The loons have been strangely silent all weekend, and I have been singularly distracted from them, so it was not until this morning that I realized that the adults are gone.
Continue reading Silence of the Loons
Tag Archives: Notes from the North Country
When the eagles are disturbed …
When it comes to observing nature, it pays to pay attention, and it pays to stay in one place for a while. Coming to “The Lake” many spring, summer, and fall weekends (and now and then in the winter) and paying attention to the wildlife and other aspects of the natural environment allows me to see and experience things not otherwise possible.
Continue reading When the eagles are disturbed …
Change of plans. We’ll be at Crane Meadows Looking for Cranes
I had responded to the general in query “Where are you going to look for birds this weekend” by simply noting that we’d be going to “The Lake” (Minnesotan for a particular lake, the exact lake determined by context). But on the way up Amanda had the idea of going into Crane Meadow National Wildlife Refuge. This is a small refuge consisting of a swampy lake or two and the Platte River (no, not THAT Platte River), that is apparently famous for its cranes.
Continue reading Change of plans. We’ll be at Crane Meadows Looking for Cranes
The End of the Skeptical Loon
For this final installation of How the Loon Terns, I’d like to very briefly address four different items of “common knowledge.”
- Loons are driven off lakes by boaters.
- Loons use nursery pools.
- Loon are “ancient birds”
- “Loons winter in Mexico (or wherever).”
The Lone Loon Fallacy
And now, for another installment in our series: How The Loon Terns, an exercise in skeptical thinking using Loons as a waterbird touchstone. (In case you missed it, the previous installment was here.)
Continue reading The Lone Loon Fallacy
Lead Poisoning and Loons: A skeptical look
This is the continuation of a discussion of loons, skeptically viewed. I am not skeptical about loons themselves. I know they exist. In fact, I just spent the last half hour watching Mom and Dad loon (whom I cannot tell apart, by the way) feeding Junior I and Junior II (whom I also cannot tell apart) what I have determined to be mostly crayfish, but also the occasional minnow.
In this installment of How the Loon Terns we will look at breeding success.
Continue reading Lead Poisoning and Loons: A skeptical look
Thinking skeptically about loons
I’ve been thinking about loons lately. This is not hard do do because every time I turn around there is a loon either watching me fish, yodeling off in the distance, flying overhead, or feeding its babies just off to my right as I sit here writing stuff. This year, the pair of loons that lives in front of the cabin seems to be producing two offspring … the young ones grew quickly to near adult size and seem fit and healthy as far as one can tell. Last year, the pair living here produced zero offspring.
Continue reading Thinking skeptically about loons
“I only fish for the fishing, not the catching”
There are two lies you will hear from anyone who is into the sport of angling. 1) “It was THIS BIG!” and 2) “Catching fish isn’t the point. It’s the experience of fishing that matters.”
The Mocking Bass. For four years this fish watched me cast lures and live bait from the end of the small dilapidated dock in the lagoon behind the cabin, without ever showing interest in what I had to offer. Two weeks ago I dropped a plastic worm on his head. The worm slid off and rested on the bottom. The mocking bass reoriented towards the worm and took a sniff. I jiggled the worm. And, BANG. He took the bait. My drag was set to medium, so WZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ .. he took off across the lagoon. I tightened the drag a little because he was running into brush and he turned direction and jumped. But I kept the rod tip up and used his jump to bring him in. He ran back and forth across the lagoon two more times and then headed out. WZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ against the harder drag with his last bit of strength, and one more jump. Then I brought him in, letting him struggle and tire a little more because they always manage to pull off that one last bit of resistance, the one where you lose most of the big ones. I got on my knees and pulled him out just as he got near the dock… And that fish was THIS BIG!!!!!
Continue reading “I only fish for the fishing, not the catching”
Notes from Up North
The first time I ever caught a bowfin (Amia calva)I was shocked and amazed at this fish. It was green …. really green like beyond fresh water fish green …. with a fancy spot on the upper part of the back of its dorsal fin. And it had one impressive dorsal fin. It was whopping big and took a while to land.
Continue reading Notes from Up North
The Science of Birdwatching
Birdwatching might be a casual activity, a hobby, an avocation, or even a profession (often, perhaps, an obsession) depending on the bird watcher, but there is always a science to it, in at least two ways. First, there is the science of how to do it. In this sense, the term “science” means something vernacular. We as easily say “birdwatching is an art” as we could say “there is a science to it” and here we are using both terms( “art” and “science”) in their older sense where science is how we approach things with our minds, and art is how we approach things with our hands.
Continue reading The Science of Birdwatching
Notes from the North Woods
Someone asked me at dinner “What time did you get up” and as I was trying to remember what time I woke up this morning, and kinda wondering why she was asking me that, my wife answered for me: “Noon.”
