Somes Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary

06/16/2026

Quite a contrast in weather and light from yesterday morning at the Somesville mill pond and harbor to last evening's bright sun and still dark clouds at Long Pond outlet. Very glad we received more rainfall (almost 3/4") than was forecast. We could use a lot more.

06/14/2026

The Somes Pond female loon was on patrol this morning, checking to see if any intruding loons were on the pond. It looked like the coast was clear - a nice break from doing battle with the former Southern Neck Cove female the past few days.

Near the western shore she gives a few "wail" vocalizations here, likely to let her mate know where she was. Also heard are an osprey chirping, a song sparrow, blue jays, a northern parula warbler, a crow, and some road noise. After watching her preen, swim, and dive she appeared to not be significantly harmed by her recent fighting - good news!

06/14/2026

We had good viewing of the Echo Lake South loon territory yesterday afternoon from the beach, with the help of binoculars and spotting scopes. The male was on the nest raft incubating the pair's two eggs. The female was swimming and fishing sometimes close by. We had two nice loon behavior discussion spots, one on the sunny east side and one on the shaded west. We will have more interpretive sessions over the next few weeks while they're still incubating.

06/13/2026

This is what loon territorial defense and challenge can look like - very violent. Sanctuary program assistants Holly and Emma have been watching Some Pond loons carefully the past few days and this is a short video taken while watching the Somes Pond female fending off a female who was formerly the resident of the Southern Neck Cove territory.

The SNC female (banded with green over orange leg bands on left leg) lost her territory last year and has been persistently challenging the SP female while nesting is underway. Fights above and below water have gone on for hours, with some breaks here and there, with the SNC female hiding out at pond edges then re-engaging.

The distant video show the birds trying to grab each other with their bills and wing beating body blows. It can be hard to watch up close. Injuries are a distinct possibility not surprisingly. We'll see how it goes....

06/11/2026

The inbound alewife migration in Somesville has slowed significantly but there are still lots of outbound fish, done with spawning in Somes Pond and Long Pond, heading back to the ocean.

Sanctuary field assistant Rusty Taylor was checking on outbound fish this afternoon when he saw an osprey plunge into the Mill Pond and start to fly off with an alewife. An observant bald eagle was waiting to put a common eagle feeding tactic to work: chase a successful osprey hunter until it drops its fish, then retrieve it. You'll see in the video that the eagle tries this but is unsuccessful.

Osprey - 1; Eagle - 0

The scene shows low tide in the cove below the spillway, the switchback fish ladder with many "steps" for the fish to climb from the cove to the pond elevation, and how much larger a bald eagle is than an osprey.

06/07/2026

Good advice from our friends at the Loon Preservation Committee in New Hampshire about loon nest site protection. Loons on Mt. Desert Island also do not suffer too badly from blackfly aggravation during the nesting season.

Many of New Hampshire’s loon pairs have started to nest! The incubation period, from the laying of the first egg to the hatch of the second chick, takes approximately 28 days. During this time, loons deal with a number of challenges that can threaten their nesting success. Those loons that begin nesting earlier in May (the heart of black fly season here in New Hampshire) may find themselves swarmed by black flies, and some may end up abandoning their nests as a result, Thankfully, most of our loon pairs in NH do not nest early enough to be seriously bothered by black flies, and as a result, nest failures due to black flies have been much more rare in New Hampshire than in other parts of the loons' breeding range.

Threats to nesting success that have been documented more frequently in New Hampshire include water level fluctuations (which can flood nests or leave them stranded), predation, disturbance caused by intruding loons, and human disturbance.

If you are out and about on lakes this summer, please keep an eye out for loon nests, and if you find one, please give it a wide berth. When feeling threatened on the nest, loons will lower their heads toward the water, flattening themselves in order to try to minimize their appearance, as is happening in this photo. If you see this behavior, please back away from the nest!

It is not just motorboats that need to keep their distance from loons—self-powered vessels like canoes, kayaks, and stand up paddleboards can be equally disruptive and should also stay 150 feet or more from loons and loon nests. If driving a motorboat, please make sure to drive at headway speed in areas near loon nests in order to avoid flooding the nest with a wake.

06/07/2026

We're getting a little bit of light rain today, but I wish it was more substantial. We haven't had more than a trace since the welcome 1.75" on May 25th. Stream and lake levels are coming down and the next week looks warm and dry. Its hard to complain about blue sky days, but the hemlock trees and their arboreal brethren would benefit from drought stress relief to better fight off the drain of hemlock woolly adelgid infestations and other species specific pathogens.

The Mill Pond dam area was resplendent this morning in its non-native but beautiful lupine cover. The resident song sparrow was making the rounds between perching and foraging spots in the pondside shrubs. No inbound alewife, but lots went back to the ocean last night after completing their spawning mission for the year. So far we've had 18,892 fish enter the Mill Pond to head upstream to spawn. [Last year's several decade high inbound count was 57,083].

We have been expecting lower numbers this year due to smaller inbound cohorts 3 and 4 years ago and we're hoping that marine bycatch (accidental catch of a non-target species) while trawling for other species like menhaden has not played a significant role. I wish we had more data on what is landed to confirm or refute the hope of low bycatch. The menhaden fishery opens tomorrow while we still have lots of alewife to leave our watershed and head for the ocean.

06/05/2026

As mentioned in the recent video clip, several of the MDI resident loon pairs have been delayed in nesting due to the presence of persistent unwelcome visitor loons (territorial challengers/intruders/floaters/loons who would like to have a territory, but have to dethrone a current resident).

Sanctuary volunteer Ray Yeager was on Somes Pond Wednesday morning when serious confrontations were going on between visitors and the resident pair, and captured these scenes.

06/05/2026

Loon nesting efforts are in various stages on Mt. Desert Island from well underway to just thinking about it. Territorial challengers have been causing problems on many lakes - requiring substantial defense before getting back to nesting behavior. The Echo Lake South resident male (Herman) has been ready to get things going for a few weeks now, but he hasn't been able to get his partner serious about nesting.

He has been on the nest raft multiple times, hoping to encourage her to check it out, but she has been more interested in fishing.

The video shows him heading up the lake after getting off the raft, in no big hurry. His leg ID bands are partially visible through the water near the back of his body. A phoebe's strident voice can be clearly heard from the nearby woods.

05/31/2026

Little Long Pond from our walk last Wednesday, and Upper Hadlock Pond in way back. LLP loon pair was foraging from the north end to the south.