Sunday, March 04, 2012


I had an interesting e-mail from Martha Flanagan yesterday. They have moved and live on a lake she said is similar to Joe's Pond. Here is what she wrote:

The loons are returning north. This morning on our pond in upstate NY between Albany and Saratoga we saw around 200 loons. They were all over our little lake and out on the big lake. I have attached a photo. It is blurry but you can see about 30 loons. These were about 1000' away. Such a beautiful sight...

That must have been quite a sight! In another e-mail she said early this morning they saw only about 50 there, but that small flocks of 10-15 were still landing; soon after, she sent another e-mail saying they could see about 100 loons and two bald eagles. I guess there are enough big lakes in upstate New York and further north in Canada to accommodate that many birds, but still, it's impressive, and must be such fun to watch. I don't suppose many stay on the pond to nest - but if there are a number who remain during the summer, it must get pretty noisy some nights.

We saw a report that Vermont is trying to do a Canada lynx count and hoping to find out if they are breeding here. Apparently there have been more frequent sightings lately. I'm not sure what a rise in lynx population would mean to our more regular wildlife population, like deer, turkeys, rabbits, etc., but I expect if there are many of them, the balance will change over time. I've never seen one in the wild. We've seen tracks of what we thought was a bobcat, and Ray Richer, our resident professional wildlife photographer, has captured some nice shots of bobcats here at the pond. He could even have a shot of a lynx, I don't know. I've read that Maine has a fair number of them, and probably northern New Hampshire, too, so why not here?!

We are getting a little more snow today - started out very nice this morning with some sunshine and temps in high 30's, but now the temperature is dropping and there a fine snow falling steadily. Winter is definitely here, for the moment. We'll see what this week brings.


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