I watched all the Jacques Costeau episodes as a kid. Obviously I learned nothing from his crew’s underwater photography techniques. What I did was reach out of the kayak, stick the waterproof camera in the water, and snap photos while fish swam by. I snapped a lot of nothing, and then this little fish happened by at the right moment. A not-so-large large mouthed bass.

Failing at my Calypso crew audition, now I seem afflicted with Joyce Kilmer aspirations:

Long Lake, little fish

Long Lake,  little wish

Wants to see the internet

Not  a cute pet

Has to stay wet

Has to stay put

Has to stay free

Bet she’ll  greet a fishing net

Before she meets that internet

Poor little fish

Poor little she

We spotted this shy Northern Water Snake as he was swimming near the kayak put-in. He startled me, for sure. We don’t see many snakes swimming in the lake. In fact, in four years on the lake, this is only the third one we’ve seen. He swam very fluidly. Clearly the little guy is comfortable in water. He was only about two feet long and, at his thickest, he was about one and one-half inches in diameter. These snakes grow to about four feet, so this was probably a young one. You can also tell that because he is more distinctly patterned than an adult would be.

The Northern Water Snake is harmless. The worst they will do is release a foul-smelling anal secretion if you handle them. They are nervous snakes and if handled they will try to bite, but they don’t have any venom. Sometimes these snakes are misindentified as “water moccasins.” We don’t have water moccasins in Michigan. Maybe on account of that misidentification, or possibly just because lots of humans fear snakes enough to want to kill them, Northern Water Snakes have been wiped out in some areas of Michigan. Long Lake is fortunate to have some left.

In the lower peninsula, the only snake with a poisonous venom is the very very shy Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake. They aren’t anywhere near as dangerous as their southern and western cousins. Pretty much Michigan’s rattlesnake only bites silly people who are trying to handle them. A bite means a trip to the hospital rather than a trip to the morgue (except for the extremely fragile). Michigan’s upper peninsula has absolutely no snakes that harm humans. 

So, another good reason to live in Michigan: only one of our snakes can be harassed into trying to kill you. And they aren’t very good at it.

Is this like knitting on eight needles?  Talk about lace weight. 

This spider has been working on the outside of one of the great room cottage windows since I arrived on Friday. The farthest out part of the web gracefully drapes 51 inches from the top to the bottom. Measured across at the bottom of the window this triangular shaped web is 43 inches. The silk circles from a center spot, sort of. It’s kind of sloppy knitting though. And the threads are held together with crisscrossing strands. In this photo it seems to be doing some repair work on the web. I’ve watched it use a couple of those shorter legs in front to shovel little gnatty tidbits into its mouth.Very efficient. Its body is about half an inch long. Measured from longest leg to longest leg, it’s about 1.5 inches.

I’ve tried to find out what this spider is. We have the Audubon Society’s Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders. But, I’m sorry, even touching the glossy color photos in that book long enough to turn the pages gives me the creeps. I thought maybe if I just steeled my resolve and got past the really ugly stuff and went straight to the spiders, I’d be OK. But even the spiders are more than my queasy me can manage. Back lit, the creature just sort of looks like a big spider. Photographed by Steve and his macro lens, it’s hideous, in an interesting way. The windows don’t open on this side of the room, so that’s good. Seeing the little hairs on its legs is more than I want to know about an arachnid dangling this close to my dinner table.

Are there any spider experts reading my blog?  I got through the Audubon book enough to decide that this might be a Mottled Orb Weaver.  Care to comment?  The only poisonous spider in Michigan is a Black Widow, and this isn’t that.  So, another good reason to live in Michigan.  Michigan bugs hardly ever kill you.

In 2009, no Long Lake Loons nested successfully. At least one pair, and it seemed a few  unpaired adults, summered on the lake. But no chicks. Two couples got a bit of an early start this year on their nests. Male and female alternate sitting on the eggs.  By June 25th, this pair’s two chicks had hatched and they were off their parents’ backs. (They only get to hitch a ride for about a week.)  The chicks were already diving for food, though I didn’t see them catch anything. They were “viewing” just like their parents–putting their heads into the water and peering around looking for tasty bits. Their loony foot waggle is already perfected. This family group paddled by my kayak, accepting my presence without any sign of stress or agitation. They came so close I could hear the chicks cooing. There is something so compelling about these creatures.

