Nesting Eastern Phoebe

One of the wonderful - and unanticipated - features of a log home is lots of nooks and crannies for nesting birds. Rare is the year that we do not have a robin's nest tucked into a cross section of log beam somewhere. This year brought a first - a nesting eastern phoebe - located immediately outside of our front door. 

One of the very recognizable habits of this "flycatcher" is that when it leaves the nest (which is anytime we open the door) it flies to a nearby low hanging branch in the woods, where it perches and furiously bobs its tail. 

It should take two weeks for the eggs to hatch, and then the birds will typically lay a second clutch of eggs - Double Clutching?

Loons

Our loon came to visit yesterday, and sat in front of the house posing for pictures. We have not had a nesting pair on Bullet Pond in many years.  I think there may be too much human activity on the pond for their liking. 

Birds frequently fly over from nearby Horseshoe Pond to fish.  I have read that these birds will not take off from their home water once they have settled in for the summer because it is difficult for loons to get airborne, but my experience disproves that.  They can be heard calling as they fly over from Horseshoe, and they take off and land many times during the season.     

Ospreys

An opsrey brings in branches, one at a time.

We came across two nesting ospreys this week. One was just south of Crown Point near Lake Champlain. The second was in the Hoffman Notch Wilderness Area, in a beaver pond also being used by Great Blue Herons for a nesting site.  Last year a pair built a nest on Alder Meadow Road on the north end of Schroon Lake, but they abandoned that nest.

This bird was not happy to see me!

Osprey can be induced to build nests on platforms mounted on tops of telephone poles near water. Ospreys are fish eaters, often crashing into the water when seizing fish, rather than skimming and grabbing fish from the surface like other birds of prey.   

On a nest in the Hoffman Notch Wilderness Area

Great Blue Heron Rookery ~ Hoffman Notch Wilderness

A beaver pond on Rogers Brook

The Hoffman Notch Wilderness Area comprises 36,000 acres of New York State Forest Preserve. The area's southern border is Hoffman Road, running west from Schroon Lake village. Great Blue herons nest there each year, arriving from their southern sojourns in March, and timing their nesting to coincide with the annual ice out in mid April. This year ice out was three weeks earlier than normal.

A beaver pond created by damming Rogers Brook provides the standing tall dead trees that the birds prefer for nesting sites.  This year an osprey also nested on the east end of the marsh.

Three Story Townhouse, zoned multi-family residential

There are birds sitting on sixteen nests this year, compared to thirteen in 2011.  The herons frequently visit Bullet Pond to fish and forage for frogs along the shoreline.