A pair of bald eagles has set up house in a nest on Route 30 in the Delaware County town of Middletown near the village of Margaretville. Watershed Post correspondent Rebecca Andre took this shot of the pair on Sunday, Jan. 24. To see a larger version of the photo, click here. 

Bald eagles mate for life, and build huge nests that are used over many years and can grow up to six feet wide and eight feet deep. The best time to catch a glimpse of bald eagles is in the morning between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. and in the early afternoon between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., according to the New York State Department of Conservation's eagle fact page.

Two men died after a 1996 Dodge Ram pickup truck hit a tree in the Ulster County town of Rosendale on Wednesday, Jan. 20, police say.

The men, 58-year-old driver Ronald Myroniuk and 58-year-old passenger Robert Myroniuk, both of Cottekill, were driving on Lucas Ave. near the intersection with Tan House Brook Road around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, according to a press release from the Ulster County Sheriff's Office.

The driver, Ronald, was pronounced dead at the scene after being extricated from the wreck of the truck. Robert, the passenger, died of his injuries at Westchester Medical Center late on Wednesday evening after being transported there by helicopter with serious injuries, police say.

Police say that neither of the men was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, although the driver's side airbag did deploy.

Town of Rosendale Police and the Ulster County Sheriff's Office investigated the crash, along with fire departments from Cottekill, High Falls, Stone Ridge and Marbletown and the Mobile Life Support Ambulance Service.

Above: A rendering of one of the hotels in the planned Belleayre Resort. Image via the Crossroads Ventures website.

The planning boards of the towns of Middletown and Shandaken approved permits for the long-awaited Belleayre Resort last week, in a move that could get them sued by the Catskill Heritage Alliance (CHA), which opposes the project.

The CHA is already suing the New York State Department of Conservation (DEC) over its review of the Belleayre Resort project, arguing that the DEC did not properly consider all options for and objections to the proposed development. 

Now that the towns where the resort wants to build have issued permits for the project, the CHA may file lawsuits against them as well, according Kathy Nolan, the chair of the CHA.

“We were provoked,” Nolan said. “The planning boards’ actions pushed us into a position of having to consider litigation that we had hoped to avoid.”

17 years of review

Above: A contestant in the 2012 Shandaken Primitive Biathlon. Image via shandakenprimitivebiathlon.net.

This Sunday, Jan. 17, buckskin-swathed competitors wearing snowshoes and carrying muzzleloading rifles will compete in the 19th-annual Shandaken Primitive Biathlon, one of the few events of its kind in the world.

In the modern version of the biathlon, competitors shoot rifles at targets while cross-country skiing. In a primitive biathlon, the concept is the same, but the tools are not: instead of a .22-caliber rifle, racers shoot antique and reproduction muzzleloading weapons. And instead of skis, they trek over the 1.25-mile course on old-fashioned wooden snowshoes.

Vermont’s Smugglers' Notch Primitive Biathlon was founded in 1995, and since then a handful of other primitive biathlons have cropped up in New Hampshire, Vermont and New York.