or, as they get older, every hour. We can push it to every two hours when they're fledglings. But that's really the most time-intensive, except for something that is a lot of the head trauma cases.

[01:40:58] I like to stay with them well into the evening just to make sure that they're not going to roll off the heating pad or, you know, or hurt themselves some more. It really is dependent on the type of injury. Yeah. So now, with that kind of, like, stuff, do you have volunteers that come in? Do you have any paid staff and stuff?

[01:41:26] We have about 10 to 15 volunteers. Awesome. Since we moved here, we really have gotten quite a few. We've got volunteers now that have been here with us for three and four years. It's hard to hang on to volunteers because they say, oh, I'm going to do this for a couple weeks, see if I like it. And many times, life gets in the way. And it's not their fault.

[01:41:53] It's just their life got busy when, at one point, they did have a little time to spare. So that's always a challenge, keeping volunteers. But this year, this summer, was the first time we hired someone to help me in the clinic. And that's Jenny. And so she is our first Ravensbeard paid employee. And she has risen to the challenge. She is just amazing.

[01:42:24] And, you know, would give her entire week rather than, you know, the part-time job that we have for her. She would be here every day if she had a chance. So it's not for everybody. Well, yeah. People walk in, they want to do the right thing.

[01:42:49] And then they see a bucket of frozen rodents that they have to then deal out to each enclosure. And they're like, oh, I don't think I can do that. So there are, you know, different jobs. Some people just clean. Some people feed. Other people help with social media. Doing errands. Transportation to and from the veterinarians.

[01:43:14] So there are other jobs besides feeding, you know, these birds. So, well, before we move on, tell us about these frozen rodents. And is this something that you buy? Can I go to Sam's Club and buy frozen rodents? Is this a product that's available to rescues, animal rescues? Yes. Yes. Wow. We actually.

[01:43:43] So how much do you pay for a bucket of frozen rodents? Ooh, it depends on what they are. We spend anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500 a month on frozen rodents. Wow. And how many rodents does that get me? And where does one get them from? Is there like a guy in the New York City subway and collecting rodents? Yeah. Right. Is that like a sideline for Danny Mischievous?

[01:44:11] No, we want to make sure all the food that we're giving to these amazing creatures is fresh, is antibiotic-free. It's not roadkill. And so we pay top dollar. We buy them through a place called Rodent Pro. Rodent Pro. You can, yep. You can, therefore, snake and reptile people as well. Mm-hmm.

[01:44:39] And they have all these frozen creatures. Wow. You can buy day-old chicks. What happens is they, on the laying farms, they usually will, if the chicks hatch, they will usually throw out all the cocks and just keep the hens. So that used to be excess, you know, just they'd burn them or incinerate them.

[01:45:09] And then they realized, oh, you know, we can actually sell these to people that have pets. And it's a pretty big business. So, yeah. Rodentpro.com. I'm going to have to check that out. All right. So wait a minute. Rodentpro.com. All right. That is going in the show notes. You can also get them from Amazon or Petco. Yeah. Amazon. Well, I guess you can get everything from Amazon. Absolutely. What the hell. Yeah. Too bad.

[01:45:38] I wish I had known this before my birthday a few weeks ago. I would have wanted a gift card. Like the rodent. Yeah. Let's imagine you having some rodent stuff on the trail. Like, this is my protein. So, Ellen, speaking about gifts and gift cards, let's talk about Rocky the Owl Tree Ornament for $28. I saw that on your website. Tell us the story of Rocky the Owl. So the story of Rocky came out of the blue.

[01:46:07] I got a phone call November of 2020, and someone asked if I took in owls. And I said, yes. She said, well, I don't have the owl with me. My husband has the owl at work. So I have to wait for him to come home from work in order to get this owl to you. So can we talk in a few hours? And I said, absolutely.

