August 25, 2019: Low Flying Objects

Lake hosting can be a quite interesting endeavor on New Hampshire Lakes.  One morning, frequent Lake Host Marge Thorpe inspected a rather unique vessel launching into the lake.

Perhaps a first for Lake Wicwas.

I've seen amphibious cars launch here before,

A circa 1965 Amphicar launches into Lake Wicwas.

but never an amphibious plane.

Rigging for launch.  Photo by Marge Thorpe.

The business end of an ultralight.  Photo by Marge Thorpe.

But not phased in the least, the host did her inspection for invasive weeds, crustaceans, (and birds?) and helped the sailor/pilot get on his way.

Photo by Marge Thorpe.

The unusual sight caught the eye of others on the lake as well.

Off-duty Lake Host Claranne Bechtler saw him taxing down the lake.  (Photo by Claranne Bechtler.)

If you have ever observed these ultra-lights in flight, you know they aren't quiet, so it was no surprise when Marge heard the vessel return to the lake sometime later.  But she was a bit alarmed to hear the sound of a sputtering engine, and then silence.  Quickly she and Dave went out to see what transpired, and found the pilot half way down the lake, swimming, pushing his plane back towards the boat ramp.  Needless to say, the Thorpes provided a welcome tow back to the ramp.

You can see the pilot in the water behind his aircraft, using a pusher-stroke.  Photo by Claranne Bechtler.

Neil Crimins, another Lake Host also saw the action going down on the lake.  (Photo by Neil Crimins.)

Dave Thorpe provides towing service.  Photo by Marge Thorpe.

The pilot had not allotted quite enough fuel for his entire trip, and had run out of gas on his return flight.  He was able to make a dead stick landing onto the lake which was fortunately close enough for him to glide in to.  The pilot is from Canterbury and brings his ultra-light around the region exploring different lakes.  Keep an eye to the sky and maybe you'll see him flying overhead some time.  Just keep an extra fuel tank handy!


There wasn't much nature that could compete with that excitement this week, but I did find evidence of our friendly bears up in the Hamlin conservation area while I was doing some property monitoring.

A small pile of bear scat, loaded with the fruits of the season.

And hiking with a couple of good friends over in the Page Pond Town Forest, one of them spotted a handsome wood frog sitting right in the middle of trail.

A green frog hangs out near the Page Pond mill dam.

He must have been waiting for a princess to come along.

The new trails on the Barnard Ridge side of the Page Pond are being developed and should be ready by fall.  If you travel in that area you will find white blazes going up to mark the new trail.  One trail will pass along the far side (west shore) of Page Pond, and will provide some gorgeous views of the pond, a beaver lodge, and several beaver dams.

Page Pond from the southwest shoreline.

I'll be sure to let you know when the trails are officially open for use.

There was also a beautiful monarch butterfly chrysalis hanging from a window sill at the Lakes Region Conservation Trusts headquarters building in Center Harbor.  (Thank you Phil P. for pointing it out to me!)

A monarch butterfly chrysalis.

This is the time to find them - look especially near fields of milkweed and goldenrod which are blooming abundantly now.  Milkweed in particular is a special food source for monarchs, as drinking the liquid from the milkweed plant fills their body with toxic cardenolides which makes their bodies poisonous to predators [Ref:  University of Minnesota Monarch Lab].  If you have never been to the LRCT headquarters in Center Harbor, you should stop by and check out the gorgeous views and all the maps and other items they have there.  They always enjoy having visitors!


Lastly, a status on the loon twins:  Harley and Davidson are doing just fine and still spending a lot time with mom and dad.

When they're fishing together and a parent comes up from a dive empty handed the chicks make the strangest little creaking sound, expressing their disappointment, and letting the parent know they are still hungry.  But they must be getting enough nourishment as they continue to grow, looking more and more like juvenile loons every day.

August 18, 2019: A rare bat sighting

I saw my first bat of the summer this week.  The New Hampshire bat population has taken a dramatic hit from white nose syndrome, wiping out 90% of the little brown bat population in the northeast.  [Ref:  Sierra Club]

Bat with white-nose syndrome in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

White-nose syndrome is a non-native fungus which most likely arrived from Europe.  [Ref:  American Society for Microbiology]  The bat I saw was much larger than the ones we used to see by the dozen every night.  We would toss a pebble in the air and two or three of them would swoop towards it as they picked up the object on their sonar.  Most likely the bat I saw was a big brown bat which is less affected by white-nose syndrome and which may be increasing in population as the little brown bats have disappeared.

