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Maranacook Watershed News ____________________________________________________________

A Publication of the Maranacook Lake Association

October, 2011 Issue 16

MLA Annual Meeting was held on July 9th, 2011

The Annual MLA Meeting was held at the Winthrop American Legion Building. The Business Meeting was held with the election of the MLA Board of Directors.

Next years Annual Meeting is set for Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the American Legion Hall in Winthrop.

MLAMLAMLAMLA

“Keep our Lake Alive”

Maranacook Lake Association - Membership Your dues and contributions will be used to further our Mission to protect and improve the water quality

of Maranacook Lake and its watershed for the benefit of all. Please help us to recruit new members to

protect and enjoy this wonderful resource we call Maranacook Lake. If you have already paid your 2011

dues, thank you for continuing your support.

Loon Count on Maranacook Again this July, volunteers around

Maranacook Lake participated in the loon count for the annual Maine Audubon

Loon Count. The desire is to know more about how well our loons are doing.

Our count revealed 32 adult and 3 newborn Loons on Maranacook Lake. Thanks to Bonnie Urquhart and volunteers for conducting the count.

For more information on the “2011 Loon Count”, please stay tuned to the

Maine Audubon website:

http://www.maineaudubon.org/conserve/citsci/loon_mysteries.shtml

Notes taken during an outstanding annual meeting presentation by Sue Gallo, Maine Audubon Society on Loons. Loons weigh 9-15 lbs; have solid bones. Males and females look the same, distinguished by size, males being

larger. When flying, they cruise 50-60 mph, reaching top speed of 90 mph. They need to fly fast to keep the heavy

body mass airborne. Loons usually migrate only as far as the closest coast; can get to and from wintering grounds in a day. For Maine loons, Long Island Sound is as far as they’d go to winter. Upon return in spring, males show up first

at ice out. They actually do fly-overs from the coast and know very clearly what the ice conditions are on a nearly

daily basis, so that’s why they appear to arrive on the very day of ice out; they’ve been checking it out for a while.

They are only an hour or so in air miles away, so they can check relatively easily. Males come early to stake out territories. Females come one week later. A family of loons eats 900 lbs of fish (mostly in the 4”-6” range) per

summer. Loons don’t breed until 7 years old. Then they usually have 2 eggs. The non-breeders are the ones we see

rafting up in groups. They have adult plumage by age 2. They live to 25 years and their territories are very important to them; a key determinant of where they will be seen. Mink is a primary predator of loon eggs. Only 25% of young

loons survive to adult size. Loon parents fully molt in the fall, turning gray, then migrate in groups. Juveniles stay

longer and also migrate in somewhat larger groups. The Southern Maine loon population has doubled since 1986 to

3,000. Most of them are non-breeders. There are usually only 450 new chicks per year.

Loon Count on Maranacook In July we participated in the loon count for the

Annual Maine Audubon Loon Count. Thanks to Bonnie Urquhart and volunteers

for conducting the count.

Our count revealed 32 adult and 3 newborn Loons on Maranacook Lake. Maine Audubon website:

http://www.maineaudubon.org/conserve/citsci/loon_mysteries.shtml

Annual Maranacook Lake Free ICE-OUT Contest – Win $100 The ice-out contest allows people to make their best guess on when the ice melts enough for a weight to drop through the ice. This unit will be located on the west shore of the lower basin (Winthrop end) of the lake.

To take part in the contest, submit your guess to MLA on the enclosed form to our address.

All entries must be received no later than midnight March 20. You must be at least 18 years of age to play the contest. All you have to do is fill out the form with your contact

information and pick the Month, Date, Hour and Minute you think the ice will melt enough for the weight to trigger

the timing mechanism. The limit is five entries per person.

The window for ice out for the past 75+ years is March 22 – May 4. The winners will be those who guess the closest to the exact Month, Date, Hour and Minute of the winning time when

the ice at the previously mentioned location melts to sink the weight and trip the timer. In the unlikely event of a tie,

the prize will be split.

Story and graphs by Wendy Dennis and Ryan Burton, Cobbossee Watershed District

Page 2 Stories on the Lake October, 2011

A Publication of the Maranacook Lake Association Page 3

COURTESY BOAT INSPECTIONS (CBI) Since implementation of the Courtesy Boat Inspection program at Maranacook Lake in 2004, inspectors have

completed 9,418 boat inspections! Maranacook inspections comprise approximately 20% of all Cobbossee

Watershed inspections, thereby evidencing the importance of boat inspections on Maranacook in deterring the

spread of invasive aquatic plants within the Cobbossee Watershed. In 2011, inspections increased by 6% on

Maranacook alone (compared to 2010) and increased by 2.5% overall. Funding support from your Maranacook

Lake Association, the Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed and the towns of Winthrop and Readfield allowed,

on average, 20 hours per week of coverage at both the Readfield and Norcross Point public launch sites from

Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. The two Maranacook sites are part of the ten sites

staffed throughout the Cobbossee Watershed, the largest regional CBI effort in the state!

Maranacook Lake

Courtesy Boat Inspections 2003 - 2011

223326

660

1,4761,604 1,616

1,7111,802

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

# o

f in

sp

ectio

ns

Cobbossee Watershed

Courtesy Boat Inspections 2003 - 2011

400

1,509

2,819

4,014

8,692

7,095

8,215

9,105 8,909

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

# o

f In

spections

Maranacook Lake Association

P.O. Box 6

Winthrop, ME 04364

Photo by Sheila Dorey

MLA and Members help replace motor on DIVER ASSISTED SUCTION HARVESTER (DASH)

The Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed built their own Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting (DASH) unit (a pontoon

boat with a pump that provides suction for the “plant vacuum” and a hookah diving system to supply air to divers). It

is a working system that is used to remove tons of variable leaf milfoil. The Friends’ DASH boat needed a new outboard motor to replace the old one that failed, in order to place it into service this summer. Thanks to John Blouin,

who raised the funds to get a new motor, and Clark Marine got the best price and installed it . There were a large

number of contributors, including MLA! Here comes DASH to the rescue.

Your MLA Board of Directors

Mike Sienko Ed Atlee Heinz Walbaum Pat Flood President Vice President Treasurer Secretary 377-6632 622-5656 377-6309 395-4915

sienkomike@gmail.com weatlee@midmaine.com hwalbaum@fairpoint.net patricksaflood@roadrunner.com

Jeff Tracy 377-6247 JoEllen Cottrell 377-6340 Eric Falconer 685-3231 Lynn Reed 441-7333 John Nichols 377-6847 Rick Dorey 377-6550 Bill Wing 377-8691 Anne Schmidt 377-6432