Silver Lake Bog Preserve

This past weekend I returned from my very long hiatus from the Adirondacks to conduct some bird surveys for the Wildlife Conservation Society, which brought me back to some of my favorite places in the Park. The surveys are part of a long-term monitoring of boreal birds in the Adirondacks, which are primarily found in the central and nothern areas of the Park. One of the places I've been surveying off and on for the past few years is Silver Lake Bog Preserve, a small perserve owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy in the northeast corner of the park.

Taylor Pond

Silver Lake itself is surrounded by private camps, which makes Silver Lake Bog one of the few places that provides public access to the lake. There is no public camping on Silver Lake, but Taylor Pond just a few miles down the road has a quiet, rustic NYSDEC campground that provides a good base for exploring this area of the park. The pond only allows low-horsepower boats, which makes it a fantastic lake for paddling. The campground even offers boat-access-only sites for the more adventurous. On a beautiful June weekend we were one of only a handful of campers there, which made for a nice, relaxing camping experience.

Silver Lake Bog Trail

The benefit to camping at Taylor Pond is that it allows for an early morning start at the Silver Lake Bog trailhead. The trailhead is just a 5-minute drive from the campground, and early morning is definitely the best time to experience this place. The trailhead is clearly signed from the junction of Hawkeye Road, and the parking lot has space for 4-5 cars. Silver Lake Bog is a small big by Adirondack standards, but what makes it such a great place to visit is the half-mile long boardwalk that brings you up close and personal to the animals and plants that are unique to bog environments. The edges of the boardwalk are thick with tamaracks, spruce, and bog azaleas that have showy pink flowers by mid summer. There are also lush patches of cinnamon fern, and if you look closely you'll find a few scattered pitcher plants. There is one spot on the boardwalk that brings you to a hole in the bog mat where you can gaze into a small, shallow pool. In the spring, I always see at least a few egg masses in this pond, though I've never been able to identify which amphibian species has laid them. At the right time of year you might see tadpoles instead and be able to see which species have hatched.

The bog is a mid-successional bog, meaning that shrubs and trees have grown into the thick
sphagnum moss, creating a forest of low trees and a dense understory. That understory is great for warblers including Canada warbler, magnolia warbler, nashville warbler, and northern waterthrush. I've been visiting the bog for the last 15 years, and have seen some changes in the bird diversity over time, which is exactly the type of thing Wildlife Conservation Society has been trying to document. The Bog used to be a reliable spot for olive-sided flycatcher and black-backed woodpecker, two highly sought-after boreal species in the Adirondacks. I haven't seen either of these species in the past six years or so, and the only boreal species I recorded there this weekend was a handful of yellow-bellied flycatchers. It's difficult to know whether the changes in bird diversity are due to a changing climate, increased development (a number of new camps have popped up nearby over the years), or simply just the natural succession of the bog itself. Hopefully the studies I've been assisting with will continue long enough into the future to find out.

Pink Ladies' Slipper Orchids

After the short boardwalk, the trail continues for a little more than another half-mile through a rich mesic forest where wildflowers such as pink ladies-slippers abound.  The bird life changes too, from bog species to hardwood forest species such as yellow-bellied sapsucker and black and white and black-throated green warblers. The trail ends at a bluff that provides a robin's-eye view of the lake (for an eagle-eye view of the lake, refer to my post on Silver Lake Mountain). This vantage point is a nice place to relax and listen to the sounds of vireos in the trees above and the call of loons on the lake for a while before heading back through the bog. Take your time, as you'll likely notice more hidden treasures along the way, because this densely vegetated bog has a lot to discover.