Song SparrowThis 1-minute video clip shows what June did on a hot (85°F), humid (88%) day. Mosquitos were out big time. You can hear them buzzing around Sue’s video camera. The way June hit her head with her paw near the end, I thought she might have gotten bit by a deer fly or horse fly, but then the way she rubbed her wet paw around, it became clear she was rubbing water on her head as we’ve seen other bears do when cooling off in water. The cub on shore in the background is either Jordan or our familiar Jewel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FPPv2D30t4
Robin in crabappleNature Notes. A tree sparrow (Spizella arborea) stopped by on its way to northern Canada where there are few trees. Purple finches are now here in number. A song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) made its first appearance, as did an Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe). Phoebes have nested on WRI buildings for years, except last year. We’ll see what this one does. The 29 robins that were eating crabapples yesterday depleted the supply by about half and today is down to 16 robins at that tree.
Tree SparrowPeter and Ryan put the last butterflies and a clearwing moth (donated by Lily Fans) in the exhibit for visitors to spot. What a great job they did along with Randy making the platform and Maureen O’Brien painting the background mural and Lily Fans donating the taxidermy. We are proud of how it looks. We also saw a draft of the great information and graphs a meteorologist has put together for the Northern Lights exhibit. He is now into editing the video to go with it. To make a video, he stays up all night taking video of the northern lights and then runs it in fast motion to show how the lights dance and change color. Fascinating. Also for that exhibit, a picture of northern lights photographed from Highway 169 at Robinson Lake is being mounted. 
Eastern PhoebeMany of you have driven past Robinson Lake about 10 miles west of Ely on your way here. Monday, the big aquarium will be set in place thanks to help from R&R Transfer who have a forklift small enough to get in the double doors. Elsewhere, Lily Fans continue to work on touch-screen kiosk materials and other projects. Things are coming together for the Northwoods Ecology Hall. As soon as construction materials are out of the way, I’ll make a panorama photo of the exhibit that was finished today.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.