Common Loons prefer nesting on islands (versus the mainland) and typically their nest is adjacent to water that is deep enough for an underwater approach. Males usually choose the nest site, and return to it year after year if they have reproductive success there. Both male and female loons construct the nest, using vegetation growing adjacent to or on the bottom of the pond near the nest site. It takes them about a week to build their nest and they add continuously to it throughout incubation.
Usually two eggs are laid, occasionally one, and both parents incubate the eggs. Incubation lasts 26 – 29 days. Just prior to hatching you can hear the chicks peeping inside the egg before they cut through the membrane and outer shell with their “egg tooth,” extract themselves from the egg, dry their down and enter the water. They are born knowing how to swim.
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Male White-tailed Deer grow a new pair of antlers every year starting when they are one year old. The size of the antlers depends on the age of the deer, genetics, and diet. Before antlers actually appear, structures called pedicles that connect the antlers to the skull develop. Growth of the actual antlers begins in March or April and as more nutritious food becomes more available during May and June antlers grow more rapidly.
Eastern Chipmunks breed twice a year, typically in March/April and in June/July. After mating, the female chipmunk outfits a central nesting chamber deep within the ground with leaves. She will give birth to four to six young in about a month. When born the young are about the size of a jelly bean, toothless and furless with closed eyes and ears. The mother raises her young by herself and by the time they are a month old, they begin to emerge from their burrow. At this point they are about two-thirds the size of an adult chipmunk. (Photo: female Eastern Chipmunk collecting leaves for her underground nest)
In April, during mud season, living on a dirt road can be a curse. But in May and June, when swallowtails emerge, it can be a blessing as you often witness a phenomenon called “puddling.” This phenomenon consists of clusters of butterflies (predominantly males) gathering to obtain salts and minerals that have leached from the soil into standing puddles and moist dirt.
In April, North America’s largest swallow, the Purple Martin, returns to New England to breed. Nesting is now underway, and here in the East takes place almost exclusively in man-made colonial nest boxes. Prior to 1900, woodpecker holes in snags were the preferred nesting sites, but now only Purple Martins in the West tend to seek them out (unlike Purple Martins in the East, they often are solitary nesters). Even though humans have provided housing which has increased their population, there is still considerable competition from European Starlings and House Sparrows.
There are both male and female Jack-in-the-Pulpits, and nutrition determines which gender a given plant is. For the first year or two, every Jack-in-the-Pulpit bears male flowers. Then the amount of nutrients the plant takes up begins to influence the sex of the plant. Females flowers produce seeds, and it takes a considerable amount of nutrients to do so. Thus, if there’s an abundance of nutrients one summer, a plant is female the following summer; a lack of nutrients produces male Jack-in-the-Pulpits the following year.
Unfortunately, habituated bears often have very short lives. They lose their fear of humans, become “nuisance bears” and often end up being killed. Do not worry about the birds that have been visiting your feeder all winter. Your bringing your feeder in will not negatively affect them, as they get the majority of their food from natural sources. Also, when birds 
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