With all the nice weather, I’ve had lots of time to shoot – but that leaves little for posting. One set of fox kits has moved on, the other den is surrounded by grass tall enough that the kits appear only at the top of their pounces. Let’s check in on our three loon families and their neighbors.
I’ll be giving my slideshow, An Uncommon Look at the Common Loon, locally a couple times in the near future. First is Thursday May 30 at 7:00 p.m. at the Lyme, NH, School. Then again on Sunday June 23 at 2:00 p.m. at the Tenney Memorial Library in Newbury, VT.
The Westons are sitting on at least one egg. Their nest is deep in the marsh, updates will have to wait until the chicks appear. (If you’re new to my blog, to protect the loons’ privacy, the families are the Eastons, Middletons and Westons, by the location of their ponds.)
The hummock the Middletons have used for their nest the past couple years washed away in last July’s heavy rain. They toured the pond checking out potential nest sites before settling on a hummock just a few feet from the previous site. Here, they’re taking turns sitting on the site to decide if it will work.
Taking a quick break from inspecting nesting sites.
Back to checking the site. They decided this was the spot and she climbed up and he followed to mate.
Afterwards, they headed off for breakfast, preening and a nice stretch.
Another nice stretch. The first of the red-winged blackbird chicks must have hatched, the parents were foraging and returning to the tall grass with food.
There are several spotted sandpipers around the pond.
The sandpipers are fun to watch. As they forage, they bob their butts up and down. I haven’t seen a good explanation why.
And beautiful spring mornings bring the painted turtles out to bask.
I returned the next morning, just to find the loons had decided to sleep in.
While waiting for the loons to get up and at it. our friendly neighborhood beaver swam by to give me a wave. The beaver went about getting some breakfast of underwater plants and sitting on the shore to eat them.There was a hairy woodpecker foraging on a downed tree along the shore. She found several tasty grubs. Eventually our loons got going with their day. They returned to the nest site for one last check…… Ok, they’ve decided this is the place. But, it needs some improvements. They set about collecting a few sticks and lots of underwater vegetation to build the nest. Sorting out the nesting materials. One more load….. They set out to make sure they’re going to have little loons.
One of the pair swam by close in to my boat. A couple late nesting Canada geese were checking out spots near the loons’ nest. The loons strongly suggested they should move along and nest elsewhere. An eastern phoebe perched not far from the loons’ nest. The flycatchers are not keeping up with the black flies.
Finding a Baltimore oriole feeding at eye level is a treat. Several gray catbirds live in the loons’ neighborhood. This painted turtle has claimed his own small island. When I returned to the pond, the loons had an egg. Here, our male is turning it. Birds turn their eggs regularly. It is thought that turning the eggs helps keep the chick from adhering to the side of the egg and to distribute nutrients to the chick.
We know it was the male on the nest as an intruding loon arrived on the pond. The loon that had been on the nest came out to challenge the intruder and yodeled. Only males yodel. That’s the home team female watching in the background. This suggests the intruder was a male and wanted to displace the home team male. Things escalated quickly! This is the male doing the ‘penguin dance’ to threaten the intruder. Both males and females will dance, but it is thought the males do it more often.
A nice shot of the penguin dance. Notice how far back the loon’s legs are. And, great elevation from the home team male!
The penguin dance display was enough to convince the intruder to retreat to the other side of the pond. After a few minutes of the home team wailing, the intruder left the pond. The home team male takes a victory stretch. And then he returns to the nest.
The road up to the Easton’s pond finally got some work and I was able to get up for a visit.
There were several dragonflies emerging from their nymph stage and drying their wings in the sunshine. The water on the Easton’s pond is a few inches higher than last year, making the nest site unusable. They were scouting the pond for a new site. Here, they’ve stopped to discuss something on their search. We’ve got the same male back again this year. The Loon Preservation Committee banded him in Moultonborough, NH in 2015. Mrs. Easton swam by close to the boat to have a good look at me. (Not as close as it looks, I’m using a 600mm lens and have cropped the image.) The loons checked out several spots and may have settled on one. They discussed it for a time before mating on the site. One of the loons’ neighbors was out enjoying breakfast.
