BEES GONE?: A reader from Lantz Corners asks if anyone else has
noticed an absence of honey bees around the apple trees, lilacs and
honey suckle.

We have written before about the so-called Colony Collapse
Disorder which has reportedly reduced the population of honey bees
by about 70 percent. We would assume that this lack of pollinators
observed at Lantz Corners is because of that problem.

Anyone else? We have seen bumble bees already but no honey
bees.

MOTHER GOOSE: We love these nature stories: Jim Baldwin phoned
recently to tell us about a bunch of ducks near his house who are
being “mothered” by a goose.

Jim lives on Holley Avenue, behind the McKean County SPCA in
Bradford, which isn’t far from Tuna Creek.

Mallard ducks – sometimes as many as 30, 40, we’re told – have
been hanging around his place. With them is a lone Canada goose
which squawks to correct bad behavior such as fighting which breaks
out occasionally in “her” flock.

Hence, his name for her – Mother Goose.

STILL MORE: In keeping what seems to be a “birds and bees” theme
in today’s column, we pass along a report from an Eldred area
resident who has been watching those eaglets for several years.

We had told readers about a Smethport resident who had recently
seen eagles on her way home from Olean, N.Y. The bird was perched
on a dead tree in one of the swamps in that area.

Our Eldred area resident tells us he has seen eaglets on this
nest for four years but that it was actually on private property.
The first year, there were two eaglets; the second year, two; third
year, one eaglet; and third year, two eaglets.

When he saw the birds two weeks prior, they were “the size of a
football.” At the time of his call, they were twice that size!

And, yes, you can see the nest from the swamp mentioned in our
first report.

Seeing a pair of eaglets, he noted, doesn’t mean that the two
will survive to adulthood. Often, one of the young will kick his
sibling out of the nest in a fine example of “survival of the
fittest.”

Our caller thinks the birds had selected the swamp as a nesting
site because it contains a population of carp.