So I’m thinking “Why does Amanda think I woke up at noon. As a matter of fact, at noon, we were just arriving at the cabin up here …. oh … ” …brain kicks in … “we got up here a noon. Got it.”
At noon. We got Up. To The Lake. … It’s a Minnesota thing.
Today I heard about a maple tree that fell in half …. the top half fell off … because woodpeckers nested in it and overdid the nest building activity. What this misses is that a rotted tree (and this tree is rotted) has many hundreds of thousands of organisms distributed among hundreds of species, including fungi, bacteria, worms, insects, and so on, working on that woody material. The woodpeckers, being more visible, get blamed. How unfair to the woodpeckers.
The resident loons have two chicks. You could tell they have two chicks without seeing them because the territorial/warning call they give when they have chicks is distinctly different from the chick-free territorial/warning call. But from where I’m sitting right now, I can also simply look out the window and see the chicks, which are a the moment riding on mom/dad’s back. The chicks look no more than 48 hours old. I’m tempted to go over and look at the nest to see if there are any egg fragments, but I’m afraid of getting pecked to death by the loons. (Of course, they’ve probably abandoned the nest by now anyway). These loons did not produce young last year.
Caught and released innumerable bluegills this afternoon. Observed numerous painted turtles in the “lagoon,” and the bigger female turtles are pulling out all over the place to lay eggs. And, we are having a (light) lake fly hatch, and there is another cycle of tree frog lekking going on. A lot of K-strategy organisms are busily scarfing up the r-strategy outputs.
Today’s birds en route from the twin cities to Cass County, and the vicinity of Woman Lake:
- Bald Eagle (pair with two-year old and the two-year old)
- black capped chickadee
- blue jay
- brown cow bird
- Canada goose
- Common Golden eye
- common tern (a good one)
- common yellow throat
- crow
- grackle
- gray catbird
- great blue heron
- hairy woodpecker (breeding pair)
- loon (breeding pair)
- mallard (breeding pairs)
- nuthatch (heard)
- phoebe
- pileated woodpecker
- robin
- ruby throated hummingbird
- tree swallow
- trumpeter swan (pair)
- veery (heard)
- Whip-poor-will (heard)
- wood thrush
- yellow bellied sap sucker
Not a bad day for your basic casual birding! (Most of the more interesting sightings were Amanda’s. I was busy flipping fish out of the lake.)
A good day for birds.
This was not an intensive bird watching day. This was a day driving to the cabin, sitting in the cabin writing, looking out the window, driving to run an errand, going to town for dinner, sitting in the cabin looking out the window some more, etc.
But the birds insisted on performing. So I thought I’d give you a list.,
En route north from the Twin Cities:
- Two probable trumpeter swans heading west.
- A flock of about 45 cormorants heading north. Leech Lake look out!
- Near Fort Ripley: Rough Legged Hawk?
- Blue Jay
- Nisswa, overlookng Round Lake: Bald Eagle in tree
- Lesser Scaup (small flock)
At the Cabin (Woman Lake):
- Bald Eagle 1 (or two) of our nesting pair. Bald Eagle 3 (yearling).
- Loons 1 and 2 feeding.
- Loons 1 and 2 feeding with otter.
- Loons 1 and 2 getting harassed by BE 3
- Loons 1 and 2 joined by interloping male Loon 3, displays, much ado for a while, Loon 3 leaves (unlike three years ago, when one of the two males died in the ensuing fight)
- White throated sparrow
- Hooded mergansers (2 males breeding plus 1 female)
- Red breasted nuthatch
- White breated nuthatch
- Phoebes
- BC Chickadees
- Various woodpeckers (sound only)
- Common Goldeneye (sitting on edge of ice in the lake)
Longville:
- RW Blackbirds
- Loon
South of Longville
- Bald Eagle sitting alone in the forest.
The above does not count numerous LBB’s unidentified.
Goldilocks, a Very Cold Winter Night, And a Strange Sense of Empty-ness
So we arrive at the cabin, and something seems amiss. With each new clue uncovered, we are at first disturbed, then aghast, and finally, astonished. None of it made very much sense until we found the note. Wow. The note. Continue reading Goldilocks, a Very Cold Winter Night, And a Strange Sense of Empty-ness
Fishing To Do List
As spring approaches, so does fishing opener. My tackle is at the cabin. I’ll go there soon and begin preparations, stopping at the Mule Lake Store to pick up a fresh License. The following is the preliminary draft of my list of things to do. This list includes both things to do in preparation, as well as New Year of Fishing Resolutions. Continue reading Fishing To Do List
Cabin Kitch In The Modern Age
An innovative computer hacker stuffs a computer inside a beaver.
Continue reading Cabin Kitch In The Modern Age