[01:46:31] But why can't I just meet your husband at his job and I'll take the bird from there? She said, oh, no, that would be impossible. He's setting up the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. And I almost dropped the phone. So I said, what is an owl doing in the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center? And she said, well, that's what we're trying to figure out. You know, they stood up the tree.

[01:46:59] They, you know, started to, you know, I guess dress it. And they found this tiny little owl staring back at my husband. So I guess they tried to release it and it couldn't fly. So they thought maybe it was injured or damaged. So I met her on the thruway. I opened the box. I looked in and here's this bright eyed little owl staring back at me, not a feather out of place.

[01:47:26] It looked perfect, but it didn't fly. So I took it out of the box. It was kind of squirming around. My niece was there and she took off her hat. She said, here, put them in this. So I plopped him in the hat and we took a few pictures and we put it on my website. And within 24 hours, the Associated Press had taken the story and it went around the world. So it was viral.

[01:47:55] I had newspaper reporters. I had radio people, television, every network, every non-network calling and wanting to know about Rocky the owl. You're like, God, leave me alone. I'm just trying to rehabilitate this owl. It was two weeks of literal hell.

[01:48:19] I was just terrified now that the whole world knew I had this little owl and that if it died in my care, I would be the worst rehabber in the world. True. So it was terrifying. And after two vet visits and two specialists, there was a man at Vassar College who was an owl expert. His name was Dr. Glenn Proudfoot.

[01:48:47] And he was the one that actually took a look and said, he's a bird bander, and took a look at this little owl. He weighed him. He measured him. He said, oh, you know, this is a perfect species or is in perfect shape for his species. And he should be able to be released. So that was a gift in itself.

[01:49:12] And then eight days later, we found a beautiful grove of pines and conifers. And that's where these guys like to be during the daytime. So we waited till about dusk. And we had a couple people with a video camera. And we brought him out there. And I just held out my hand. And he stood there. And he looked in my eyes. And he didn't fly away.

[01:49:41] And he didn't fly away. And I knew he could fly because we tested him in a large enclosure. And I'm thinking, oh, boy, this is not going well. What did we do wrong? And all of a sudden, he looked me in the eyes. He looked away. He looked back at me. And then he took off. And it was just such a beautiful release in that you never know how they're going to go. So I've had releases where I open the box.

[01:50:11] And they fly right into a window and drop at the bottom of the glass door. And it's just like, oh, my gosh. All this time and energy trying to rehab these birds. And so you never know what it's going to become. But it was just the timing. I think we were all home because of COVID. We couldn't leave our homes. We couldn't have Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah with our families.

[01:50:42] We were just longing for – I mean, they even said that the tree looked like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. And I'm sure you remember. No, I was – I mean, I have it in the show notes. It's seriously – like, I watched them, like, dress that thing up. Not dress it up, but, like, tape it up and stuff like that for it to be shipped down to the Rockefeller Center. So, like, I could see that happening from my backyard.

[01:51:11] And it was really cool. Like, the whole town was there. It was a blast. Absolutely. Well, I got calls from Oneonta. One person actually said, I have an airplane, and he needs to come back here. And I said, sir, do you know anything about saw-wet owls? And he said, yeah. They have a nest. They have a family. And they have their favorite tree. And they come back every year. Excuse me a second. Get down. You're good. Yes. And so –

[01:51:41] She's putting the mountain lion back in its cage. Correct. The mountain lions. Yeah. No, it was a cat actually going for my dinner. So, at that point, I basically felt as though this had to be an educational experience, teaching people that saw-wet owls are nomadic. We were not going to do him a favor by bringing him back to Oneonta.

[01:52:11] He was actually going to the south for the winter. All female saw-wet owls go south, especially their first year. After that, they come back in the spring. The males have already staked out their territory. And then they will pick a male, depending on his nest or where he is, his voice, his courtship dance, whatever turns them on. And at that point – His 401k. Yeah, exactly.

[01:52:40] It basically will become the father of the season. Now, saw-wet owls also have sometimes two mates in one season. They will double clutch. So, they'll have one family in the very early spring, and they'll start a second family mid-July. With saw-wet owls, the females are a little bit promiscuous.

