Published in The Concord Monitor on September 5, 2021.
Nine-day-old loons spotted on Bow Lake. Photo credit: Mark Duffy
I’m a loon-a-tic.
I first heard the haunting loon calls at a Maine lake some twenty years ago. I have admired the striking good looks of these large birds with their black and white speckled and striped feathers. I’ve stared into their red eyes when they surfaced next to my kayak. Beyond being a fan of loons, as a loon-a-tic I read a lot about loons and fret about their well-being.
Loons winter in the ocean. Each spring the male returns to his breeding lake first and the female arrives a few weeks later. A pair will often mate together for many years of their 20 to 30+ year life. They build a nest in May or early June, preferably on an island where there are fewer predators. Loons are powerful swimmers, but hobble clumsily on land because their legs are positioned so far back on their body. Hence, they construct their nest right on the water’s edge for easy access. Unfortunately, this leaves their eggs vulnerable to rising lake levels and boat waves.
We have five pairs of loons who nest on the 1000-acre Bow Lake in New Hampshire that I call home. I have keenly observed the Blueberry Island loons for the last three summers. Despite the efforts of our local loon volunteers who annually encircle the island with “loon nesting” buoys, no chicks have lived longer than a week during those three years. Loon eggs are incubated for about four weeks. For a loon-a-tic, that’s a lot of watching, worrying, and disappointment. Nests around the lake have failed because the nest flooded, perhaps exacerbated by boat waves. Other times the egg or chicks just disappeared. It’s possible the eagles, who also live on the lake, knew something about those disappearances.
The 2021 summer season started with severe drought conditions. The lake level was a foot low, a reminder that we now live in a world with erratic weather. Climate change presents a broad set of problems for loons. Water level instability, heat impacts on egg viability by heat, and the spread of avian malaria are a few of the challenges. This year the loons chose a different spot on the island given the lower level of the lake. I again braced myself to cheer on the Blueberry Island loons.
The male and female loons take turns sitting on the nest. A couple of times a day I observed one of the loons leaving the nest and issuing a short wailing call that I imagined meant, “Your turn, buddy.” They might fish together for a little while, but then one would return to nest duty.
Unfortunately, despite several weeks of the loons’ care, the Blueberry Island brown speckled eggs were washed out of the nest. When a nest fails, a loon pair may lay a second set of one or two eggs. Sure enough, a few weeks later, I was happy to see the pair was back to egg tending. Then the rains started. Each storm brought several inches of lake level rise. On fair days, I kayaked over, looked through my binoculars, and felt relieved to see the black and white bird on the nest.
Within a few weeks the lake was full, but still the rain kept coming. Somehow, the birds dragged the soggy nest and eggs to higher ground as the lake level rose higher and higher. The loons now sat amidst dense brush. I could no longer see them on the nest, but the tell-tale changing of the guard was still underway.
To my delight one day two fluffy brown chicks floated next to their parents. Our lake loon volunteers set out bright orange “loon chicks” buoys to warn boaters to take care. Through my binoculars I peered at the idyllic scene of the chicks riding and napping on their parents’ backs. This charming behavior keeps the chicks warm and protects them from underwater predators. Other times the chicks bobbed on their own in the water. The parents busily brought small fish to their open beaks. Soft hooting noises helped keep the family together.
Now instead of incubating eggs I had loon chicks to worry about. Violent thunderclaps woke me one night. I thought about the tiny chicks as flashes of lightning revealed whitecaps on the water. My husband sent me back to bed, “They’re fine. They live in the water.” On sunny days I worried about boaters and jet skiers who might not see the small birds. The chicks were not yet able to dive to safety. When an eagle flew overhead, the loons squawked their tremolo call, understandably distressed by the presence of this bird of prey. Each new day, I was relieved just to see the young ones, and enjoyed how they now spread their teeny wings and experimented with diving.
One cloudy afternoon my husband and I kayaked two coves away to check on another loon family. The hills on the far side of the lake were muted from smoke that drifted from wildfires some 3000 miles away. We paddled around a corner as Popcorn Island came into view and encountered the loon family. These loons were raising just one chick as their nest flooded before their second egg hatched. The Popcorn Island chick was a few weeks older and quite a bit larger than the Blueberry Island chicks.
We spied through binoculars as the family swam and fished. The juvenile peered down to survey the underwater scene. Instead of delivering the fish to the chick’s beak, these parents dropped the fish in front of the juvenile. We were about to move on, when suddenly there was an intense flutter of wings and the loons squawked in alarm. “Look, there’s three adult loons,” I called out to my husband. One loon was chased away, scooting atop the water, beating outspread wings, screeching all the way until it was out of view. I presumed the parent loons had chased away an intruder. I was wrong.
Thirty seconds later another commotion erupted. An adult loon thrashed wildly and hit his wings on the water. “Does it have the baby in its beak?” I could hardly believe my eyes. Indeed, the loon had the juvenile and appeared to be holding it under the water and whacking it with its wings. I glanced at the other nearby adult who exhibited no visible reaction. I now surmised it was an intruder loon attacking the baby and a parent who had been chased away. “Is it trying to kill the baby?” I asked. I gasped and had to look away. I couldn’t bear to think about the panic and the pain the struggling chick was experiencing.
The parent loon who had fled the scene came screeching back, again scooting atop the water. It settled next to the other parent loon but did nothing to try to stop the ongoing attack on the juvenile. Did they not feel the instinct to protect their young? I felt a rush of tears. We contemplated intervening, but hesitated, uncertain what we could or should do. The intruder loon, still clutching the juvenile, rounded a corner out of view. We kayaked around the island from the other direction. Now only the one loon was in view, still violently pecking at the chick.
I paddled home and called the woman who tracks the Bow Lake loons. She offered to meet us and suggested we try to capture the juvenile. The New Hampshire Loon Preservation Committee would either try to nurse the chick back to health or study the incident. We padded back to the scene, and sadly found the chick floating, white belly up by the island.
I struggled to understand the disturbing scene we had witnessed. I still wondered if we should have intervened. The New Hampshire Loon Preservation Committee advises against people interfering in “acts of nature.” If a loon were caught in a fishing line, that would have been an instance where people should try to help. I learned the adult pair had chased off an intruder loon earlier in the day. Even if we had intervened and chased the attacking loon away, if this was an ongoing territorial dispute, the intruder loon may well have returned. Why the parent loons remained passive and did not fiercely defend their chick remains a disturbing mystery to me.
Back home I returned my focus to the Blueberry Island loon family. Besides boat traffic and eagles, I now also worry about territorial loon attacks. I so want to see the Blueberry Island juveniles grow their brown flight feathers. By twelve weeks old, they should be independent and able to fish for themselves. As the cold weather approaches, the parents will race atop the water to gather speed, take off, and return to the ocean. At some point before Bow Lake ices over, the young loons will instinctively take their first flight to the ocean.
This loon-a-tic will finally be able to relax. Until next spring.