Loon Life
Loon Issues
What can you do? Loons face many threats. Your actions can help protect these beautiful birds.
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Recreational activities can be a threat if they occur too close to active nests, chick rearing areas or loons on open water.
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Understand loon calls and postures, and keep your distance
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Shoreline and island development disturb traditional nesting and nursery areas.
Camp and build away from a loon's preferred shoreline area.
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Poor garbage-disposal practices foster raccoon, crow and gull populations-all loon egg predators.
Recycle, avoid waste, pack out all trash. -
Smoke from power plants and automobile exhaust cause acid rain. Acidified lakes mean less food for loons. Conserve energy, ride share and use mass transit.
Loon Voices
Generations of North Country visitors have been enchanted by the calls loons reserved for lakeside summers. At any time, day or night a loon's powerful voice might echo through the bays and islands of some misty lake. The calls are haunting, sometimes mournful, and always wild. They also have meaning. For loons, four basic calls convey specific messages.
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The WAIL sounds like a wolf's howl. Loons wail to contact each other over long distances. This call is usually heard in the evening and often when a loon on the nest wails to exchange places with its mate.
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THE TREMOLO sounds like a quavering laugh and is typically used when loons are annoyed or alarmed. Loons also use the tremolo as a social greeting and when in flight.
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THE YODEL
is the most unusual, longest and complex of the loon's repertoire. Its slow,
rising note, followed by several undulating phrases, is given only by the
males. The yodel is used either to establish a territory or, when coupled with
a "penguin dance" (wings cocked and extended, body raised above the water), to
scare away an intruder. -
THE HOOT sound is a soft, intimate, one-note call loons use to communicate with each other and their chicks in close quarters.
Loon Fun Facts
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Do Loons Mate For Life?
Loons do not mate for life in the typical sense that swans and geese do. If both the male and female survive the winter (they migrate separately), they will annually return to the same lake and re-unite. However, a loon's allegiance is to the nesting lake , not it's mate. If the last year's mate fails to return, the loon will select a new mate. - Loon Enemies:
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Humans
(can be worst enemy or best friend) - Raccoons (attracted by garbage, they patrol shorelines for an easy meal of loon eggs and young chicks).
- Gulls (also a scavenger that eats both eggs and young chicks).
- Ravens and crows (sharp eyed egg robbers).
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Large fish and snapping turtles (eat chicks).
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Intruders Beware
Giving the tremolo call, standing upon the water (penguin dance), rowing with their wings across the water, splashing before a dive, and trying to look large are all desperate maneuvers loons use to distract intruders from a nest or chicks. If not left alone they may abandon their family in helpless frustration. -
The Winter Loon
A winter loon molts to a non descript gray plumage, rarely calls, loses the red in it's eye and fishes all day. Its as if the loon reserves it's charisma for the North Country it symbolizes.
MAY
1ST WEEK
Depending on the timing of the ice out, many male loons may already be on the lakes. Females follow shortly.
2ND WEEK
Pairing up time! Loon courtship displays consist of subtle postures, bill dipping and shallow diving. Echoing calls are a nightly event.
3RD WEEK
Loons select islands or secluded bays for their homes, often the same site used in previous years. The nest is built near waters edge, because many adults can't walk well on land.
4TH
WEEK
Usually, two eggs are laid one day apart. The parents alternate incubating the eggs for about a month. While one tends the nest the other one fishes.
5TH WEEK
Memorial day weekend is a dangerous time for loons: too many boats and people. Loons may abandon their nests if people come too close.
JUNE
1ST WEEK
Parents will not leave their nest for long unless disturbed by humans. Hungry predators keep a watchful eye for unattended eggs.
2ND WEEK
Many loons either have no partner or have one, but don't nest. These loons may be seen socializing, and wandering.
3RD WEEK
The hatching date of chicks is approaching. People must resist the temptation to get too close to the nest. Boat wake can wash the eggs off the nest.
4TH
WEEK
Chicks hatch one or two days apart and are escorted by the parents to the nursery, a shallow, calm secluded cove. Peace and quiet is essential.
5TH WEEK
Fuzzy, black chicks often ride their parents backs to stay warm, conserve energy and keep safe from predators.
JULY
1ST WEEK
Parents fish steadily to feed themselves and their chicks. Any disturbance of this activity hinders the loon's ability to provide for its young.
2ND WEEK
People, people everywhere and nowhere to hide the chicks. Loons do a warning "penguin dance", but this leaves chicks unprotected and the parents exhausted.
3RD WEEK
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Chicks are born to parents who re-nested after their first nests failed. Three week old chicks turn chocolate brown.
4TH WEEK
Parents encourage chicks to catch their own food by dropping fish in shallow water for the youngsters to capture. Chicks reach a third of their adult size.
5TH WEEK
Chicks become adolescents and gray contour feathers emerge. They are left alone for short periods while their parents fish and socialize.
AUGUST
1ST WEEK
Chicks are two thirds adult size and beginning to support themselves, although they still beg for food
2ND WEEK
August is the best time for cautious loon watching from a distance. Unfortunately, with fishing season in full swing, some chicks mistake fishing bait for an easy meal and are injured by hooks and line.
3RD WEEK
Parents leave their chicks for extended periods. It's almost time for the
youngsters to strike out on their own.
4TH WEEK
Adults teach chicks to fly by practicing takeoffs. Chicks row with their wings and paddle with their feet back and forth across the lake. It will soon be time to leave the lake for winter.
SEPTEMBER
1ST WEEK
Adults leave their young and gather to social groups of 3 to 200 or more loons. They feed intensively and rest in preparation for migration.
2ND WEEK
Young loons remain on the natal lake or fly to nearby lakes to find other juveniles.
3RD WEEK
Loon chicks born early reach adult size. Chicks born late (mid July through August) may not be old enough by ice time to fly south and will perish.
4TH WEEK
Adults begin to migrate, at flight speeds of 60 -100 M.P.H., to warmer coastal areas. Juveniles follow later and remain in the south for two or more years.