Well, that’s exactly what she did, as evidenced by us catching her and her brood of 8 ducklings last week. We put a GPS unit and harness on her and then released her, hoping that she’d go back on her nest and finish incubating her eggs. In my last update, I told you about the hen that we captured on her nest, which was about 45 feet high (A HUGE shout-out and thank you to Dave Andre of Andre’s Tree Service!).
#SWIMMERS ITCH HIGGINS LAKE 2020 UPDATE#
Q: Can you give us an update on the GPS project?Ī: Yes. We will be presenting those data at the HLPOA annual meeting at Roscommon High School on July 14.
#SWIMMERS ITCH HIGGINS LAKE 2020 DOWNLOAD#
She also happened to be the hen that we captured on her nest and fit with a GPS harness, so we were able to download all the data the unit collected.
We successfully trapped the hen and her 8 ducklings. Q: How many broods and ducklings have you relocated off Higgins Lake so far?Ī: As of July 1, there’s only been 1 brood of common mergansers relocated from Higgins Lake. We might also be able to get our fiber optic camera pole up in the cavity to see if there’s any evidence (e.g., egg shells) of a previously active nest. While it’s getting late in the season for hens to still be incubating eggs on their nests, we still want to investigate any holes or tree cavities that have the potential to be used as nesting sites next year. Q: Do you still want us to report it if we see a female common merganser fly into a tree?Ī: Yes. We have identified a couple of active nests again this year which either have recently been sealed or will be sealed in the near future.
Q: Why are there fewer common mergansers on Higgins Lake this year?Ī: A winning formula for reducing the number of breeding common mergansers on a lake is eliminating nesting sites combined with trapping and relocating any ducklings that happen to hatch on the lake. If I were a wagering man, I’d bet that if you wanted to find a common merganser fitted with a Higgins Lake webtag, you would need to search within a 30-mile radius of Tawas, MI. The number of common mergansers on Higgins Lake is lower than last year and significantly lower than what we were seeing in 2015. Q: Where are all the common mergansers? I haven’t seen very many on the lake this year.Ī: What you are seeing on the lake this year matches well with the several bird surveys that we’ve done this spring and summer. Blankespoor.” This section will be updated whenever new answers are received and answered. To efficiently address these questions we have added this new section, ” your itching questions for Dr. Spring is the time of year we regularly get questions about our Swimmer’s Itch Control Program and what we are doing about all the common merganser sightings on the lake.
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