Loons with Two Chicks
Two eggs hatched in 2014. Both chicks survived, thrived and fledged, taking off in October for a few years at sea. The Vermont Center for Ecostudies has learned that loons return to places very close to where they were raised, even after all that time and having only seen home from the air once, as they were flying away.
Egg of Loon
The geese and mergansers of Fish in a Barrel Pond begin the season with dozens of goslings and ducklings. Those numbers dwindle quickly, though, as snapping turtles, otters and mink take their toll. They rely on sheer numbers in spring to leave one or two youngsters still swimming come fall. When danger strikes they scatter, every bird for itself, and if one or two of your brothers or sisters get picked off, at least it wasn’t you.
The loons, however, lay only one egg, maybe two, with one serving as an insurance policy, should something happen to the other. Something usually does. One egg hatched this spring, one egg did not, and we were able to get to the one that didn’t before it was snatched up by an otter, mink, heron or crow.
Wrapped up in paper towels and tape, it was labeled and frozen before being picked up by the Vermont Center for Ecostudies for further, um, study.
There is a challenge going on over at facebook, where people are asked to post a nature photo every day for seven days and challenge another person to do so each day. Challenged by Ken G of Waterdog Journal fame, my first photo went up last evening but not without issue. You can see it by heading to the Quill Gordon page on facebook, or take a peek at it in our last post Cold and Cold Running Water. It’s the middle one of the three, the one Mike Sepelak liked, showing that, despite rumors to the contrary, he is capable of demonstrating good taste from time to time.
Because 1) I don’t have the authority to tell anyone else what to do, 2) can’t seem to link to anyone on facebook even if I did have the aforementioned authority, and 3) I feel much more comfortable here, letting things get posted there automatically, I call on all seven readers of this blog to post their own photos and issue challenges to anyone they wish.
With that part of the challenge covered, here is my photo for Day 2, some lovely fungus I found while wandering around on an exceptionally mild December afternoon:
Warm and wet turned cold and wet and then just cold this week, leaving plenty of ice behind. Never sure how to feel about pictures of running water, here’s something for everyone:
Pandion haliaetus
Maybe the resolution ain’t so great, due to cropping and zooming, and maybe the white balance is off a bit, but I don’t think there’s a whole lot really wrong with that picture. It’s an osprey against a clear blue sky on a lovely late summer day and most people wouldn’t find anything wrong with that.
Most people.
“Now, wait just a darn minute, Quill,” some people are shouting right about now. “That’s an osprey! It’s going to eat all the fish! Someone should do something!”
Perhaps those people would find this picture more to their liking:
“Jack and the osprey” 1948 (Found Photo)
The curmudgeonly demeanor so essential to my charm nearly veered into the ditch of sociopathic behavior a few times this winter as the Shack Nasties made their annual bid for control. The Shack Nasties are terrible things, related to Cabin Fever but having nothing to do with the need to get outside. Cabin Fever is easily treated but the Shack Nasties are insidious and, once contracted, their cure consists mostly of endurance. Hundreds of blog posts and internet articles appeared this winter, with headlines like “Ten Quick Hacks to Beat the Winter Blahs” and I could almost relate, but my hacking was from working in the cold air and, on a good day, if I tried real hard, I could almost get myself worked up to “blah.”
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When folks who are used to a lot of snow say, “That’s a lot of snow,” you know it’s a lot of snow.
Ya think?
Winter Scene (In Color), Fish in a Barrel Pond
This ain’t my first trip around the sun and we’re passing through a very familiar stretch of orbit right now. Shrouded in snow, littered with snapped utility poles and downed trees, it is winter and we cope with the cold, brace against the wind and prepare for the occasional shredding of the network of power and communication lines that serve this neck of the woods. No one needs to be told to go home and hunker down until the storm is over, allowing plows, emergency workers and utility crews to do their jobs, and no one emerges from their shelter pissed off that they took cover from something short of Doomsday itself.
It is winter. Embrace it, endure it, or leave. Continue reading
Everyone is anxious in spring, wondering when the ice will be gone, but I don’t field many inquires as to the time of its first appearance. The ones I do are often followed by, “But isn’t that early? or, “But isn’t that late?” or some such other nonsense.
Fish in a Barrel Pond, November 18
The View from Fish in a Barrel Pond 