I took this photo last month. To date it remains my favorite loon photo.
Author: Amanda A. Meader
Born and raised in Maine, my husband and I live on a lake in Maine with our dogs.
Chaos Theory (Or, Loons Count Too)
Chaos Theory
Math is not my strong suit. I’m okay with that. God (by whatever name you give the creative force, or by no name if that suits you) left out the “Understands Mathematics” part of my brain during assembly. I got a double set of “Excels at Reading and Writing” parts instead.
Fortunately, mathematical theories are capable of expression in words, not just numbers and squiggles, which means that I can understand, on a basic level, “Chaos Theory.” Perhaps better known as the “Butterfly Effect,” the gist of this theory is that events in life are unpredictable and can be influenced by an action as seemingly insignificant as the flap of a butterfly’s wings. Here, let’s allow the scientists at the non-profit Fractal Foundation (http://fractalfoundation.org) to explain:
Chaos Theory: Chaos is the science of surprises, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable. It teaches us to expect the unexpected. While most traditional science deals with supposedly predictable phenomena like gravity, electricity, or chemical reactions, Chaos Theory deals with nonlinear things that are effectively impossible to predict or control, like turbulence, weather, the stock market, our brain states, and so on. These phenomena are often described by fractal mathematics, which captures the infinite complexity of nature.
The Butterfly Effect: This effect grants the power to cause a hurricane in China to a butterfly flapping its wings in New Mexico. It may take a very long time, but the connection is real. If the butterfly had not flapped its wings at just the right point in space/time, the hurricane would not have happened.
Full disclosure: I have no idea what “fractal mathematics” means. I was guessing it had to do with fractions – as in 3/4ths of a cup of sugar, that sort of thing. Not so. Look it up yourself if you must know; they lost me halfway through the first sentence. (That’s a partial lie, but I maintain the right to use the “Dumb Blond” card to my advantage whenever it suits me.)
Loons Count Too
Today was the 33rd year that volunteers across the state took a unified stab at counting Maine’s loon population. Organized by Maine Audubon, loon counters spend half an hour on the third Saturday of July counting loons on an assigned section of lake or pond. This year over 900 volunteers participated in the annual loon count, which took a snapshot of the loon population as seen between 7:00 and 7:30 a.m. My husband and I were on stand-by in case any of the volunteers covering Annabessacook Lake had to bail at the last moment. Having not received a call by late Friday evening, I was rather certain we wouldn’t be counting loons.
We did go on a boat ride Friday after dinner, however, and ended up performing an unplanned loon count when we happened upon first a group of twelve loons, then a single loon, then a mother with two chicks and finally a mother with one chick. While math is not my strong suit, I can do basic addition, so a quick tally brings us to 18 loons on Friday evening. I have no doubt there were others we didn’t see, since we did not cover the entire lake on our boat ride. I’ll be eager to find out how many loons were tallied as present on the lake as part of the annual loon count.
Chaos Theory + Loons Count Too = So What?
So here’s the thing: none of us know how the story will end. Maybe your story will last for another five decades, or five years, or five minutes. And maybe what you did, or did not do, today will make a difference in that equation. And there are times when we get tangled up in thickets and think we won’t make it out of the forest. Then we hit those sweet spells when nothing breaks, nobody skins a knee, and the sun just keeps shining. Hallelujah, hallelujah, an angel chorus hums in our hearts.
Still, most days are not like this, they are just regular days. And lately if we can get through a day without a horrific tragedy at home or abroad it seems we are doing well. What responsibility could we possibly have to others then, beyond our nearest kith and kin, to help them thrive in the game of life? When the world has gone mad, shouldn’t we run and hide?
I do not think we can allow this to be an option. Sure, take cover from time to time, that you might rest, recharge, resurge renewed. But do not go away. The world needs you. You cannot know how that wing flap will change your life; that being the case, you must march on, march on, march on.
Whether you are counting loons, rubbing dirt from scraped knees, giving a sermon, filling a gas tank, shuffling papers, saving lives, it all matters. And in matters of the environment, we must look to ourselves to take meaningful action. If we do not, who else will? Put down your Pokémon Go and find ways to volunteer in your community, even if you only have a few hours of time to donate each year. Go on – the loons will thank you.
