These photos were taken on July 11 at a lake near Brattleboro. By the numbers: one dragonfly can eat 300 mosquitoes per day. If you don't see any dragonflies on a lake or river, the water is probably polluted. This lake is full of them, which means it's clean. Loons can stay under water for five minutes and fly 75 miles per hour. Loons can be 30 years old.

Loons are mostly solitary birds. But they sometimes gather for short periods in small groups of up to 20 birds in late summer and fall, and loons are sometimes seen in groups in the ocean, where they spend the winter.

To make a photo bigger, please click on it, then scroll down and click "See full-size image." You can hear a loon at

www.ns.ec.gc.ca/wildlife/loons/sounds/wail.au

They usually seem to make this sound at dawn.

photos by Eesha Williams