[01:53:07] They will have two different fathers, two different males in each of those nest areas. They also will leave the babies a week before the babies are able to be on their own. And they leave the male to do all the teaching of how to catch a mouse and how to be on your own. So, they're quite interesting little creatures.

[01:53:31] And I just needed to take that opportunity to teach people, these are not the barred owls that are in our backyards. These little owls are nomadic. They don't stay in a place much longer until they exhaust their food source. And so, then they're moving on to another place. We used to think, because we never get to see them, that there were so few saw-wet owls in the U.S.

[01:54:00] until they started doing bird banding. And what they realized is that there are about two million of these birds between New York and California. We never get to see them because they call them super nocturnal. They're super small, too. They're like the size of your hand, right? They're five inches tall. Yeah. Wow. They weigh about two ounces. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. They're just the most adorable little predators you could imagine.

[01:54:29] But they're also prey because owls eat owls. So, the larger owls would prey on a smaller saw-wet owl. So, they're constantly hiding, which makes them super nocturnal and super hard to find. Wow.

[01:54:45] Meanwhile, it was at that point after we released her, she went from a male weighing as much as a male to weighing as much as a female. Now, in all birds of prey, the females weigh one-third more than the males do. We're not sure why that is, but it is.

[01:55:08] And so, at that point, we needed to make a decision, you know, what we were going to do. So, I guess to just backtrack a little bit, the way I believe this whole thing unfolded for Rocky was that she was probably looking for a tree to roost in for the daytime.

[01:55:34] She probably was not in that tree when it was cut down. Any healthy bird would not stay in a tree that's going, timber! They're going to fly out. They don't want to get smashed. So, we believe she actually flew in the morning that it was loaded onto the flatbed truck.

[01:55:56] Before they tied it down, we think she probably flew in at maybe five in the morning, looking for a place to hide during the day until evening when she could hunt again. And so, it took three days from that tree to go from Oneonta down to Manhattan.

[01:56:14] And in those three days, that's what we think, that's where we assumed that she was dehydrated and emaciated because she didn't get anything to eat in those three days. So, a tiny little two-ounce bird not eating for three days is enough to keep it from flying away. So, that's really what we believe happened.

[01:56:38] And this ornament that Tad talks about, that goes towards, you get the ornament and it goes towards your wildlife center? All the proceeds go right back to the wildlife center. It's another income stream. Awesome. We also wrote a book and have, it's called The Christmas Owl, written by myself and Gideon Sturr. And illustrated by Ramona Kaluwski, who is, we believe, an artist in Poland.

[01:57:08] Gideon had a contract with Little Brown. He is a children's book author. And so, when he heard about this story, he jumped on it and contacted me and said, let's do a book together. And we did. And Little Brown was so excited. They made the book, designed it, printed it, all within the first year.

[01:57:36] Normally, it takes about three years for a book to be written, illustrated, and published. So, we were so excited that they pushed it right through. And each year, we've sold more books. So, it seems to be almost a Christmas tradition. And I've had notes from five-year-olds telling me it's their favorite book. Or when I do do a lecture, people will come up with their dog-eared, ratty book and say, could you sign this?

[01:58:05] Yes, this is my favorite book. So, it's really been just a beautiful gesture to be able to capture those moments and turn children onto nature and how cool these creatures are. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. So, Ted, let's take it over, buddy. Sorry. It was all about Oneonta, so.

[01:58:34] Yeah, I'll let you roll with the next one. I brought up the Rocky, the owl. I think they named a mountain after Rocky and the Catskills, by the way. Just saying. Just recently. Or a few mountains because it's such a popular story. So, now, when you're doing this rehabilitation, you actually have like an injured, you know, talking about bird of prey or anything. What are the steps going on? You know, you get the call. How does that unfold? What goes into it?

