Will Kidder

As Pleasant Lake turns toward the Fall, we have good news for the merganser family. All four chicks are looking healthy and still with their mother. They have been exercising their wings and taking short flights around the lake. Precious Kittie has also been practicing flying and is spending more time alone.

Precious Kittie is now just over 12 weeks old and becoming quite beautiful. Here's some pictures of what she was up to in her 11th week of life. Both parents are still taking care of her. Signs of autumn are visible on the lake.

With help from a dedicated wildlife biologist, John Cooley, senior biologist at Loon Preservation Committee, we were able to locate, catch and remove the hook and leader from the young merganser on Friday 9/7.

On Saturday, September 1st, there was a ceremony at the dam in Elkins unveiling the granite bench that PLPA had installed as a tribute to Kittie Wilson and her years of service to Pleasant Lake and our area in general. 

After a long dry spell we have suddenly received a bounty of wet weather.  The considerable dampness has resulted in an explosion of mushrooms growing in our woods.  The following are just a few examples of the dozens of fungi and efts we have found in the Cascades along the stream leading to Pleasant Lake this week. 

The Loons are doing very well.  The chick, 'Precious Kittie', is growing big and strong, recently developing her real feathers.  We thought it might be interesting to show a few developmental photos.  The individual photos are captioned with her ages. 

Our loon chick is doing well and spending more time diving and testing its wings. Its parents spend more time apart looking for food. Merganser female now has only 5 chicks (down from original 7) and we caught her moving them away from a diving loon in the evening.

This year's theme was Westward Ho!  We thank Dave and Janet Kidder for being our Grand Marshals.  Great thanks to Jen Esten for all the great pictures as well.  As you can tell, lots of fun was had!

We are very sad to have to report that one of the Loon chicks has been lost.  We don't know if it became weak for some reason or if maybe its sibling ostracized it or what the reason could be.   On Friday evening we saw the chick separated from its family but then rejoined it.