Loon!

 I was going to put all the waterfowl in one post, but I can imagine looking at dubious bird photo after bird photo might be a bit daunting! So, this one is just loon. I'd not been up here long before I noticed these lovely predators paddling around again. I'm not sure how long they will stick around, the lake is clear and there appear to be fish of some sort in it.Loon prefer clear lakes with fish.  I'd love to see them raise babies, but this lake is often a decoy lake. As they fowl look similar, except in size, it is difficult to know which is which. At any rate, often only one will be here being territorial and the other is on a different lake raising kids. If you read loon websites, their lethal boss gang methods are rarely mentioned. I've seen them at the far end of the lake watching a young duckling blithely paddling around and suddenly the loon is gone and seconds later, so is the baby. They don't eat them, or so I'm told, but they will drown the ducks they sneak up under. I was in the kayak one evening watching a family and an adult duck jumped into the air, followed by the sharp beak of a loon! At the moment, there aren't any babies around. I'm not sure how many families will be here this summer. Mum used to put out cracked corn for the ducks, I'm not going to. I assume some will settle here, we'll just need to wait and see!

This photo made me laugh. Auto focus is so annoying sometimes, but every so often something fun shows up! 

 These last three were a couple of days later. There is only one loon hanging around now, I think the other is nesting. Although, according to loon information, BOTH parents take care of the nest. Maybe they are taking turns on our lake? The birds have been just offshore. I've never seen them this close to the bank before, but the water is a bit deeper than usual summers.They are such a fascinating bird!

Life and death out north-

It has been really pretty the last few days. I was super glad I shared that family of green winged teal in the last post, the mom has no one left. The last one was taken out by the loon on Saturday afternoon. The loon who is just here on our lake as a decoy for his own family which is elsewhere! The wigeon is below, he's been seen, but I also learned his mate isn't around. Many of the males tend to leave the mom after incubation. (the teal is another one of those) So, if the brood is all destroyed, unless the female finds a new male, her season of babies is done for the year. 

Below is Miss Kitty. She lives at the North Kenai feed store and is an absolute love! Unless you are a rodent and then you are history. 

This bleached carcass of wood intrigued me. I'm pretty sure this was a 'log' which had washed up nearer Arness dock. Now, it is a cut up root end not as close to the dock! Very cool looking, even with most of it gone. 

It was a gorgeous day out north on Saturday. I had gone to take trash to the dump and out by the pool wisps of fog were coiling in the trees. It was crazy. When  I reached the Spur, on the right towards town the road was obscured. On the left, out north, it was blue skies and sunshine!!!!!! 

 I was amused to see mom's sunflower seeds are growing. I always laugh when I read the seeds are sterile. This one won't get very large (maybe I should pull it up and try to grow it!), but it is growing!

There is a mallard creche on the lake. Or was until Saturday. As mentioned above, the loon has been taking out babies one by one. I went out in the kayak and the loon was on the lake and circling in the sky above were a full grown and an immature eagle. I don't recall which blog it was, but the author mentioned how bittersweet it was to see babies on the lake she lived on. Because she knew most of them would never grow up. I absolutely understand. I know it is the cycle of life, but the last years we've had few babies reach adulthood. 

I have yet to go out on Sunday and see how many she has left in her creche. I'm betting she's down to at least a normal nest size. Thankfully, mallards are ones who brood more than once in a season. We also don't have any golden eye babies yet. Although, to be honest, those moms are terrible! At least the teal and mallards tend to keep their babies to the shallow parts of the lake. The golden eye seem to let their go anywhere they might want to paddle! 

Loon Pair

Predators come in all sizes on a lake. Today we had an osprey visit and a pair of loons. I was able to get fairly close to the loon in the kayak. I wondered why and then I remembered. They are predators, not much scares them. 

 I did research on these creatures and WOW! Loon are not ducks, they are more akin to penguins and cormorants. They have denser bones, which allows them to sink and dive more efficiently. They are mostly monogamous, they stick with the same mate for about 5 years. Unless one vanishes or gets chased away by another mate. They are territorial birds and defend their area fiercely, chasing and killing other birds or even large fish. They also leave their kids and visit other lakes, most likely to distract other predators from knowing where the loon babies are. They can have two broods a year with two hatchlings per brood. If one pair doesn't survive, they work on the second pair. The babies are self sufficient fairly soon after hatching, but rely on the parents for nurturing and rides. One instance I read about (see link), shared a loon adopting a golden eye baby. Which made me wonder. After loon visit, the golden eye population on this lake has diminished!
At any rate, I was incredibly fortunate to follow these two around in the kayak and capture them on camera. (because I had to use the telephoto feature and was shooting floating birds from a floating object, sometimes things are not entirely all in the frame!)

 I searched all over the lake for babies. There were a few out, but most of them were in the lily pads. You can't really tell, but there are at least 3 families of several ducklings floating out there in the pads. I don't go in this area until the babies are larger. It is the lake nursery and I don't want to rile up anyone. I'll let the dog, osprey, raven, and eagles do that!

These are just random fun photos I took not on the lake-