For more information on Maine Audubon’s Annual Loon Count, or other ways to take action for wildlife, go to http://maineaudubon.org/about/citizen-science/.
Lunch, phoebe style
This is one of the phoebe parents that is raising three babies under our back deck. Swallowed the dragonfly in about two gulps.
The sounds in my forest
Shortly after posting Mother Nature Abounds two nights ago, I heard my mystery bird calling from our wooded waterfront. (Unlike waterfront properties built before state and local government adopted shoreland zoning laws, our property has not been clear-cut down to bare earth, which means we have a mini-forest separating us from the lake. While I may not have an unfettered lake view from my windows, I have something much more beautiful and ecologically sound – habitat that supports an abundance of wildlife.)
When I heard the gentle screeching from the woods, I ran outside toward the sound (a familiar tactic of mine, taken to the extreme in I Swear I’m Not Making This Up). I caught sight of an owl flying among the trees along the lake’s edge, and saw and heard enough to connect bird and sound together. Take a listen to the sound of a juvenile great horned owl here: http://birdnote.org/show/great-horned-owls-calling.
Looking forward to posting loon pictures tomorrow – we saw a raft of loons tonight and several pairs of parents and chicks. Tomorrow is Maine Audubon’s 2016 Annual Loon Count. If you don’t know much about the annual loon count I’ll be eager to tell you about it tomorrow. Sleep tight. I’m going to lay down and listen to my dog snore and my owl scream for a snack.
Mother Nature Abounds
Monday afternoon I was delighted to find a great horned owl perched high in the limbs of a pine tree about 200 feet from my back deck. I had followed a very specific sound into the woods, hoping to identify the animal responsible for the intermittent shrieking that has been piercing our sleep for several weeks. I’m not sure I found the culprit, but I did find this amazing owl. I have never seen a great horned owl so I was very excited. I didn’t have a great deal of time to stay and take pictures, and I didn’t want to bother the owl anyhow, so I did my best and the result is the top row of photos.
Tuesday afternoon I went looking for this same owl and found a juvenile great horned owl. The juvenile was perched in a tree that overlooks the abandoned stump that was, I believe, the place where my murder mystery/kayak attack began a few weeks ago. (See I Swear I’m Not Making This Up if you need to come up to speed.) So now I’m wondering if the predator in that crazy showdown was an owl and the prey was in fact a family of raccoons that nested in the top of the stump (which is more of a 12 feet broken tree than a stump, but you get the idea). I think I may be on to something here.
Seeing the owls would have been enough to last me for the entire month. (Though of course I’m greedy and already hoping to see them again, or at least for my husband to see them.) But Mother Nature is really outdoing herself at the moment. This morning I saw a doe and two fawns. No camera on hand. I also saw a little brown rabbit twice, but again I was without a camera. Monday and Tuesday I saw a lone turkey (a female, so a hen) and her baby (a chick). Wondering where the other chicks went. Guess I might know. The first time I saw the mama and baby turkey I scared them when I opened my always-stuckish garage door; the second time I didn’t have my camera.
Did my milfoiling yesterday and today. Loads of fun, that. Thankfully my milfoil sector has been changed from one (nearly free of green stuff growing) across the lake to the sector where I live, which is so full of green stuff growing you can hardly paddle through it. I guess the only reason I’m thankful for the switch (aside from not needing to inconvenience my husband, who would have had to motorboat me to the other sector) is that while I’m paddling around mumbling “whorled, feathered, whorled, feathered” to remind myself of the key features of variable-leaf milfoil, I can also take note of the osprey adult clutching a fish in its talons and flying back to screaming nestlings, the great blue heron poking about for a meal, the swallows swooping low for dragonflies, the loon calls echoing in from further down the lake…
I also have to make time to water the flowers that I insist grow on the front and side of my house. I find myself doing this in the late afternoon most days, after I have given up on rain coming through in the night. Watering these flowers requires a fair amount of watering-can-lugging, and so I make it into an exercise task, this lugging, since I never do seem to exercise as much as I’d like. My lugging route takes me past the back deck, which means I simply turn my head to the left and look for baby phoebe beaks in the nest. Finally – three beaks!
I think these birds are way too hot under the deck. I’ve considered a fan, or a small wading pool, but decided I should leave well enough alone and let their parents handle the care and feeding of hot birds. Observant readers will quickly note that my concern for these hot birds is a minor obsession (see Dog bowl bird bath).