A second pair seems to be sticking to the bigger north section of the lake. Their nest was probably the one on the west side of Belly Button Island. There were two eggs in that nest, but only one chick survived. Unlike the family group to the south, the pair with one chick is acting very wary. The mother and chick still came quite close to our dock, though. The  male is yodeling off intruders and repeatedly going into “vulture pose,” where he pulls himself up out of the water and makes himself look more fierce.

Good. They need to keep that one chick safe. There are big snapping turtles, pike, and hungry Bald Eagles on Long Lake.

We need to keep the loons safe too.  One easy thing we can do?  They all eat little rocks from the lake bottom to aid digestion. But if a loon eats a lead fishing sinker instead of a rock, they are toast.  They die of lead poisoning.  There can’t be a better reason to get the lead out, anglers!

May all three chicks make it to their October adolescence.

Growing up on the east side of Detroit, we called them June Bugs. Steve grew up in the same neighborhood and he called them Mayflies. According to Wikipedia, these guys have a boatload of aliases. Fishfly, Dayfly, Shadfly, Green Bay fly, Lake fly, Jinx fly. They are members of the order Ephemeropter.  Same Greek root as ephemeral.  Short-lived.

What we see is just the end, and a very brief end, of a much longer life.  In their immature naiad stage, these bugs can live up to four years in stream beds and lake bottoms. They look more like beetles during that phase. Some species transition through up to twenty moults. When the time is right to hatch and mate, they are often launched airborn in a rising bubble of air. Actually, lots of rising bubbles of air. The hatch can be very impressive. Reports are that a hatch on Lake Erie once showed up on Doppler Radar.

Once hatched, Mayflies mate quickly and on the fly. Both male and female are doubly endowed when it comes to their mating paraphernalia. The male dies straight away. Females may live a day or so. Once they emerge from the water, with their skinny segmented bodies and delicate veined wings, they’re done with eating. Their digestive system is filled with air. That makes them light enough to float.Their mouths are just vestigial.

A prolific hatch is sometimes taken as a sign of the general health of a river or lake. Long Lake must be pretty healthy. They arrived yesterday in great numbers. The Purple Martin are gonna have major tummy aches tomorrow because they’ve been buzzing around all day eating their fill. They’ve even been swooping in to pluck them off our dock. Hundreds of the bugs are clinging all over our lake house. In the morning, our walk to the water will be very crunchy.

Headley is a gator head with sparkling jewel eyes that reflect sunlight. He is guaranteed to keep water fowl away. He bobs around in the waves, even squeaks occasionally as his styrofoam head scrapes the bungee cord. But, alas poor Headley, the gator who comes with an overpriced tag, doesn’t do a bit of good. Not a bit. Not even at first. You would think at least at first it would have worked.  Almost the first night Headley was in the water, a pair of American Black Ducks decided to spend the night on the dock. I guess they wanted to keep him company and welcome the new guy to the neighborhood. Supposedly gators eat young water fowl, somewhere, and the breed memory will take over and your property will be fowl/foul free. Not so. Not in Michigan anyway. Canada Geese swim right by those sparkling jewel eyes on their way to breakfast on the lake house lawn. And lunch. Until I come running out with my broom.

A Great Blue Heron moves in the shallows, often at dawn or dusk. It isn’t a fussy eater. It will spear a fish, toad, or frog with its long bill and then  swallow its food whole. The Great Blue is a strong flyer, with a deep wingbeat. In flight, look for his long legs trailing behind and for his long neck to be bent back so his head is over his body. Click here to listen to his charming call.

Out in the kayaks for the first time, on an unseasonably warm first weekend in April, this guy was yodeling up a storm, even though we were careful to keep a respectful distance.  He was answered by another loon on the lake.  A mate? We hope.  A Canada Goose pair is hanging around the island–as if working on a nest.  They are aggressive and hopefully the loon pair will stand their ground.   At one point, the loon went into vulture posture: rising up out of the water and making himself look like something to steer clear of.  Something had him agitated, but I don’t think it was us, floating quietly in our kayaks.

Sealed-in-plastic puzzles never have pieces missing, do they?  Once, when I was a child, we got a thousand-piecer with one duplicate piece and one missing piece.  But that was 45 years ago.  There’s quality control now, right?  I looked everywhere.  The piece, it is missing.  Missing. As in not in the box.  How’s that for green apples?  Kim Norlien (“the painter of peace and tranquility” TM) probably cares.  Before he sold rights to his loon painting to the puzzle guys he must have made them promise that when they chopped it up into itsy bitsy pieces and packed it in a plastic bag before stuffing it in a a box and then wrapping the box with cellophane, that they’d not leave any peace out.