July 4, 2011

Lake Wicwas enjoyed a beautiful summer weekend for the Independence Day holiday, with just a bit of wet weather on Sunday.  Today was picture perfect, with lots of boating activity all over the lake.  Just about everyone was on the water except for the sailors, as there was very little wind.  We even had a sighting of the Lake Wicwas Steamboat out for a cruise.  All the activity keep the loons quite agitated - I expect they will be glad to have the busiest weekend of the year gone by.

There have been a lot of hawks around this year, which are great fun to watch.  But we also had a visit by a couple of turkey vultures, one of which flew so low we could barely get a picture of it.  They are tremendous birds with wing spans of six feet or more; very impressive when seen soaring directly over head.

Turkey Vulture

Sometimes though, the best place to see wildlife is right through the windshield of your car.  On Saturday evening, at 7:45pm, Dustin saw a black bear amble across the road in front of him as he was driving up Livingston Road just past Meredith Center.  And yesterday, I saw a deer bound across Marion Lane at about 5:30 pm.

No pictures of the large game, but here's a pretty flower blooming - I don't know how an Ohio Spiderwort made it to New Hampshire.

Ohio Spiderwort

We got to see the full flotilla of geese gathered together today - all 24of them.  Their appears to be five families:  two have three goslings, one has six, and the fourth only has one.  Plus there was family of three adults with them. Too bad they are so overwhelming - they really are pretty birds on their own.

By the way, Google Maps has an updated satellite image of Lake Wicwas, which was taken this spring, just before the ice came out of the lake.  You should take a look at it - the resolution is outstanding.  You can see the ice receding from the edges of the lake, and if you zoom in you can see snowmobile tracks, and even snowshoe tracks left on the melting ice.  Here's a link.  (You may have to click "satellite".)