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Orchids are starting to bloom in Northeastern Minnesota.

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We stopped at two state parks this last week and photographed yellow lady’s-slippers. At Scenic state park the small yellow lady’s-slippers are out. They are really tiny. The flower is only about the size of your thumbnail.

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I had to use my macro lens and get really close to capture these photos. We found 48 small yellow lady’s-slippers on a trail close to the park entrance.

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I think this one looks like a space alien climbing out from the pouch.

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Large Yellow Lady's-slippers 001

We photographed the large yellow lady’s-slipper in Jay Cooke State Park. There were several dozen in full bloom.

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Loons 001

We checked on some of our local loons. When we put the canoe in the lake there were two loons out on the bay. At first I thought these were a couple of bachelors.

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As we canoed over by a small island the loons followed along side of our canoe. We could see black flies covering their heads. This is a very bad year for black flies. Sometimes loons will abandon their nests when the black flies get bad enough.

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When we got to the island one of the loons swam close to shore. I looked with the binoculars and saw a nest but only one egg and it didn’t look right. Upon closer inspection we saw that there were two holes in the egg and the nest was messed up like a predator had destroyed the eggs and dug into the nest to eat the liquid that came out of the eggs. We were really bummed to see that the eggs had been destroyed. We heard about a second nest where predators had gotten to the eggs in recent weeks.

One of the loons started making little whining noises and swam up to the nest. It reached up, picked up the egg with its mouth and carried it out to where we were in the canoe. It came so close that I couldn’t even focus in on it with my long lens. To our surprise it swished the egg back and forth until it was full of water. It than opened its mouth and let the egg sink to the bottom of the lake.

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I felt like we were watching a funeral. This was a very sad but memorable experience that we have never witnessed before and will probably never see again.

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Fox Kits 001

On a lighter note the fox kits have become more active and are really fun to watch.

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Their fur is turning redder each day.

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These two were playing for about 10 minutes in front of me.

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