[01:59:02] We determine where it is. I like to ask people to put a basket, a laundry basket or a bin over the top of them because many times I've gone to a site and there's no bird. It's walked into the woods or it's walked into a swamp or it's just gone. So, rather than waste my gas, I ask people to confine the bird.

[01:59:29] If they can, you know, put it in their garage even. Whatever it takes just to confine the bird until we get there. Then we take in the bird. We go right to the clinic, do a physical exam and decide if there's a fracture, if it's head trauma, if it's, you know, something that we can easily diagnose.

[01:59:55] You know, we are kind of on the front line of what's going on in the county. So, if it's bird flu, if it's, you know, avian pox, if it's, you know, all these different, you know, botulism, all these different things that occur in the wild. We have to decide what's going on.

[02:00:21] And then after that, we sometimes have to force feed them or tube feed them. Other times we can just cut something open and hand it to them and they're like, oh, you know what that is. And they'll start eating right away. Sometimes we need to give them a good 24 hours just without even an exam.

[02:00:43] If they're lying down and they're completely, you know, flat out, we don't want to stress a bird to death. That's kind of the antithesis of what we want, the outcome that we want. So, it's different. In each case, most of the birds that come in that are injured are confined for the first week or two.

[02:01:12] Then they go from a small enclosure, maybe two foot square to a larger enclosure where they can move around a little bit. The most damaging in my experience is when a bird is wrapped or casted. Mammals' bones heal a lot slower than birds' bones. And some veterinarians don't understand that.

[02:01:40] They say, oh yeah, wrap it for three weeks and it should be fine. Well, no, that's too long. We can't have a wing because what happens is they atrophy. Even legs will atrophy within three weeks. And then you take the bandage off and it's stiff. They can't open the wing.

[02:02:00] And so, it's really been a huge learning curve of damage control and what is doing no harm and what is doing good. And so, we really kind of have to find that balance with each animal that comes in. I mean, 26 years. I mean, that's a great amount of experience to have with that. Now, with all these rescues that you have, what is the most consistent?

[02:02:29] What do you see the most of coming into your center? Baby birds. We actually have two owls that are surrogate moms. So, when we get in barred owls or great horned owls, we feed them for the first couple weeks. Once they're self-feeding, that means they'll pick up food from the nest or the ground and eat it themselves. Then we put them out with the surrogate moms.

[02:02:58] Those owls are with them for the next two months. Teach them when to go to sleep, what to be afraid of, how to hoot. Owls don't know how to hoot. They need to be taught, just like many songbirds. It's not something that they just are born with these beautiful songs that come out. They actually have to hear it and then repeat it.

[02:03:24] So, that's probably the most successful, I would say, of the baby birds is if we can get them in with a surrogate. Otherwise, songbirds, when they come in, we always put like species together. You never want to just raise one by itself because it then becomes imprinted on the mom. We are not its mom. They become imprinted on people.

[02:03:53] And that means when you go outside, that bird's going to come down from a tree and sit and beg for food. So, if we raise them with more of their species, they know what they look like. They know what their parents are going to look like. And so, they can identify as a bird.

[02:04:14] I would say the second largest reason for birds to come into the clinic is hit-by-car owls. And barred owls are number one. And is this because of like barred owls are nocturnal and stuff? Is this during the day or at night or like what? It's always at night, which is why we're open 24-7 because that's when the owls get in trouble.

[02:04:40] And so, the state troopers, the police, they call and say, we've got an owl down here. Can you come and help us with it? And I'll go out at four in the morning and pick up an owl. Wow. Just because I don't want it to sit there overnight and get hypothermia and possibly die.

[02:04:58] So, hit-by-car owls are the number one reason why barred owls come in to Ravensbeard. What can we do about it? I'm really not sure other than slowing down maybe a little bit when you're on residential roads. Normally, it does not happen on highways. It always happens on back roads.

