Stamp Act Island is a special place in our lake. Instead of having a number of homes on it, it is protected by The Nature Conservancy and monitored by a group of people who love the lake. In this time of Covid 19, things are not “normal” and people have come to the lake earlier than normal and the normal signs closing the North Beach for bird nesting hadn’t been put up. (They are now up.)
Remember that it is important to follow the posted rules to protect the island, the habitat and the wildlife that lives there.
Please leave your dogs at home. They are not allowed on the island or the beach. 1) A dog is always a threat to the animals and birds that live there and therefore creates stress. 2) Dogs do damage to the plant life because of their small paws and rapid changes in direction.
No fires
Do not leave the beach. No one is allowed on other parts of the island unless they are on a guided hike or members of the Stamp Act Committee for a specific purpose.
Spring is coming and the Shadblow, also called Serviceberry, is in bloom. The individual flowers are beautiful.
And when they are seen as part of the landscape, they add a nice touch.
Our eagles do not seem to have chicks again for the second year. There is no clear reason why they don’t have them but the weather when they would have been nesting was strange with wind, warmth, then cold and snow. I guess they have another year without kids to deal with and, given that they would have to be educating them on Zoom meetings, it probably is easier for them as their internet connections are not great on the island.
Along the shores, the usual suspects are hunting for food and this mink was looking into all the nooks and crannies along the shore. He or she seemed to be a happy camper but was not seen finding lots of food.
Brummitt Island is seen below from a drone photo and the row of rocks on the north side are ones that are moved by the ice. Ice plucks the rocks as they are frozen into the ice and then the ice moves.
An example of this “moving or rocks” can be seen near the north beach of Stamp Act. Looking out from the beach, go right around the corner and about 10 yards off shore is evidence that a rock was moved by the ice. It moved out from shore, then parallel to shore and the must have moved back a bit. All the small rocks have been moved and sand is now shown on the bottom.
