July 27, 2025: No new Veeries this Year

There's sad news on the Veery nest, but let's start with something pleasant.  Checking the Evening Primrose flowers as promised, I did find a Primrose Moth one morning.  

Primrose Moth  (Schinia florida)

This insect is considered an "obligate species" because it is entirely dependent on one plant, the Evening Primrose.  Where there are no evening primrose plants, there are no primrose moths.  Adult moths spend their days hidden inside the closed-up blossom.  When the sun sets, the blossom open (thus the name "evening primrose") and the moths can move safely under the cover of dark to drink the flowers' nectar using their long proboscis.  Eventually they will lay their eggs inside a primrose bud for safe keeping.  When the larvae hatch they will feed on the primrose blossoms before burying into the ground to overwinter.  In the spring when the earth warms, the caterpillars emerge to feed on the primrose plant and the cycle repeats.  Thus the moth's entire life cycle is dependent on this single plant species.  [Ref:  A Study in Pink and Yellow, Gita Yingling, Sept 2024]  

It is a pretty insect.

We had an entertaining few minutes when a Gray Catbird came to our water feature for a bath.  It hopped in and out of the water a dozen times, splashing around and diving under to get all its feathers clean.  It looked like a wet rag by the time it was done.

Gray Catbird takes a bath.

Now the sad news.  Last year's veery nest was destroyed by a predator, so this year I used a trail camera to learn who might be the culprit if it happened again; unfortunately, it did:   A raccoon took out the veery nest.  The 'coon was happily using the trail for easy egress through the forest.

 Its sharp nose picked up the scent of the nest.  

From there it took just a moment for it to zero in on the nest and head straight to it.  It was quite tentative as it approached, not sure what it would find.  I love the way it held its left front paw up close to its chest, ready to defend against something larger than it hoped to find.  Note how close the mother bird let the raccoon get before it flew off.  The raccoon sniffed a bit, probed down into the nest, and then proceeded to gobble up the four little chicks.  You may want to skip the video if you don't want to see the deed take place.

A veery egg weighs about 2.5 grams; four new born chicks probably weigh about a third of an ounce.  That tiny bit of sustenance seems hardly meaningful to a 20 pound raccoon, but animals will take any bit of food they can find.  Before the raccoon found the nest, but after the eggs had hatched, the camera took hundreds pictures of mother flying back and forth all day long catching food and bringing it to her chicks.  Here are just a few, ending with a close up of her tending to her chicks.

Veeries will occasionally have two broods in a summer, and since the pair won't have to raise this brood, they may try again.  Let's hope they find a nesting site farther away from a trail.

On a much happier note, the loon chicks Spangle and Star are doing great.  Spangle has even caught her first fish!  Star is still a bit smaller, but it looks like he might be catching up.  Maybe with Spangle preoccupied with her fishing, Star is getting more fish from mom and dad.

Spangle and Star with a proud parent.  Photo by Deb Crowley.

To close on another pretty note, if you're out near a field or maybe just a quiet road side, be on the watch for Queen Anne's Lace - it's having a good summer.

Queen Anne's Lace.

Which the honey bees and other pollinators appreciate!

July 24, 2022: Loon Overload

The loon activity has been way over the top this past week.  It began with reports by two observant parties of a loon acting strangely on the lake - just floating for long periods of time and not diving or fishing.  Though loons can act like this, the local LPC loon biologist asked me to go out and investigate, and if I could find the suspect loon, instructed me to approach it slowly to see if it would dive.  It took me two searches of the lake before I found the right loon, hanging close to shore far away from the other loons on the lake, with a leg held out in an awkward position.  

An unusual pose for a loon.

I've often seen loons wag their foot, sometimes for a minute or longer (the reason why they do this isn't known, but one theory is for temperature management) but never in this position with the whole leg exposed.  I did approach the loon slowly, and it continued to hold that foot out and it did not dive.  It did however swim away from me, but only using one foot. 

I've never seen a loon try to swim with only one foot paddling.