Whenever I peer through the space between the deck boards to check on these babies all I see is heaving sides – birds trying to breath through the July heat.
And July’s heat has arrived. June’s Strawberry Moon has come and gone. The 4th of July is behind us. My neighbor’s garden is going gangbusters, so I’m looking forward to grilling zucchini and summer squash soon. (Okay, my husband will be grilling. I’ll be eating.) Sort of like that phoebe on the left. That gal is always beak open looking for a snack.
The farm stand down the road from us is boasting two cabbages and some garlic. Yes, two cabbages. Cut them some slack – it’s a hobby stand at best and besides, I certainly haven’t grown a cabbage yet. (In fact, I’m not even trying. But I’m sure hoping that the pumpkin seedling I bought last month does amazing things.)
Wildflowers keep changing in the field beyond the farm stand. We’ve gone from a wave of lupines to a wave of Rudbeckia hirta, or black-eyed susan’s. Rasberries are ripening. And old axes have been sunk into deadwood to rest.
Yes, folks – summer in Maine has arrived. Get some while it lasts!
Great Horned Owl
Monday I followed bird sounds into my woods and found a Great Horned Owl. Tuesday I went back to look for this bird again and found a juvenile. More to come….
The Fresh Air Fund
In the summer of 1877, a particularly virulent tuberculosis epidemic swept through New York City’s tenement buildings. Mycobacterium tuberculosis spread rapidly through the sputum released in the coughs and sneezes of the sick, most of whom were children.
That same summer, Willard Parsons was a young clergyman whose first assignment after graduation from the Union Theological Seminar in New York was to minister to a rural Pennsylvania community located a few miles west of the NY-PA border.
At the time of this epidemic, fresh air was considered a cure for many respiratory ailments. (Consider that Maine became a state in 1820, the Civil War ended in 1865, x-rays were discovered in 1895 and penicillin was discovered in 1928.) As the story goes, Parsons was on a horseback ride in the countryside when he realized that his parishioners could offer NYC’s sick children exactly what the doctor ordered – fresh air. From the pulpit of the Sherman Mission Chapel, Parsons urged his congregation to open their homes and give these children the opportunity to experience the wide open beauty of a countryside in the full bloom of summer.
That summer nine children left New York City and stayed with families in Sherman, Pennsylvania. Today, over 1.8 million children have stepped off hot city pavement and onto buses headed for volunteer families on the East Coast and Southern Canada. (There is also a Fresh Air Fund camp 60 miles north of NYC in the Town of Fishkill, NY.)
Roughly 25 years ago, my parents opened our home to a Fresh Air Fund child. Our neighbors, who were an extended family in practice (and remain so in my heart today) did the same. Blond hair, blue eyes, black hair, brown eyes. Families are made from love, not biology. When this picture was taken in the early 1990s, both my parents and my “next-door parents” had already opened their hearts and homes to non-biological children. For years people found the most terribly intrusive and awkward ways of asking about this. How sad, even if they were just being curious. I hope it isn’t the same today for rainbow families – and I mean any damn kind of rainbow that makes a family. Missing from the picture is my older brother with his light red hair; older brothers do not typically run around with a gaggle of girls.)
For several years both my nuclear family and my next door family invited Fresh Air Fund children into our homes. My Family Next Door owned a piece of heaven on a quiet pond an hour away, and because they were brave and kind in equal parts they would take all of us to camp to swim, canoe, catch crayfish and sail.
I remember the great hesitation with which our host child approached camping. I also distinctly recall her swatting something edible (strawberry? pea pod?) from the hand of one of the Maine natives in our group, yelling “Cucka” for emphasis. Not an unreasonable reaction at all, if you consider her viewpoint.
For most of us, exposure to sunshine and fresh air provides significant benefits to our mental and physical health. Additionally, numerous scientific studies link urban living to higher stress levels. (I can’t imagine why.) Factor in the poverty that these children live with and you can quickly see how a few weeks away from the heat and chaos of New York City would be welcome. (But imagine the courage it takes for a young child to board a bus and head into the woods to live with strangers for a few weeks.)