[02:05:25] They're hunting in the tree, waiting for a mouse to run by. What the owls have realized is that when a mouse runs across a street or a road, that's 50 feet in radius that that mouse can't hide. So, it's really easy pickings for the birds. True. Unfortunately, you know, if a car comes between them and their prey, they get whacked.

[02:05:50] They don't have the agility to be able to veer and turn and sway and get out of the way. So, that's always – that's usually the reason why they come in. Interesting. I mean, I always thought more of like the long lines with like you said songbirds and stuff. But owls, like that's crazy. Yeah, it is. I guess with songbirds, it would be window strikes.

[02:06:18] And then from there, cat attacks, dog attacks. Very few come in with natural disturbance. You know, falling out of the nest in a rainstorm, that would be a natural disturbance. What we can do is make a makeshift nest, put it in a basket, and put it back in the tree. Nine times out of ten, the parents will come back and feed those babies.

[02:06:43] So, not every orphan that comes out of a nest needs rehab. Sometimes we can just re-nest them. That's always the best to have their parents raise them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Tad, what do you got, buddy? Oh, let's dive into this ambassador bird program. Tell us what it is. How did it start?

[02:07:10] Does any and every bird become an ambassador or is it just reserved for special birds? Give us the lowdown of ambassadors. That's an interesting question. Not every bird is up for being an ambassador. In fact, there are a couple that the DEC just don't really want to be used as educational birds. And those are the occipiters of the hawk world.

[02:07:39] So, in the hawk world, we have two different types of hawks. The budio, which is the big red-tailed hawk. They're slower. They have big rounded wings. They need a long runway to take off and to land. So, you're going to see those birds in big, wide-open fields along the throughway, that kind of thing.

[02:08:02] The occipiters are the ones that live in the woods, that fly like lightning through thick forests. They can twist and turn their bodies and bring their wings in and open their wings just in perfect timing to get through those woods. Those are the birds that are super high-strung. Cooper's hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, goshawks.

[02:08:29] Those are the ones that they really frown upon using as ed birds because they will hurt themselves just trying to get away from people. So, no one wants to see a bird that's up against the back of a crate trying to become as small and invisible as possible. That's just sad. So, we have to vet these birds.

[02:08:54] And what made us start to adopt them was we realized we had maybe four or five birds that could not be released, but they weren't bad enough to put down. The DEC does require after 180 days we need to put a bird down or find an educational facility that would take it,

[02:09:18] and they can then be used maybe in a static display, something in a cage where people aren't handling them. So, that's, you know, it's a process. We need to make sure the bird isn't going to be frightened to the point where it just freezes or wants to hide or wants to be invisible.

[02:09:45] So, we pick the birds with big personalities, the birds that, you know, after a couple days, they're not afraid of us anymore. They realize that we're feeding them and we're, you know, giving them shelter and heat and whatever else. It's not really a conscious decision on the bird's part, but it's an overall feeling. It's an overall symbiotic mutual respect.

[02:10:11] And from there, then we can decide which birds are going to be good educational birds or not. So, we then have to adopt them. We need a special license called an educational permit to be able to keep these birds and use them for education. So, it's then on top of the two licenses, it's a third license to be able to keep a bird in your facility and use it for education.

[02:10:42] So, there's training in that. It takes sometimes one to three months to train a bird to sit on your glove. It's all positive reinforcement. There's no negative punishments. If you piss off a bird, you're done. In the wild, they don't have good bird, bad bird behavior. It's all okay. You know, in the free world, they are birds. They can do whatever they want and they can leave when they want.

[02:11:10] So, you really just have to form a trust and a good bond and respect. And once you can do that, you can do just about anything with a bird. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. And this is like, what is your most common ambassador bird? I know you have a lot of owls, right? We do.

[02:11:34] We have great horned owl, barred owl, snowy owl, and a little screech owl, eastern screech owl. Wow. And each of them have their own personalities. One of them, well, I have a falcon that I really, really love. But one of the barred owls is basically my favorite. She's 90% blind. So, one eye is completely gone. The other one, she can see 10%.