Any time I've seen a loon weigh anchor and get underway it has always used both paddles, and this poor bird swimming along using just one foot told me something wasn't right.  By the time I found it in the late afternoon the LPC biologists were preparing for night time banding, so a mission to assess the bird had to wait until the next morning when I met two of the biologists who came prepared with a large net to capture the injured bird for assessment and possible treatment.  

We were able to locate the bird in just about the same location, but it took a moment to be sure because now the questionable leg wasn't held in the air, but rather flat against the water, thought still looking unnatural.  But this time, as we approached, the bird dove!  And I was able to watch it swim rather swiftly under the water.  After watching a second dive the biologists determined the bird was healing quickly and was able to again catch fish and defend itself, so it was decided to let it be.  They asked those who first reported the concern to keep an eye on it, and thanked them for their quick action in reporting the injury.

I asked the LPC team what might have caused an injury like this and the two likely causes are a fight with another loon - a battling loon will grab hold of any body part it can get - or a snapping turtle with a big appetite.  They told of story when someone observed a loon struggling in the water, unable to swim, until it finally escaped the grasp of a large turtle.  That would hurt a leg!

While the LPC biologists were here we toured the entire lake, surveyed the loons present (six), inspected both loon nests, and collected the shell fragments from Maddie's egg.  

LPC biologist Caroline Hughes searches (unsuccessfully) for signs of an egg at the Marion Cove nest while summer intern Tayor Tewksbury records GPS coordinates.

Every last shell fragment of Maddies's egg was carefully collected from the Harris Cove nest.

The next loon event was a two day, maybe longer, battle between two loons, one of which was the banded female from the nest in Marion Cove.  The first time I watched them they spent well over an hour battling each other in the cove.  They were circling, diving, chasing, at one point right up against the shore.  They progressed all the way around the cove and were still going after each other as they went out of sight.  

The next day the same thing occurred.  I can only assume it's two females fighting.  I understand that male loons secure and defend a mating territory while the females fight over a male.  So perhaps a new female has arrived and the banded female is trying to drive her off to defend her position with the banded male.  Or perhaps the intruder is trying to drive off the current female to take over its mate - it's impossible to tell who's the antagonist, but it's been going on long enough that I'm starting to wonder if it will continue until the weaker bird is exhausted and perhaps killed.  

The injured loon was reported before I saw these encounters, so perhaps it was injured in an earlier fight, but  it would have had to heal well enough to go back to fight again.  This scenario is hard to watch, but it was only last year that this very same banded female drove off our previous mate to the banded male, and that female (which was also banded) hasn't been seen since.  

Our present female drove off our long-term nesting female last summer.  She's very proud of her jewelry.

As I said last week, it's a tough life, being a loon.

Immediately following four weeks of nest duty it appears loons are hungry.  I watched one of the northern-pair loons play with a huge sunfish it caught in order to subdue it sufficiently to swallow it whole. 

A big sunfish.

It caught the fish, thrashed it around, released it, caught it again and repeated the process for several minutes.

Wearing the fish out by catching it again and again.

It made one attempt to swallow it but decided it was still too lively. 

Not this time.

So the loon played with it for another minute or two before it finally managed to send it down to its gizzard.

Down it goes.

Talk about getting a fish bone stuck in your throat!

Imagine swallowing a whole fish, bones, scales, and all, and digesting it in your stomach.  No wonder they swallow small stones (and sometimes lead sinkers) to help grind up their food.

And this came in late Saturday:  Another loon observer (thank you CF!) reported a loon on the side of Chemung Road near the lake.  Dave and Marge Thorpe went right out to investigate and found the loon no longer on the road, but in the thick weeds close to the road.  It did make its way back out to the lake on its own.  Could this be the injured loon from earlier in the week?  Just another mystery on the lake.

And of course, there is Maddie.

Maddie goes for a ride.