The next time you enjoy a lungful of Maine’s fresh air remember how lucky you are. But know this: even if we took every vehicle off Maine’s roads we would still have air pollution problems, since wind patterns carry pollution to us from coal plants in the Midwest and the more densely populated portions of the eastern seaboard.
How to keep the air breathable for future generations? Take a look at tips from the United States Environmental Protection Agency on how you can help curb air pollution: https://www3.epa.gov/region1/airquality/reducepollution.html
While certainly better than the air in New York City, Maine’s air quality is far from perfect. If you have respiratory ailments or care for the young, old or ill, you can check Maine’s air quality forecasts on the DEP’s Air Quality page: http://www.maine.gov/dep/air/ozone/.
Walk in the Woods
Go, walk in the quiet woods. Hold you lover’s hand, or slip among the trees by yourself. Put on your yoga pants and go with your best friend. Take a child you love, and maybe another who needs to be loved, and teach them to marvel at the wonder of pine scented air and a hush that wraps around tree trunks and tickles their spines.
Wear ripped jeans and old sneakers. Or Under Armor and LL Bean. The trees won’t know the difference. Just get out and go. Tired bones? Busy day? Not an “outdoors person?” Hate the bugs? Got a show to watch? Go anyway. Breathe deeply.
Earlier this week husband and I took our girls to Jamie’s Pond Wildlife Management Area, an 840-acre property that is publicly owned and managed by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. There is no entry fee, and the public is welcome to boat, fish, hike, bird watch and more. We “discovered” this tranquil hideaway at least five years ago and we go there perhaps a dozen times each year. We select hiking locations and times strategically, as we much prefer peace and privacy. We found that there this week, with no company on the trails expect birds singing from above and deer flies darting in from all sides. I dragged my camera along, hoping to spot the owl that I’d heard on our last visit, but no luck.
Today husband and I slipped away from our girls (we told them we had to work and that their best friend would come at noon as usual) and then we zipped to husband’s favorite haunt from the time in our lives when we lived south of the Gardiner toll booth. Bradbury State Park in Pownal, Maine is only an hour from where we live now, though it used to be ten minutes away from a condo that we called home in Freeport. An admission fee of $4 per adult (Maine resident price) gives you access to hiking and biking trails, horseback riding trails, camping and scenic overlooks. Bradbury, one of Maine’s five original state parks, offers over 730-acres to explore. Maine’s Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry manages the park (and quite nicely, I might say, as the staff has always been friendly and helpful and the park is well-maintained.)
We took the boundary trail and reveled in the silence. Sure, there was occasional bird song, and even still more occasional child-song, but mostly it was just us, and the trees. Tall, tall trees stretching up the side of a 500 foot (smallish) mountain shaped by a glacier in the last ice age. All of the steep cliffs and bluffs on Bradbury face southeast, the direction the glacier moved on its way toward the Gulf of Maine. Today’s cooler temperatures kept most of the biting insects away, and for that we were thankful. I ignore the deer flies for as long as I can but eventually start swatting at my head and the air in a futile effort to kill my tormentors. At best I manage to tangle them into my hair, while my husband dispatches deer flies using a technique that is part ninja, part ballerina, and entirely successful.
Check out Maine’s Bureau of Parks and Lands website for more information on all of the ways that you can get outside and enjoy Maine: http://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/
Summertime fun
My favorite shot is the one where he is flipping onto his back and both feet are in the air. I think that what we saw was a mix of preening, bathing and playing. Since I spent the day playing at Popham Beach with some of my dearest loves I will leave off here for now…..
Dog bowl bird bath
Thankful for another day of blue skies and temperatures in the high 80s. We are on “staycation” so the weather suits us perfectly. If I had to be in my office I’d be climbing the walls.
Busy day today with too many obligations away from the house. Voluntold my husband to take me for a motorboat ride this afternoon so that we could identify the stretch of shoreline that I’ve been assigned to monitor for milfoil. After we found the location we took a short boat ride and ended up mesmerized by a pair of loons that were bathing and fishing.
I took over three hundred photos of the loons and need to sort through them to find the best ones. The male of the pair (I think it was the male because he was larger) was acting like my younger dog acts when she is in a silly mood – lots of wiggling and similar joyful movement. I’m sure the loon’s behavior was typical preening and bathing but it looked for all the world like he was just goofing off. Can’t wait to review those pictures more closely, do some research, and share my absolutely unscientific conclusions with you in the next few days.
