Today's High Temperature 65 degrees Sunny
So the BIG question is.....are you ready for another exciting season of watching our loons?!
Filled with all the drama and suspense and uncertainty of what will happen? To join us on the emotional roller-coaster that many of you have experienced in years past as you have watched and worried with our loons as they attempt to raise a new generation of chicks.
It is impossible to know what will happen this year. It is ALL up to the loons as to what they do.
Today here at the lake the ice has turned black and the wind started moving the sheet of ice. By tonight, about half of the lake was open and free of ice.
I almost expected to see or hear the loons this afternoon and this evening. That is another one of so many amazing things about loons....they return to their lake within a couple days of the ice going out. Last year they showed up in the morning with the lake almost completely covered with ice. By the end of the day the ice was gone! How did they know!
If they were out there someplace today, they remained quiet and out of sight. I heard from a couple people on other lakes in the area that they did see loons today. So loons have made it this far in their long migration up from the Gulf of Mexico! But I did not see "our loons". But now the excitement starts to build.
I expect to see or hear them in the next couple days.
The forecast is for the temperature to be in the 70's for the next 3 days. That will almost guarantee that all of the ice will go out of the lake this week.
While I did not see the loons today, this afternoon there were 5 bald eagles sitting on the sheet of ice out near the middle of the lake!! What an impressive sight!
They were probably just resting on their migration north or even feeding on fish that had been left on the surface of the ice by ice fishermen this winter.
While we do have eagles that nest in the area, some of these are probably just stopping over as they migrate to their northern territories in Minnesota and Canada.
There is an area along the North Shore of Lake Superior called Hawk Ridge where one can observe a lot of migrating birds. It is a wonderful area to watch the migration. Reports from up there say that for the last several days, one can observe a hundred eagles or more a day as they migrate along the shore of Lake Superior!
As with the eagles stopping, we may see some other loons stop here at the lake on their way north before "our loons" actually settle down.
I will not put the nest out for a few days yet....not until all of the ice is out of the lake and there is no danger that the ice will do any damage to the nesting platform. And then I would guess that it would be another 2 or 3 weeks after that before the loons would actually begin nesting. It will be interesting to watch when they nest because the ice is going out about a week or two earlier than normal. Will they also nest early?
Or the most frightening part....will they even use the nesting platform!
So get yourself psyched up for another wonderful season with our loons. Let all the neighborhood kids know. Tell grandpa and grandma to get ready. And email your friends around the country and even around the WORLD about the loon cam! Have them join you in this years saga.
For the last two years the loon cam has been named the NUMBER ONE WEBCAM IN THE WORLD!!
Who knew that our loons could be so popular and have so many fans around the world!