46 degrees F Cloudy Wind 10 mph NW
Sunrise 5:53 am CDT Sunset 8:27 pm CDT
We have our SECOND EGG!
It arrived at 8:18 am CDT yesterday morning.
Thank you for all of you who saw it live and documented the time.
I was gone most of the day so I missed the actual laying. But I was aware of it even though I was not able to post.
I had the privilege of spending a good share of the day at the State Capitol with Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt and spending a good deal of time on the floor of the House of Representatives. The Speaker's father Keith and I were very good friends in high school. I guess that dates me, doesn't it? That the Speaker's FATHER and I are the same age! But it was a privilege, one that I also had when he was sworn in as Speaker back in January.
I talked about the Minnesota Fishing Opener in my post yesterday morning. Governor Dayton and Speaker Daudt and Senate Majority Leader Bakk are all up on Lake Vermilion near Ely right now. This is at the edge of my beloved Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
And hundreds of thousands of other Minnesotans are heading to their favorite lake today. Many of them want to be out on the lake at midnight when the fishing season opens for the year.
With all those boaters and fishermen out on lakes across Minnesota, that poses some special stress on our beloved loons. Let us hope that the fishermen here on our "Loon Lake" will maintain a respectful distance from the nest.
I am sorry that I missed the laying of the second egg this morning. But thank you once again to all of you faithful viewers who did catch it. And I hope that it is one of those special memories forever stored in your mind.
Now we are able to settle in for the long wait for our little loon chicks. There is still a possibility that our female loon may lay a third egg. But that possibility is quite slim. The likelihood is that we will have the two eggs we have now.
In the next couple days I will sit down and try to figure out my best guess of when the eggs might hatch so that you have a date to aim for. It will be just a guess. But that is better than nothing for you.
But let's hope that everything over the next month is very boring on uneventful. And that our loons are able to incubate the eggs without interruption.
That they are able to make the nest exchanges between the female and the male smoothly and quickly.
That we have no eagles or other predators from the air.
I have known that we have three eagles that hunt on the lake, including one immature eagle that spends a lot of time in a neighbors tree not very far from the nest. In fact it was probably this immature eagle that was chasing a mature eagle last week and they flew right in front of my neighbor's windows. I didn't see it but it apparently and understandably was a big surprise to see them fly right in front of the window.
The next morning I found a very large bullhead in my yard. It had a number of very distinct puncture marks in it. In all probability the eagle had dropped it as it was being chased by the other eagle.
A couple days ago someone told me that there a FIVE eagles that hunt and fish on the lake.
Let's hope that we have no raccoons or beavers or mink or muskrats that come up on the nest and disrupt our loons. Well, we can have visitors just to keep US interested and give us something to talk about as long as they don't disturb the loons.
Let's hope that we have no snow or frost or severe storms.
And that people keep a respectful distance from the nest.
Oh so many things to make us worry even more, as if we don't worry about our loons enough already.
So have a wonderful "worryfree" day!
Copyright 2015 Larry R Backlund