Loon Update and Flowers in the Cove

2025, No. 10 — August 12th

Loon Update

Piper continues to grow and has nearly lost her brown down feathers. The photo above was taken on August 1st, and the one below on the 9th. She is almost as long as her dad and happy to get yet another crayfish.

Turtle Cove Recovering

In 2018, the lake was lowered to do work on the dam. It stayed lowered through the winter, draining Turtle Cove. This happened again in 2019. The result was a dramatic loss of aquatic vegetation essential for the lake and its inhabitants. It has been slowly coming back in the six years since.

 

Aquatic plants are used to going dormant over the winter as long as their roots don’t dry out. When the lake is full, many aquatic invertebrates and vertebrates will burrow into the mud. Drying out the cove bottom plus having it freeze took its toll on many organisms. With no water and soft mud, many froze.

As the lake level was lowered, many slow-moving animals like freshwater mussels and those that forage in shallow water like Eastern Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) might have been unable to escape the drying and likely died.

Fortunately, Eastern Newts are long-lived and have a 2-3 year terrestrial stage, the Red Eft below. That means part of the lake’s population was elsewhere in the watershed during the prolonged lake lowering.

Since the spring of 2020, the cove and other shallow areas around the lake have been recovering. This year we are seeing many more frog and toad tadpoles, more Eastern Newts, and lots of damselflies. What is most striking has been the comeback of many aquatic plant species. As you can see from the photos below, this year’s growth has been amazing!

Flowers on the Water

Let’s take a look at some of the important aquatic plants in the cove (and other shallow areas around the lake). As you approach the cove entrance, you will now see large beds of Narrow-leaved Bur Reed (Sparganium angustifolium). They provide shelter for invertebrates and fish.

Its flowers are to similer other Bur Reed species found along the shore.

Below, the floating leaves of Watershield (Brasenia schreberi) are a resting spot for many insects, and its dense stands provide lots of shelter below the surface for small fish, tadpoles, and other aquatic life. The flowers are a favorite perching place for dragonflies and damselflies.

Below is another plant rooted in the cove with floating leaves. Floating Pondweed (Potamogeton natans) flowers are on a single stalk and produce seeds that are food for a variety of animals including ducks.

Like other floating-leaved plants, they provide shelter beneath for a wide variety of young and adult fish. The larvae of damselflies that hatch from eggs laid in the stems below the leaves, are predators of many organisms, including mosquito larvae.

The cove also has an abundance of Yellow Water-Lily (Nuphar variegata). It is a favorite perching spot for the tiny Eastern Amberwing dragonfly (Perithemis tenera). It has a wingspan of about 1 1/2 inches.

The flowers are pollinated by small flies and beetles.

On sunny days the Waterlily leaves are host to a variety of life, including visits by honeybees. They are not there for flower nectar, but for water and a very rich food source, aphid “poop”.

Aphids suck juices from plants in such large amounts that what comes out of their back end is still nutrient-rich. That is a source of food for ants and, in this case, bees. The black dots all over the leaf below are aphids, and there is one right next to the honeybee’s “tongue”. The bee is lapping up a small puddle of “aphid nectar”.

Many of the aquatic plants in the cove were harvested for food by American Indians. Today, they remain important shelter and food sources for a variety of animals.

In the photo above, there were two flowers. One has a beetle on it, and the other was attached to the stalk that looks like someone cut it off with scissors. That someone was probably a muskrat like the one below. A variety of animals eat the leaves, and painted turtles eat the seeds. Like other floating plants, they provide cover and shelter for many organisms.

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Plants with floating leaves are not the only ones important for providing shelter and food. Others rooted in the shallow water send up stems and leaves that sprout flowers. A rather spectacular one is Pipewort (Eriocaulon septangulare). It is an important indicator of good water quality and a source of food for several animals.

At the end of each stalk is a single tiny flower head containing both male and female flowers.

Sedges are another important group of emergent type of plants. The one below is a Bulrush (Schoenoplectus spp.) which produces one small flower cluster on most stems. The flowers leave behind seed pods that look like miniature corn husks.

The stems below are the same plant, but it looks like the seed husks have been torn off. Not by American Indians anymore, but by ducks and geese. These and other waterfowl also use dense patches of bulrush for nesting sites.

The return of many species of aquatic plants to the cove and other shallow areas of the lake means that Pleasant Lake is gaining back an essential support system for its future!

Having lots of floating pond weeds, leaves, rushes, and sedges not only provides food and shelter for a variety of fish and other animals, it also cuts down on light penetrating to the water below. As a result, algae growth in the water is inhibited. All of these plants are taking up phosphorus and other nutrients
from the sediments and sequestering it into plant tissues. The green leaves and stems below the water surface of aquatic plants are undergoing photosynthesis, which adds oxygen to the water.

Finally, all the leaves and stems are lessening the impact of waves from wind and boats that would otherwise stir up sediments. So, yes, having weeds on your beach gets kind of messy, but they are doing many things essential for a healthy lake. Please consider promoting patches of these kinds of plants wherever possible! They may interfere with swimming now, but it might mean that swimming in Pleasant Lake will be more likely in the future.

The Flowers of a Predator

One of the most common flowers in the cove belongs to a free floating predacious plant – Bladderwort (Utricularia spp.).

Below the surface, the plant trails branches with “leaves” that contain tiny bladders (the light spots in the photo below). These bladders have sensitive hairs that, when touched by a small invertebrate, will suck it into the bladder. There it is digested, and the nutrients it contained are moved to the plant.

There are other leaflike structures around the bladders that are capable of photosynthesis. It is known to capture and digest mosquito larvae.

For the curious, here is a detailed description, from Wikipedia, of how Bladderworts catch and digest their prey.

Let’s hope that the aquatic plants and the animals that depend on them continue to return to Turtle Cove and other shallow areas around the lake. Where brooks and streams enter the lake, they are important filters of nutrients.

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Bye for now …  Jen and Jon

Text and Photographs by Jen Esten and Jon Waage