On my way back to the house after our ride the shadow of a wagging tail under the deck drew my attention. Note in first and fourth photos that there is a bird on the handle of the lawn mower wagon and a shadow on the house foundation beneath. I snagged a few photos of this new parent (the chicks are still in the nest and appear to be doing okay) and I couldn’t help but think this phoebe looks like a worn out new father. He looked perplexed and exasperated, but really he was catching bugs.
The temperature under the deck was at least 90 degrees (I checked) and so after I finished the phoebe photo shoot I grabbed a dog bowl and filled it with fresh water, then put it on a pile of slate stacked conveniently beneath the nest. A crude bird bath for certain, but better than nothing for the balance of the afternoon, as I had to leave and didn’t have time to do more. Granted the phoebes are 300 feet from a lake, and I’m sure they are meeting their hydration needs somehow…..and my husband figures (probably wisely) that these birds aren’t likely to start drinking out of a shiny bowl….but the effort cost me 3 minutes and 16 ounces of water. Drink up, hot birds.
One fell out of the eagle’s nest
A pair of bald eagles nesting on the western shore of China Lake had a terribly sad week. Friends of ours who live near this eagle nest found an eaglet in the middle of their camp road earlier this week. The game warden was called and the eaglet was taken to Avian Haven, a wild bird rehabilitation center in Freedom. We visited our friends yesterday and I was able to photograph the nest as well as the female perched in a tree. The male was circling with the airplanes so my shot of him is not as clear:
It has been very windy for the past week and the game warden suspects that the eaglet was blown from the nest, perhaps while flapping his wings and lifting up out of the nest (pre-flight practice).
Do you know what to do if you find lost or injured wildlife? Maine’s IFW has a page devoted to “Wildlife Rehabilitation” and on that page you can find a list of wildlife rehabilitators licensed by IF&W to accept wild animals for rehabilitation purposes. Here’s the link: http://www.maine.gov/ifw/wildlife/human/rehab.html
Lean Times
Sleep came late last night, after fireworks and thunderstorms finally drove me into the basement with my sweet old lady Jessie (on the left).
And morning came too soon thereafter, since my little lady needed to get up with the sun to empty her bladder.
An hour later I tried out my legs and my lungs on a slow morning run. Last night’s rain still sat heavy on the forest canopy, and the wind that was with us all day started early, so I ran through mini-rain showers with the deer flies cheering me on with their “teeth” (more like blades, actually).
I cut off the main trial to follow the brook path for a quarter of a mile and was glad to see that we’d had enough rain in the night to quicken the flow of water. I am humbled by the power of moving water to sooth me. Research in the field of neuroscience and similar fields of study has consistently documented a connection between proximity to water and overall well-being. (Marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols explores this concept in his 2014 book Blue Mind; the book has received solid reviews and is probably worth reading this summer.)
I followed up my run with errands and visits, and it was mid-afternoon before I was back in my yard with my eyes to the sky. We hadn’t been outside long before osprey overhead caught my attention. I watched with interest and then concern as first two and then three and finally four adult osprey circled our yard and the adjacent fields, as well as several thousand feet of waterfront, for over four hours searching for a meal. I am guessing that the wind on the lake made it difficult to see the fish. I’m not sure why the rodents in the fields were so hard to find today. I do know that the song birds that nest in our woods had a long afternoon of nest defending.
The osprey still have nestlings and I wonder if they’ve had a meal today.
Eventually I turned my attention from the sky above to the ground below. Earlier in the afternoon my younger dog had nearly lost her marbles because a painted turtle had scooted under the deck to use the loose soil for egg laying.
In addition to being a turtle sanctuary, the back deck is also the location of a phoebe nest. Finally today patient mama phoebe welcomed a clutch of babies today. (Her first nest was raided before the eggs hatched.)
Meal time
This time around there were four eggs, though only three have hatched. I was able to see their tiny beaks by peering through the space between two boards. (Last week I crammed a bit of corn husk in between two boards to give me a quick visual cue for where to look.) I wish I could capture this on camera for you but it cannot be done in any responsible way. I will be eager to check on them in the morning.
The Nature of Maine 