Loons from New Hampshire

We went to New Hampshire to visit Mike's brother, John, and his children, Claire and David, before they head off to college. John lives on Lake Waukewan and was nice enough to take us out in his boat in search of common loons that had nested in the area. On Lake Nelson in New Jersey, we have mallards, cormorants and Canada geese that spend the summer, but we only get the fancy waterfowl during migration. Two years ago, we saw one migrating common loon who stopped for a day.

There were a few nesting pairs of common loons on the lake. We found one juvenile with a parent and watched from a distance for a while.  We got to hear the wail sound as one parent called across half  the lake to its mate and the mate swam over.

As an added bonus, Lake Waukewan is very clean and Mike got to dive in, something he occasionally has the urge to do on hot days in Lake Nelson before he considers the algae and bacteria levels.

Common Mergansers on Lake Waukewan in New Hampshire

We also saw some common mergansers on Lake Waukewan. These appear to be all juveniles or adult females. We asked them to stop by Lake Nelson on the migration.