Just another quick update....
The loon with the chick on its back has been floating back and forth in the area of the nest.
Away from the nest but too close for me to safely go out there. Not for my safety but for the safety of the chick.
I am not sure if I am going to be able to remove the remains of the egg yet tonight or not. I would still like to but we are rapidly losing daylight. And unless the loon moves a distance away from the nest, I will not be able to do it.
I expect that as dark approaches, he may very well stay in the area of the nest. And where normally I would hope that he would get up on the nest with the chick and spend the night there, tonight I do not want that. I want to be able to collect as much of the egg as I can for analysis.
But like everything else with a wild nest like this, we are not in control of anything. It is all up to the loons.
The other loon has disappeared somewhere out onto the lake. I have not seen her/him for some time now.
If I can collect the remains tonight, I will.
Otherwise I will see what the morning brings and how much if anything can be retrieved.
So I am going back down to the lake again.
To wait. And to hope.