[02:12:03] And she's the surrogate mom. She can see enough to get around her enclosure. And she's just the most mellow, sweetest. She actually loves her head and neck rubbed and scratched. You could just tell. It's affection back at you. So, that makes it really, really special when you have a bird that not only likes to be petted and touched,

[02:12:32] but actually likes to be with you. Do they hoot in public? Yes, not too much in public. I mean, I can never get them to hoot on cue. But they definitely hoot at the wild owls. And when we do have releases and release the youngsters, we do prey testing for two weeks and put them in the 100-foot flight cage and release live mice every evening for two weeks.

[02:13:01] They have to be able to catch them and then live on them, eat them. So, that in itself is a process because, like I said before, with an owl, they don't know their hoot. In fact, I have one of the only, maybe not one of the only, but I have a great-horned owl that talks like a barred owl because when she was raised, I didn't have any great-horned owls to put her with.

[02:13:30] She was next to the barred owl aviary. Learned their hoot through the bars. So, that really was kind of the impetus to do a little more research and digging and learning that they don't know how to hunt by themselves at all. That the parents actually show them how to hunt.

[02:13:56] A parent might bring a mouse and knowing that they're flighted and that they really do need to leave the nest soon. They'll bring the mouse right up to them and then drop it. And the baby looks down and is like, what the heck? But then they have to go down and get it and come back up or eat it down there or whatever.

[02:14:18] So, there are tactics that the parents do use that is very much like what we do with our own children. You just want to make sure that you're preparing them to be completely successful and independent. And you have to let go and say, I've done my job. Now it's up to you. Wow. Give them a grilled cheese and tell them to freaking eat it. That's right. Eat it and you're done. That's right.

[02:14:48] And mop up the crumbs. Yeah. So, yeah. Oh, well. It's fascinating. It's just fascinating. It's fun. So, let's talk about the not-so-fun part of animal rescue and rehabilitation. Oh, the nights I cry myself to sleep? Well, yeah. I'm assuming there's those nights. And maybe they're the nights when you do release a bird and it flies away.

[02:15:14] And it was one that you feel especially attached to. But it's got to be quite rewarding to release it. But all of that comes with a cost, I imagine. And so, can you give us an idea of what the economics are? You know, what's your annual budget? How much of it comes from private donations? Other sources? Just give us a lowdown on the not-so-glamorous side of the operation. Right, right.

[02:15:43] So, the cost is, depending on the species, I mean, hummingbird, it's sugar water and some protein. Boy. Anyway, the cost to raise a baby bird is a couple hundred dollars. The cost of raising a raptor is double that.

[02:16:10] No, it could even be as much as a thousand dollars a bird because you're feeding them their entire childhood. Then, once they're eating on their own, the cost, we have to then buy the mice. And, you know, mice are expensive, even from Petco. So, it's, I guess I never really looked at it one bird at a time.

[02:16:38] It's always been groups of birds that we kind of try and keep together. So, there's not anyone that's alone. How about the annual budget? The annual budget is about $80,000 to $100,000. Okay. And that covers surgeries, of course, all the diets, caging.

[02:17:04] Right now, we just had a fundraiser last June. On our 100-foot flight cage, we want to make permanent, beautiful cages for our educational birds. And so, we're putting up eight enclosures against our 100-foot flight.

[02:17:23] So, we don't really have a cost what that will be, but we're raising as much money as we can to buy the lumber. And we did just secure BOCES, who have these programs for hands-on, do it, you know, any kind of manual labor.

[02:17:51] So, they have electricians, they have architects, they have carpenters, welders, all these jobs. And they actually need projects to do. So, we have teamed up with BOCES, and they will be building our new enclosure this spring. Awesome. Very cool. So, yeah. The fundraising is difficult.

