This may have been the wettest week of the summer in this area but I still had to water my flowers.

The folks in the New York City area won’t have to water their flowers for a few weeks now as they had up to eight inches of rain yesterday (8/14).

When that much falls in such a short time there is going to be some flooding as asphalt doesn’t absorb much water.

We got a little wet while banding Loons last Saturday night (8/6) on Taylor Pond at the back of Whiteface Mountain.

When you see the raindrops bounce off the surface of the water like gum drops in the spotlight you know it’s raining.

The Loons didn’t seem to mind but it was hard to keep our recording sheets dry enough to write on.

The first pair we caught was an adult and a chick big enough to band, and our second pair was a couple of big chicks.

It rained the whole time which put about two inches of water in the bottom of the boats.

It had quit by the time we were at Lower Saranac Lake, about 3 a.m.

We went up the maze of channel markers and the Loons were calling to us as we entered the lake.

We caught a banded adult and another large chick and finished processing them as the sun came up.

The second night it was very foggy as we went all the way to the Cedar River Flow.

The two adults and two chicks were around the canoe for over an hour but we never got one in the net.

They would go under the canoe switching ends on us several times but they never got within net range.

After an hour of trying to catch them, we left. They were not going to be caught. We often have this problem when we’re on bodies of water that have no lights around.

As soon as we put on a spotlight these birds dive and keep diving as the light hits the water.

I have been watching the pair and a chick at Wakely Pond just down the Cedar River Road all summer.

My boss Nina Schoch gave me a half-hour to catch a Loon.

The adults here were also light-shy but the chick played with us for about ten minutes before we had it.

It was our first time of sampling this pond and the chick was big enough to band.

Our last stop for the night was Round Lake near Little Tupper Lake. It was a solid bank of fog as we went up the outlet. We bumped a few rocks and logs along the way. We found a pair in the bay where they were located during the day recon.

The banded female came out of the fog first and we nearly had a shot at her. She disappeared and then the whole family with one chick came into view. The male yodeled a couple of times and came at the canoe. He was a big boy and I scooped him up.

We gathered on shore to process him as the sun came up. The trip back down wasn’t as bad as this time we could see where we were going.

The last night we went to ESF (Environmental Science and Forestry) in Newcomb to try for the banded adult Loons on Arbutus Lake.

Some students were present and the adult loons played keep-away in the fog.

We nearly got the adult male. We only misse him by a few inches. We caught the chick and processed it so the students got to see a bird.

Then we went to Catlin Lake on the north side of the property where it was solid fog.

The Loons played cat and mouse there for quite a while buy we finally found a bandable chick in that fog.

We never did get a look at an adult Loon at that location. That ended our banding season.

Our count for six days was: 11 adults (3 of which were previously banded), and 16 chicks.

Only two of the chicks were too small to band but they got transponders (implant chips) instead.

After a day of sleep recovery I headed to a swamp near Weedsport looking for Three Birds Orchids.

Charles Ufford had found some plants in bloom a few days earlier and more to bloom.

I snagged orchid hunters Chelsea Kieffer, her boyfriend, and her mother at Holiday Shores for the trip.

It took about a half-hour to find the little buggers as they were only three to five inches tall.

None were in good bloom but we did find over forty plants. Some had green buds on them so they will be blooming by now.

It was a good day in the poison ivy woods with some flower loving friends. We saw a Praying Mantis on our walk out. I hadn’t seen one of those in years.

Four dead Loons and counting, but that’s another story. See ya.