May « 2021 « Photographs by Frank

13 May 2021

Luna Moth

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Other Insects,Spring,Wildlife — Frank @ 9:15 PM

Joan spotted this female luna moth perched near the ground along side the road between our house and the Price Farm. I am pretty sure it is a female given the small size of its antennae and the large size of its body..

Luna moths are not rare, but they are rarely seen since they are nocturnal.

An interesting fact about the imago (winged, sexually mature) form seen here: they have no digestive system. The only function of the “adult” luna moth is reproduction. It will live for about a week and use the fat stored as a caterpillar as its sole source of energy.

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P.S. Quick loon update… there was a loon sitting on the nest when I drove by (twice, about an hour apart) late this afternoon,

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Loon Update #1 (2021)

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Spring,Wildlife — Tags: Loons — Frank @ 12:30 PM

Yesterday afternoon Joan sent me a text message saying that there was a loon sitting on then nest. Her brother George had also seen a loon on the nest earlier in the day.

When Joan’s message arrived, I packed up my gear and headed down to the lake, arriving at the bridge at about 4:30. Joan reported that the bird had slipped off the nest as she put her phone away after sending the text!

Joan headed home. I set up the tripod etc. and settled in to see what would happen anyway.

I spent most of my time watching the main part of the lake hoping to pick up a bird as it came back under the bridge. However, after roughly a half hour wait, I first saw a single loon, on the upstream side of the bridge, over near the Craig Road bridge.

This bird just “hung out’ in the area between the two bridges for about twenty minutes. It was not actively fishing, it did a bit of stretching at one point, but it really just hung around. Eventually, it headed over towards the far ‘shore’ where the nest is, but again, it just meandered about for another ten or fifteen minutes. Finally it headed over to the nest a climbed up.

I watched the bird on the nest for a half hour or so. It was attentive, looking around a lot, and was still on sitting on the nest when I packed up and headed home about 5:45 PM.

Given that the nest was left unoccupied for long intervals yesterday, it is probable that the birds have not yet laid any eggs.

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12 May 2021

Two Walks

Filed under: Landscapes,Monadnock Region,Spring,wildflowers — Frank @ 10:45 AM

These photos are from walks on two recent days. The trees are beginning to leaf out and the hobblebush is in full bloom, as are many other early spring wildflowers and the black flies!

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8 May 2021

The Loons Return for 2021

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Spring,Wildlife — Tags: Loons — Frank @ 11:15 AM

Stalwart readers will remember that 2020 was a year to be remembered in Gregg Lake loon-dom… we had the first loon chicks hatched and fledged in living memory.

The loons (presumably the same pair as last year) are back again this year!

On the first of April this year (2021), Joan observed a single loon on the lake during an early kayak excursion. A week later (8 April) she observed a pair of loons. About a week ago (on 2 May) we had the first report of nest building behavior and a day or two later we observed this ourselves.

Late yesterday afternoon, I packed up my camera gear into the truck and made the mile drive down to the bridge to see what was up. I spent a couple of hours observing the loons. Or, more precisely I spent about forty five minutes waiting for the loons to make an appearance and a bit more than an hour watching the loons. The weather was cool (upper forties) and there was a bit of a breeze. Thus the black flies were not an issue and I never donned the bug jacket I brought along.

I first spotted the pair swimming together on the main part of the lake. They dove in unison, swam under the bridge and headed for the far ‘shore’ where they nested last year. They spent a short time adding nest material to the site they used last year and one of the birds climbed up to try out the result. The pair then explored two other sites nearby. At one of these sites they began to make another nest and, again, one of the birds climbed up to test things out.

Eventually one of the birds headed back to the main part of the lake. The second individual spent a few more minutes working on the nest before it headed off for the main part of the lake as well.

Twice, while the loons were hanging out near the nascent nest site(s), I observed a behavior that I had not witnessed before. One of the birds appeared to jump out of the water and pounce on something. The water by the nest sites is much too shallow for a loon to dive. Thus, I wonder if it was pouncing in attempt to catch prey, much like a fox or similar animal does when hunting rodents in a grassy field. I captured this behavior in two photos made a fraction of a second apart.

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2 May 2021

Two Days Work

Filed under: Landscapes — Frank @ 10:00 PM

Friday morning I headed to Laconia to help my friends Joe and Diana with a printer problem. On the way home, after lunch, I stopped at the Canterbury Shaker Village and made a number of photographs in the rain.

Early Saturday morning, I made a few photographs on Meetinghouse Hill before picking up my friend Victor for the drive to Brattleboro. We had our the first in-person meeting of ‘Carry It In’ (CII) in some months. CII is a group of photo-friends that get together once a month to share prints and talk photography. We spent the winter Zooming, but it is just not the same as getting together in person. We met outside, it was cool and breezy but tolerable and much better than Zoom.

The last two photos in the group below were made on Saturday; all of the others are from Friday.

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