[02:18:19] And then, you know, every now and then, we'll get a windfall. Someone wants to donate $5,000. Someone donates $10,000. And it's just the huge sigh of relief that, okay, we're going to be open for the next couple months. Yeah. Wow. And it's really hand-to-mouth. Yeah. What about, like, do you have an Adopt-a-Bird program or monthly subscription program? We don't, but I think that would be a great thing. That'd be fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:18:49] Where you can actually adopt a bird. We decided not to have a membership because it just became too entailed with mailings and, you know, paperwork and keeping tabs. So, that was a little too much work for our little organization. But now, we're going to have a fundraiser every year.

[02:19:16] And then, usually Christmas, we get some sales from the books and the ornaments. So, that helps a lot. When we do lectures, we now have a line of T-shirts and sweatshirts and hats and bags. So, that's also another income stream. But we really do need to get a grant writer and get some grants to be able to think bigger,

[02:19:43] to do these more important installations. Do you hear that, listeners? Did you hear that? Ellen, say that again in slow motion. We need to get people that grant writers and stuff like that to get this foundation, this organization, some money to live off of. Absolutely. And I would love for it to be, you know, in perpetuity. I would love for this to carry on when I'm no longer here.

[02:20:13] Because it is such a huge resource to the community. And I can't tell you how many people, when they call with a bird emergency, just hearing my voice saying, okay, put it in a box. Keep it warm, dark, and quiet till we can get there or till you can get it here. You know, most of the time, we're talking people off a ledge.

[02:20:36] They're at a crossroads where they don't know how or what to do to help these birds. And so the phone call is the first area of putting the fire out and saying, okay, we can handle this together. Let's do step by step. So it really is a huge resource to the community for people to know, oh, I found this baby bird in my yard, and now I know where to bring it.

[02:21:05] Or just to talk to someone on the phone, and we can say, try putting it in a basket next to where you found it and see if the mom comes to feed. We promote owl nest boxes and bird nest boxes because the habitats are being destroyed. Dead trees are being cut down. And most of us don't want to look at a dead tree.

[02:21:33] If you're a bird, those dead trees are not only homes, but it's a living refrigerator to all the birds eat insects, especially, you know, woodpeckers and cavity nesters mainly eat insects. So we are building, we're working with our veterans, and we're going to be building owl nest boxes to be able to sell and promote.

[02:22:02] And you can buy a nest box, and you're really doing something great for the bird community. So if you have a dead tree in your property, it's not going to fall on your house or your car, don't cut it down. Maybe you want to lop off the limbs and leave the trunk. There are so many things we can do without having to take these trees down that will benefit wildlife. Awesome. Awesome. So speaking of benefit in wildlife,

[02:22:33] what can we do from the, like the Catskills, the Hudson Valley community as well? Because this podcast is not just the Catskills, the Hudson, people of the Hudson Valley are great as well. What can we do to help Ravensbeard? Donate, donate, donate, donate. Yeah. We take donations of paper towels, of bleach, of bird seed, shavings, you know, wood shavings. You have a list, right?

[02:23:01] On your page, you have a list of what to buy, like a donation list, right? Yes, we do. We do. But, of course, cash, gas cards, those kind of things, we can use for anything. So that is the preferred. Checks, cash, you know, any kind of monetary contribution is number one.

[02:23:26] But number two, we could use a used ATV to, you know, transport food out to the flight cage, you know, for cleaning cages, for emptying, you know, the big troughs of water. We could use lumber. We could use copy paper and printer ink.

[02:23:51] It's probably best to talk to one of us before you make a decision of what you can donate. Because sometimes we have way too many towels. Or other times, you know, just piles of baking soda and no vinegar to go with it. And, you know, so if you could talk to one of us first, other than cash, we also take mink coats.

[02:24:21] We take diamond rings. No, I'm teasing. Oh, nice. Mountain lion ornaments. Yeah. But, you know, we use a lot of cardboard. You know, there's endless resources out there of things that we can use. And if anyone has excess of anything, give us a call. Let us know what you have and see if it's something that we can utilize. Awesome. Awesome.