As of late Saturday she is doing fine and her parents are already taking her on long excursions away from the nest.  She's being fed well, is growing quickly, and evidently being kept well away from the other loons; she has been consistently observed with her parents way over on the west side of the lake along the Hamlin conservation area where no loons have nested recently.  

A little fish for a little loon.

It seems they moved the family over there to distance themselves from all the drama taking place on the lake.

That's too much loon action for one week, so as not to go on too long, I'll just add few pictures from a morning walk along Chemung Rd. (Happily, no loons were seen on the road.)

Meadowsweet on the side of the road.

A gray catbird sings good morning.

A bowl and doily spider web snags small insects.

Eastern chipmunk on lookout.

All of these were along just a quarter mile stretch of Chemung Road by the Chemung State Forest.  One doesn't have to travel deep into the forest to find interesting sights!

Photo and caption by Debby Crowley.

June 28, 2015

Good news on loon nesting in New Hampshire so far this summer:  Lake Sunapee had a successful nesting for the first time in decades, as reported by NHLakes in their most recent newsletter.  And a local loon watcher sent me some fabulous pictures taken by photographer Kittie Wilson of two loon chicks on Pleasant Lake in New London. 

Loon Family on Pleasant Lake (photo by Kittie Wilson)

Furthermore, the loons that were the subject of the "Loon Cam" one the Loon Preservation Committee's web site also fledged at least on chick - a good start for the season.

The nesting loons on Lake Wicwas are several weeks behind these early birds, but with care from us humans and some help from nature, we can hope to have our own loon chicks in a couple more weeks.  The rain the past week raised the lake level a bit but not a enough to be a problem.  Let's hope all the rain today doesn't flood the lake any more.  There are a couple of boards in the dam right now which can be removed to help maintain the level.  Our local loon watchers will be attentive to this;  the town of Meredith has been most cooperative in maintaining a favorable lake level.

A few weeks ago I blogged about an encounter with a raccoon.  Well, Bruce Bouley had a similar encounter, but his was in broad daylight, rather unusual for a raccoon.  Bruce said the animal didn't appear to be sick, but he was able to get a great picture which he offered for the blog.

Raccoon in mid-day  (Photo by Bruce Bouley)

Rabies decimated the raccoon population several years ago, and is something to be aware of when animals exhibit unusual behavior;  I haven't heard of any such problems recently.

There is starting to be a lot of color on the water now - on a kayak trip along the edges of the lake I noticed that the Rose Pagonia are blooming in the marshes.

Rose Pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides)

And of course, the water lilies are coming out, first the Yellow Pond Lilies.

The Sweet White Lilies will follow shortly.  These water plants are plentiful, and thankfully are native species.  In addition to the good news about loons, the most recent NHLakes newsletter also provided some bad news regarding invasive species:  milfoil has infested another New Hampshire lake, this time Turee Pond in Bow.  Turee Pond doesn't have either a Lake Host program or a Weed Watcher program, so by the time the invasion was discovered it was well established and probably can't be eradicated.  (Read the NH DES report here.)  Fortunately Lake Wicwas has dedicated volunteers who support both these programs, and everyone who uses the lake can help.  If you ever see any weed growth that looks unusual or in any way of concern, please report it - to a Lake Host, to a Lake Wicwas Association board member, or to Amy Smagula at the NH Department of Environmental Services.  They would much rather have a false alarm than miss an early detection opportunity.

Variable Milfoil - Report it if you see this in any NH lake

As for the animals, they were a little shy this week - except for the chipmunks which seem to be having a population explosion.  Where are all those hawks and foxes!  But I did find this Gray Catbird foraging in the undergrowth beside the lake one morning. 

Gray Catbird

The catbird is member of the Family Mimidae - as is the mockingbird - and it has the ability to mimic other birds, and even frogs and toads.  But its call (versus its song) is eerily similar to that of a cat.  So if you ever hear a cat calling from deep in the forest underbrush around the lake, look carefully and you may find a bird instead.  And while you're looking in the next few weeks, keep an eye out for milfoil - and baby loons!