Michelle Walker counted seven loons near her house today.  She said they were at first across the bay towards the fishing access, but came closer to her house, diving for food along the way.  We think they might be young loons; however, neither of us have seen a large group this time of the year.  We generally see them gather in the fall, before migrating, and occasionally see a few early in the spring, possibly searching for a spot not already taken by another pair.  They do not share pond space well when they're ready to raise a family. 

Michelle got in touch with Henretta Splain at the north end of the pond.  Henretta did a loon count recently with Eric Hansen, and she directed Michelle to ebird.org - a website where anyone can report sighting an unusual bird.  Hopefully someone will respond.  

This may be normal, but we wondered if it had something to do with the weather.  Seems to me it's about 20 degrees cooler than it should be, and several inches wetter than a normal summer.  I measured .21 inches of rain again today - that brings the total in just the past three days to almost 1 inch.  With the showers during today and this evening, the measurement will go up again tomorrow.  I hope the showers quit before the opening of the new library at 1 p.m.  It would be nice to have some sunshine for that.
I saw a promo on tonight's news for the segment WCAX filmed at the library on Wednesday.  It will be aired tomorrow morning during the Saturday newscast, and Fred will have a link on home page as soon as it's available.