Somes Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary
The Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary is dedicated to conservation, research, and education in the Somes Pond-Long Pond watershed and beyond
There's still some ice at the south end of Echo Lake but we had the 1st loon arrival of the new spring today. Not shown in photo, but it was sleeping out in the middle of the calm lake, bill tucked under wing. We dont know for sure if it is one of the past year's territory holders yet, but it must feel good to rest peacefully on freshwater after a winter on the ocean. Soon enough territorial battles will get underway and loon life won't be so calm.
Thanks to Pepper Cwik for alerting me to the new arrival.
A quick lake and pond check this early evening revealed ice conditions from full coverage at Lower Hadlock, 90-95% covered at Upper Hadlock, 60% covered at Somes Pond. Strong winds and resultant waves did the job of clearing almost all ice from Echo Lake (majority covered yesterday) and same for the north end of Long Pond that was mostly covered yesterday. Eagle Lake had just a very small area of ice in the boat launch area this evening, and was likely "iced out" yesterday or even Saturday afternoon.
If the wind dies down tonight we may have some new ice by tomorrow with temps in the low 20s.
Thanks to UMaine graduate student and Acadia Amphibian Project leader Marisa Monroe for coming to Somesville yesterday afternoon to share results of the study to date. Thanks also to the handful of talk attendees who gave up time outside on one of our 1st beautiful spring-like days!
Marisa presented data on five of the eleven species found during surveys. One of the goals of the project is to find important road crossing areas where management actions like temporary night-time road closures in Acadia National Park may help reduce significant mortality.
Of particular interest is the distribution of American toads - there have been very few sightings on the east side of the island for many decades. Please share what you see and hear for this species in particular. They have a beautiful, long, high frequency songs, which you can find examples of by searching YouTube for American toad songs.
