After all the excitement a couple of weeks ago over having two newly-hatched loon chicks, I’m sad to report that the North Pond loon family is now down to three, with one of the chicks having disappeared within a few days of hatching. I don’t know if it was a snapping turtle, our resident lone eagle, or some other predator that got it, but I only ever saw the two chicks with their parents once, when I was kayaking on August 5. By the end of that week, people were reporting and photographing the parents with just one chick.
I’m especially sad for the remaining chick because it hatched so much later than the chicks on other area lakes, having been the result of the parents’ second attempt after a nesting failure. Loon parents raise their chicks until they’re about 12 weeks old, then they head off to their winter home, leaving the chicks to figure out migration on their own. Usually, they form a group with fledglings from other lakes and head out together, but I’m afraid this little one is going to be the only one left by the time it’s old enough to migrate. I was hoping it would at least have a sibling for company.
I’ll be looking for the parents to disappear around the end of October, and we’ll have to keep an eye out to see what happens to the chick after that. We’ll be back at home by then, and I won’t be kayaking, as I’ll be only about three weeks out from my second knee replacement, but I hope Jane Chandler and other year-round residents of North Pond will look out for this baby.
Tony, Will, and I gathered with about 20 of my family members last Wednesday to help my brother Greg and sister-in-law Tammy celebrate their 80th birthdays. Tammy’s birthday was actually in March, and Greg’s is coming up on September 27 (the same day as Will and Rosemary’s wedding), but they decided to celebrate them both in between, when my nephew Michael and his family were back east for a visit from their home in Colorado. Greg and Tammy and family were spending the week in Kennebunk, and we all gathered at a nearby park. I brought a birthday cake, and although I know Greg would have preferred his favorite, lemon meringue pie, I made one of my specialties, a lemon-frosted, lemon-filled lemon cake, which was a pretty big hit.
Thursday, August 21, at 1 p.m. in the Twitchell Education Building at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society: Kevin Winsor will present a program on fly fishing, part of the Mill Brook Craft Series.
Thursday, August 28, at 1 p.m. in the Twitchell Education Building at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society: “The Art of Paper Quilling” with Sara Hemeon, the final program in the Mill Brook Craft Series.
Thursday, September 4, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Mason House at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society: Annual meeting and potluck supper. If you’re a member, or you’d like to become one, or you’d just like to know more about MBHS, please bring a dish to share and join us. Following the potluck supper, Executive Director Will Chapman will present a program on the past, present, and future of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, including a retrospective marking his ten years with the organization.
Sunday, September 14, at 2 p.m. at the East Bethel Church, 1797 Intervale Road, Bethel: Meetinghouse and Church in Early Oxford County. Join architectural historian and director of the Hastings Homestead Museum Randall H. Bennett for a presentation about early meetinghouses and churches in Oxford County. This program celebrates the transfer of Bethel’s “Lower Meeting House” (East Bethel Church) to the care of the Hastings Homestead Museum, Inc. The lecture will begin with a brief introduction to the town’s newest museum on Broad Street in Bethel Hill village. Free (donations encouraged).
Tuesday evenings from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Locke Mills Union Church: Rosie MacArthur offers weekly country line dancing lessons. The cost is $5 per lesson, and there’s no need to pre-register; just drop in. The class welcomes all levels, including beginners, and Rosie also offers lessons on Thursdays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the United Methodist Church at 75 Main Street in Bethel.
If you have news or events you’d like included here, email me at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or call 207-890-4812. The next print edition of the Citizen will be the September 5 issue (which will actually come out on September 4?), but you can read the Locke’s Mills column online every week at amywchapman.com, or subscribe for free to have it emailed to you each week.
“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.” – Sam Keen