July 7, 2024: Great Spangled Fritillary

In celebration of the Star Spangled Banner, a Great Spangled Fritillary came to visit us on July 4th.

Great Spangled Frittilary

This pretty butterfly is common across much of North America and I see them occasionally around the lakes and mountains.  

The inside of its wings have brighter coloring than the outside.

The adults feed on a wide range of flowers throughout the summer and this one enjoyed both the nectar in the Black-eyed Susans as well as the camouflage the orange blossoms provided for it.

It would hard to see if I didn't know it was there.

Probing with its proboscis into the center of the blossom.

After mating in July the female will lay her eggs in late August or September.  The eggs will hatch but the larvae will burrow into the leaf litter on the ground where they will spend the winter.  (The fritillary is one of many butterflies and other beneficial insects that depend upon lawns and gardens not being raked in the fall so there will be more Fritillaries next summer.)  Unlike the adults, the caterpillars are very picky eaters:  they eat only violets; the adult always places her eggs on one of the violet species.  

It was another sad week for our loons as now the south nest in Harris Cove has been predated.  It was noted on Wednesday when Debby saw both loons out in the lake and was able to see the abandoned nest from shore. I checked in with Jayden our LPC biologist who asked me to go take a close look to confirm. I found an unoccupied nest full of mussel shells.  

The southern nest after predation.

I searched for eggs and shell fragments on the island and in the water but found nothing.  Jayden guessed it was predated by a raccoon, otter, or mink.  It's late for another attempt at nesting but not impossible.  We'll see.  As of now the north nest is still hanging in there. 

There was enough curiosity about one of the weeds I saw last week that I went out to get more data on it, and it had matured and grown enough in one week that with the assistance of our local weed expert we were able to definitely identify it as bladderwort.  I've found three types of bladderwort in Lake Wicwas; the one in question from last week's weed survey is the Greater, or Common Bladderwort.  

Greater Bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris)  The black objects are the bladders.

Those black bladders are its distinctive characteristics, though its size is significant too - it can grow up to three feet long over the summer and sometimes forms large mats that can be confused with invasive milfoil.  On new growth at the tips the bladders are almost clear, turning pink then red as they age, and finally the dark black color.  This is all a single plant:

Pink bladders on the tips are new growth, while the black bladders on the right are older.

The second bladderwort I found is the floating bladderwort, much smaller and more delicate than the common bladderwort - also prettier:

Floating Bladderwort  (Utricularia radiata)

Like the common, this one is free-floating - no roots to tie it to the lake bed.  I lifted one up to see the floatation parts.

These upper leaves are inflated to provide floatation.

Lifting it completely out of the water revealed the full size of the plant.

This Floating Bladderwort is about 18" long.

The third bladderwort I've seen in Wicwas is the Purple Bladderwort which flowers later in the summer.  All three of them are carnivorous, using their bladders to suck in and digest small insect larvae.  I wrote about bladderwort's carnivorous ways (no Cheeseburgers in Paradise for them) in July 2020.

An added bonus for my encore weed tour was that the Watershield was blooming.

A Watershield (Brasenia schreberi) blossom.

There were no butterflies on the aquatic flowers, but plenty of other pollinators were doing their thing.

Small flies pollinate a Yellow Pond Lily.

We'll see what the second weed-watch tour discovers in a couple of months, and meanwhile hope our remaining nest can survive the next two weeks.

August 7, 2022: More About Bobcats

The Lake Wicwas Association held its annual meeting yesterday at the Wicwas Grange in Meredith Center; it was well attended with lots of catching up with friends over coffee and treats before the meeting began.  The featured speaker this year was Patrick Tate, wildlife biologist at the New Hampshire Fish and Game department who provided a presentation on the life and habits of New Hampshire's bobcats.

NH Fish and Game wildlife biologist Patrick Tate speaks about bobcats in New Hampshire.
Photo by Shayne Duggan.

One of the new things I learned is that bobcats have a very "plastic" diet, which means they readily change their diet based on the availability of prey.  In some years white-tail deer are their primary food source and in other years it's small animals such as squirrels.  But they are true carnivores, completely dependent on catching other animals for their sustenance - no veggies for them.  Tate also explained that bobcats were considered primarily southern animals but have moved north and now occupy all of New Hampshire except for the white mountains.  Unlike other far-northern species such as the snowshoe hare and the lynx, bobcat do not have large paws to let them hunt efficiently on deep, dry snow, so they aren't found at high elevations in the mountains.  Tate also described how to identify their tracks - round footprints with round toes prints absent claws - as well as their preferred habitat which includes the edges of wetlands and the margins of farms.

A bobcat print seen near the shores of Lake Wicwas.

We'll all know a bit more about these wild felines when we see them around the lake in the future.  Many thanks to all who attended and helped organize the meeting and asked Mr. Tate such great questions about bobcats.

We also had a very successful silent auction, raising over $2000 for the Lake Host program.  Another big thank you to all who donated items for the auction!

A sunfish donated by the Larsens and prepped by Dean Cascadden was the headliner for the auction.

The loons have captured most of the attention around the lake for the past few weeks and there's still a lot going on with them, but they're not the only birds that are active this time of year.  The songs on my morning walks have changed noticeably, as the spring calls of warblers have been replaced by the sweet summer song of the Hermit Thrush and the tireless singing of the red-eyed vireo which can sing non-stop for an hour at a time even on the hottest summer day.  Both of these birds are difficult to find as they sing from thick brush or in high tree tops, but I know they're in there.  Here's a good look I got of a vireo on a mid-summer day a few years ago.  

Red-eyed vireo singing from its perch in a hemlock.

Both the belted kingfisher and the eastern kingbird are very visible and active, darting around as they catch insects on the wing.  I watched a nice acrobatic air show put on by the kingbirds one morning on the kayak.

It's also high butterfly season.  Monarchs are in the fields at the Page Pond Town Forest where milkweed is starting to appear.  The great-spangled fritillaries are sipping nectar from clover, and the pearl crescent butterfly is doing the same on bright orange hawkweed.

Pearl crescent on hawkweed.

Great-spangled fritillary on a clover blossom.

Sipping nectar through its long hollow proboscis.

On these hot August days the mammals are much less active, but I do see momma deer and her fawn regularly out browsing early on cool mornings before the heat arrives.  (Still no pictures though.)

In the July 24 post I mentioned an injured loon that was observed on the lake.  Since then multiple sightings were received and it looked weak enough that the LPC biologist came and searched the lake to assess it but the loon couldn't be located.  Finally, last week, the bird had beached itself and a couple of intrepid volunteers were able to capture and safely contain it - the loon was very weak and didn't provide any resistance.  The biologist was alerted and came immediately to pick it up and bring it to a rehabilitator in Concord.  Unfortunately, the veterinarian decided the loon was too badly injured, and it had to be euthanized.  

I don't know if we'll get any further information, but from descriptions of its condition it seems it had been involved in a lot of fighting with another loon.  But there is happy loon-news on the lake:  I don't have a recent photo of her, but Maddie was reported on Saturday to be healthy and growing by leaps and bounds.  

Now that the fighting on the lake has passed, is there a better life than that of a loon, spending these hot august days floating on the lake and savoring those steamy, crimson summer sunsets? 

A waxing gibbous moon watches over scarlet clouds after Saturday's storms passed.

Hopefully I'll have a picture of Maddie for the next journal entry.