In a timely occurrence with Andrew Timmins' bear presentation at the Lake Wicwas Annual Meeting, there have been several bear sightings around the lake in the past two weeks, two of which were seen along Chemung Rd.

A Black Bear I saw near the lake last year.

There are still lots of blueberries on the bushes, and the black cherries and hobblebush viburnum are now ripening, all of which attract the bears.

Black Cherries

Hobblebush Viburnum

The good berry season will help fatten these eating machines up for the winter.

A couple of Kayakers saw two bears on Sheep Island on Thursday partaking in the blueberry crop.  We met them (the kayakers, not the bears) when we were collecting samples for water testing with two members of the NH Department of Environmental Services, Ari Libenson, DES intern, and Clark Freise, DES Assistant Commissioner.

Dave Thorpe and Ari collect a water sample while Clark Freise (left) and I "assist".   Photo by Marge Thorpe

We collected water samples from several locations around the lake and from depths of 30 feet up to the surface.  The testing provides data for many important water quality factors including dissolved oxygen, transparency, pH, E. coli, and phosphorus.  Last year's testing indicated the water quality in Lake Wicwas remains good, with the only areas of concern being pH and phosphorus.

Summary of 2018 water testing

This years results will be posted soon - you can find all of last year's results as well as historical data going back 13 years on the Lake Wicwas website or by clicking here.  Special thanks go to Dave and Marge Thorpe for once again providing aquatic transportation for the collection, and for their ongoing support of the Volunteer Lake Assessment Progam (VLAP) and their commitment to water quality in New Hampshire.

Dave and Marge Thorpe with Ari on their boat "Wicwas"

Finally, our loon parents continue to be very dedicated to protecting their two chicks, Harley and Davidson, from the many other loons on the lake.  We regularly hear wild calls when they are defending them from some intruder.  Bill Mackie was able to capture some amazing video of the effort these birds put into driving competitors away from the chicks.  You can watch it here at this link.

Thank you Bill for sharing this unique experience!  It's no wonder these birds eat so much considering the calories they must consume in these battles, including some pretty big fish.

One of the parents swallows a good size sunfish.

Down it goes.

How would you like that stuck in your throat!

August 11, 2019: Acorn Pip Gall Wasp

Sometimes you learn more than you really bargained for, like how long it takes for an acorn to develop.

Has anyone noticed these little seed-like objects on the ground under oak trees, or perhaps on a dock that's under an oak tree?  They are about a quarter of an inch long.

Is this a seed?

That's where I saw them starting over a week ago, and had no idea what they were.  Looking kind of like of a pointy corn kernel, I thought they might be a seed from some nearby tree.  But then I received an email from the UNH Extension Service (you can sign up to get these sent to you - they are full of timely and useful information for gardeners) which included a picture of these very items - talk about timely!  Here's a picture of an acorn I found with the tell-tale mark of the acorn pip gall wasp.

Red oak acorn with hole from the gall.

That gave me a name and a starting point to figure out what they are all about.  It turns out that they are a type of gall, other types of which I have mentioned before (June 2014 and June 2016).  These galls are from the acorn pip gall wasp (Callirhytis operator) which has a strange life cycle.  The gall is the home of a tiny larva which was placed in a developing acorn last year.  I split one gall open;  inside was an even tinier, round, hard shell.  Cutting that open I found the little grub-like larva.

A larva in the palm of my hand.

The larva is about 3 millimeters long.

Left alone, this larva would emerge in the spring as an adult wasp.  But what's interesting is every one of them will be female.  These females don't need to mate - they just go and lay their eggs in a flower of an oak tree.  Then in mid-summer those eggs hatch and a second batch of adult insects emerges, and these are both male and female.  These guys mate, and the females go lay their eggs in a developing acorn (that actually began growing the prior year).  The eggs cause the tree to form the galls which are now laying on the ground under our oak trees.  It's a fabulous evolutionary defense mechanism - the insect makes the tree build a shield around the egg which protects it from predators.  [Ref:  Bug Tracks  - there is more information at that link.]  Though I didn't find any galls still in an acorn, I did find acorns from which the gall had been present as shown by the small hole just under the cap.

The hole left after the pip falls out.

In the process of figuring this all out I learned that it takes two seasons for an acorn to grow and mature - I never knew that.



It certainly doesn't take that long for loons to mature, as Harley and Davidson are growing by leaps and bounds now.

Harley appears to be well over half the size of its parents.

