Moira G. asks: Is there a way to escape mosquito bites without using a toxic spray?

LIZ: I’m not sure all sprays are toxic, but I think you’ll be safe if you spray your clothes.

I do know of one way, however impractical, to keep mosquitoes from landing on you and that’s to plunge yourself in cold water.

I did this one summer when camping alone near a pond. Since I was probably the only mammal nearby, the female mosquitoes were frantic for blood. They need the iron it carries so they can develop their eggs, and there were thousands of them. They were biting until I thought to go for a swim. I jumped in the pond in my bathing suit and when I came out noticed an important difference in the mosquitoes’ behavior. They were swarming around me but didn’t bite.

This makes one wonder. Mosquitoes find our presence by the carbon dioxide we exhale, and find our skins by the heat of our bodies. My skin was cold from the water. The mosquitoes had formed a circle around me, so they knew I was close but still they couldn’t find me. Mosquitoes don’t see that if they’re forming a circle, their quarry is inside the circle, and if they flew across the circle they’d bump into it. They’ve been on earth for 100 million years and they still haven’t figured that out. What’s simple to us isn’t simple to them, and what’s simple to them isn’t simple to us. Our earth is an interesting place.

Selinda C. asks: Sy, I enjoyed your column about adopting Puffin M. — even though Puffin M disappeared! So did you adopt a new puffin?

SY: Puffin M’s sad disappearance illustrated just how precarious life can be for these rainbow-billed little seabirds, so we immediately renewed our support of Project Puffin’s restoration program by adopting a new puffin. (And so did a number of readers, as a result of the column, I discovered to my delight!)

We are now avidly following the exploits of 18-year-old Atlantic Puffin C6. He or she hatched on or about Aug. 5, 1997, on the north end of Seal Island National Wildlife refuge in Burrow #60 — the final nest discovered during the 1997 field season. This late start didn’t bode well for the puffling, and nobody knew if C6 would make it to fledge — until the bird was spotted on May 28 at Seal Island the following year. Since coming of age, C6 has fledged at least four chicks, raising them with several breeding partners.

Only three percent of all bird species raise young communally, and it’s a rare strategy for a puffin. Since then, both C6’s mates disappeared — further evidence of the tough life of a seabird. But last year, C6 gamely formed a new family with two new mates, and they fledged a chick together. One of the two mates wears a black and white band but hasn’t been identified; the other is YX12, who had raised a puffling the previous year with a different mate in a different burrow.

Will puffin C6 return this year? Will the threesome reunite? Just who is the mate with the black and white band? The puffins begin returning to Egg Rock late next month, and the Project Puffin field crew will be there to find out. I’ll keep you posted!

Co-columnists, authors, and naturalists Liz Thomas and Sy Montgomery are happy to answer questions. Write to syandlizletters@gmail.com.