[02:24:48] So with that being said, I would like to say that tonight, later on tonight, the podcast, behalf of the sponsors, the monthly supporters and the donors are going to make a donation to Raven's Beard. Thank you so, so much. What you guys do is phenomenal for the Catskills, for the wildlife as well. You know, it takes a lot of, like you said before, it's passion.

[02:25:14] It's love and passion and stuff to do this, to wake up at, you know, once you said like four o'clock in the morning to go gather an owl or something that somebody says an owl's right here, but then it's gone. And be like, God damn. But that's, it's the least we can do. And, you know, hopefully, once again, the episode kind of carries the people, gives them the heart to maybe volunteer or to help out, you know, to donate as well, you know.

[02:25:42] But the podcast is definitely going to make a donation on behalf of, once again, the sponsors and the monthly supporters and donors, these people. Just getting the word out, you know, that we do work on donations is so important. And by, you know, just telling your viewers, that would be incredible. So every little bit helps.

[02:26:11] There's no donation that's too small. And if you can't donate money, donate your time. Come and help us. So, yeah. The podcast is big on volunteering and stuff like that. You know, once again, volunteer, it goes a long way. Or once again, donating goes a long way, especially with people like you and people like Raisins Beard and stuff like that. Do you have any events coming up that we could check out?

[02:26:38] Like, I want to see some of these birds, these ambassadors live in action. Yeah. No, we actually just finished up our year. Usually December and January is a very slow time. I think we have a couple of schools, Bard College, but they're private events. Okay. We do have a show in December, but that's at the Botanical Gardens in Greenwich, Connecticut.

[02:27:06] So, you know, there's nothing local for this year. But starting February on, that's when we really start getting books for schools and libraries and clubs and things. So, we're out and about. We usually post all our public events on the website. That is ravensbeard.org.

[02:27:36] And you can find where to donate, any kind of information, what to do if you find a bird. And all that other good stuff is pretty much covered on the website. Nice. Nice. So, Ted, I have an idea. A live episode, and then we have Ravensbeard there with their ambassadors and stuff.

[02:28:02] So, like once in a while, we're talking and stuff like that, and the peregrine falcon flies behind our head or something. Like, God, what the hell was that? Well, it sounds like a hoot. Well, absolutely. Our birds are portable, and we'd love to do an event. Sure. There you go. And I got to admit, Socrates is kind of like a good central location, Ted. Yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad. Easy to get to if you're on the thruway. It's just, you know, for most people, it's another exit further north. Absolutely.

[02:28:32] Number 21. We're about five minutes from the thruway. Wow. When I want to go hike the blocks, that's normally how I get there. Or Catterstall High Peak or, you know, the Indian Head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. So, Ellen, it was great having you on tonight. And once again, hopefully this throws it out there, Ravensbeard. We hear more about this and stuff. And maybe, once again, a live event would be actually very fun.

[02:29:02] And I'd love to have an owl hoot at me when I'm talking on there. It would just be one of the greatest times of my life. You don't know how many times. You ask my wife how many times I've been out in the wilderness, and I hear an owl hoot, and I'm just like, shut up. Everybody shut up. And I try to hoot back, and nothing happens. I like to start crying, and I'm just depressed for like another two weeks. But it was great having you on.

[02:29:28] And thank you for all that you do, because it's just, once again, that the passion and the love that you have to do this goes a long ways, and it helped. Thank you. Yeah. It feels good. Yep. Thanks, Ellen. Yeah. Big success. Thank you so much for everything. Yeah. All right. Good night. Take care. Everyone. I just want to thank you for listening to the show.

[02:29:54] If you enjoyed the show, subscribe and throw down a smooth review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any podcast platform that you use. You can also check daily updates of the podcast, hikes, hiking news, and local news on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the official website of the show. Remember this. You got to just keep on living in the Catskills, man.

[02:30:24] L-I-V-I-N. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked.