Fauna--the Good the Bad and the Ugly

 Last week Land Girl and I went camping for four nights at our favorite campground in northeast Wisconsin. It was an interesting trip, from a variety of standpoints and provided a couple firsts. This blogpost will be about the good, the bad and the ugly of our experience with fauna, and let me add, bacteria.

Campsite

I am usually a good news last type of guy. I hope the good news mitigates the bad news. In this case, borrowing from the order of the words in the title from whatever it was, (Ugly, Bad and Good just does not ring as well), I start with the good.  As regular readers of this blog will recall, about the same time last year a loon nest was disrupted by four women at the beach lake of that campground, which you can read about here. Our viewing of the nest that year always contained an adult loon so we don't know if the eggs had hatched or not, but given similarities to loon position on the nest from last year and this year, it seems to me the eggs were still unhatched last year at that time. This year, we camped again in mid-June, but we did not have four floating females, but we did come across the same nest, and this time that nest contained one egg. That was a first for the two of us, to see a loon egg in a nest. I watched the nest for a while and was surprised at how long the loon was off the nest. 

Loon on Nest

Land Girl gave up the land to go kayaking a few times on the campground lake, and she was the first to notice a loon nest on a man-made small floating island, and this nest contained three eggs. One day while kayaking I got a photo, and was dismayed that the wind blew me closer to the nest than I had anticipated. At which point the loon near the nest called the mate who flew in. I decided it best to move out of that location. 

Loon on Campground Lake

Loons are subject to a variety of predators. One such predator are eagles, and we saw a couple bald eagles this year, mainly on Monday, but none after that. We saw one flying over the beach lake, and I saw one flying and another sitting in a tree on the campground lake. One camper I was talking with said bald eagles are becoming more common such that they now represent a nuisance, or worse, to the loons. I am not sure of the habitat area required to support a pair of loons or eagles. While on the water I was talking with a fisherman and the efforts put in place to increase the size of the fish on the lake. While the lake has many fish, they tend to stay small. The fisherman, who was in his mid-twenties has been coming here since a young child and he thought the loons and eagles kept the fish size down. I am not sure about that conclusion, but I wonder how the lake supports fish and loons with just small fish. Even if they do keep the fish size small, those species have a right to fish too.

Loon Egg

We also saw other common fauna, deer, birds, humming bird, squirrels, chipmunks, dragon flies and even our first butterfly of the season. When walking to the boat landing from the beach Land Girl thought she heard a bear. When we used to hike the trail around the lake evidence of bears was quite prevalent. There were also mosquitos and horse/deer flies.

These two insects bring us to the bad. The mosquitos were worse at dusk and the first part of the morning. We had temperature variation from the mid 40's to mid 90's during our stay, one time within a 14 hour period of time. This meant that we had to keep the camper windows fully open a couple nights which attracted the mosquitos. They got in when using the door, and going to bed at night they were dive bombing on to us such that I began to realize what sailors on the aircraft carriers during WWII experienced with noise of the Japanese Zero bombers. Being dark, you would slap and of course most of the time miss. We did kill a sufficient number to make the ceiling and walls look like they had chicken pox. 

The mosquitos were bad, but Land Girl suffered many bites from the horse/deer flies. I am not sure which species these pesty flies were, perhaps both, but they are annoying. As I was swimming they flew around my head, buzzing like they were looking for the kill. I would go under, only to resurface and find they were back again. At the beach one day a woman and child were leaving as we arrived with the woman saying the horse flies were just too bad to stay at the lake. We did stay awhile, and did not find them more of a nuisance than otherwise; perhaps the wind kicked up reduce their impact.

Loon moving toward Nest

Sometimes, the smallest thing can cause a problem bigger than what it should. Monday and Tuesday it was quite hot, so I found myself going in the water 9 perhaps 10 times a day to cool off and enjoy a swim. Many of those swims occurred in the water adjoining our campsite, were Land Girl found a dead fish floating around. I got a small cut on my foot while swimming Tuesday, but it did not bleed. Baceria may not be fauna, but the bad kind can lay one up. Later the next morning I noticed the foot was quite red and swollen. Land Girl, my personal RN, had me soak the foot in hot water, and it started to look better, but a little while later the redness started to increase once again. We spent the afternoon traveling to Crandon and back to get medical attention, where I was prescribed a couple anti-biotics and told to stay out of the water until the wound was healed. This was our second first--a trip to a medical clinic, and not as nice as seeing the loon eggs. 

Eagle in Flight

With cuts on my feet I was told to stay out of the water. Land Girl, had an idea to allow me out on the water. She kayaked our kayak to the boat landing from our campsite, while I walked, where I could get in from the pier, and kayak around the lake. She would often see, or hear my cough, coming back and we would meet at the boat landing where I would get out and walk back to the campsite and she would kayak back. It was quite the good idea.  

Flora--Indian Paint Brush

Seeing the loon eggs was undoubtedly the highlight of our trip and showed that we can always experience a first even at a campground we have visited many times. The bad--mosquitoes and horseflies come with camping, and they can be a nuisance, particularly when trying to sleep and all you hear is buzzing. The ugly was the bacterial infection in my foot, which limited my activity. However, I am not so sure what looked worse, my foot or Land Girl's bitten legs.