Well, actually, it does take that long, and longer.  Our twin loons - if they survive the summer - will spend two years out on the ocean before they return to fresh water lakes, and may not mate for another three or four years.

I can understand how they are growing so fast when I saw the size of the fish they are being fed now.  On one fishing trip this week a parent came up with a fish so large I thought surely the parent would eat it itself.

Dinner coming up!

But no.  After tiring the fish out, over to a chick it swam and passed the fish over.

"Think you can handle this one junior?"

And the chick had no problem swallowing the beast right down its stretched-out throat.

"I'll give it a try"

"Now chew your food carefully"

"No problem dad"

The other chick looked on enviously waiting for its turn.  Seems like a fish that large could nourish one of the twins for a whole day.

"Find me a big one mom!"    -    "I'm looking..."

One chick has been exhibiting teenage behavior, straying far away from its parents for long periods of time, resulting in numerous concerned observers (myself included) when seeing the parents and only one chick.  But as of yesterday, both chicks are still intact.  So far things are looking good for the Wicwas loon family.

And finally, oh no, can this be happening already?

August 2, 2018: Lake Wicwas Becomes a Battleground

I'm posting early this week so people will receive it before the Lake Wicwas Annual Meeting tomorrow, Saturday, August 3rd (9:30 am at the Wicwas Grange on Meredith Center Road.)

Lake Wicwas became a battle ground this week and we learned again just how harsh nature can be, and the impact of humans as well.  Tom Crane, a resident on the north shore of the lake, described a horrific lesson on the territorial behavior of loons.  In front of Tom's house, two people experienced a fight between two loons which was described as nothing less than "brutal".  When it was over a seriously injured loon swam to the shoreline to recuperate, clearly the loser of the fight.  But a few days later, a dead loon was found against a nearby shoreline.  Tom collected it and was relieved that it was not banded, indicating it was neither parent of the chicks.  The Loon Preservation Committee came to pick it up and have already performed a necropsy to determine the specific cause of death:  although the bird did suffer from injuries from the fight, the primary cause of death was lead poisoning.  (Loons ingest small stones to help with digestion in their stomachs, and they frequently collect small lead fishing sinkers and jigs which look like stones, and which quickly kill them).

One can only speculate on the motivation of the fight, and if the attacking loon recognized the weakened state of the poisoned bird and took advantage of that.  Was the victim our rogue loon "Solo" that has been on the lake for several years now, and one of the parents of Harley and Davidson decided this was its chance to eliminate it?  Was it a bird from the other pair on the lake?    Or maybe it was just a visiting loon that stopped here in its weakened state to rest.  We may never know, but if Solo, who has been spending a lot of time in Marion Cove the past few years never reappears, that might be a clue.  All we know for sure is there is one less loon in New Hampshire, that lead fishing tackle is responsible for 44% of loon deaths [Ref:  Concord Monitor, July 18, 2019], and that these beautiful, majestic birds will fight literally to the death over territory, offspring, or some other reason.

I had my own little battle over in the blueberry bushes this week.  I was picking berries on some high-bush blueberry plants when I noticed a lot of bare branches - areas that were completely denuded of leaves.

A blueberry bush stripped of its leaves

I knew something had to be eating them so I searched around a bit and soon enough came across a bunch of brightly colored but not very pleasant looking caterpillars.

Yellow-necked Caterpillars (Datana ministra)

There were two colonies on this plant, as well as some on another bush I saw.

I found a little information on these insects, including that the behavior of lifting up both their head and tail when disturbed is common.  [Ref:  UNH Extension Service].  I don't know if that successfully scares off predators, but to me it certainly makes them look threatening.

The adult moth is just a typical, medium-sized brown moth, but it does have a reddish head.

Adult moth.  Photo Credit:  John Pickering, Discover Life

It appears that birds don't eat the caterpillars or the moths, but some, such as robins, do eat the pupae.  Also "predaceous bugs and parasitic flies may also attack this species."  [Ref:  Penn State University Extension Service]  The caterpillars are damaging to orchards, and blueberries are one of their preferred host trees.  UNH says spot spraying is the best control method, but not on blueberry plants or any other tree with edible fruit, in which case it's best to pick them off by hand.  And then feed them to the fish.  And eventually the loons.  The circle of life goes on....

Which brings us back to Harvey and Davidson, which are getting bigger and starting to look less chick-like as they get gray-brown feathers and a white chest.  But we now know there is never a time in their lives when we can be certain they are safe.

Starting to look loon-like.

And starting to grow tiny flight feathers on their wings.