Tuesday, June 4, 2019 3:45 pm CDT

72 degrees F Raining Wind S 4 mph

Sunrise 5:26 am CDT Sunset 8:56 pm CDT

As I am writing this, there is a light rain.

There is a lot of loud thunder off to the west of Loon Lake.

There are potentially severe thunderstorms scattered across a wide area of the state. Much of the state is under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch. So let’s hope that things stay quiet and peaceful here for our loons.

Rain, even fairly heavy rain, poses no problem for them. Severe storms and wind and hail, not so much.

With all the rain we have gotten over the last month, the lake has come up over 10 inches. But with modifications made to the nest several years ago, there is no danger of the nest going underwater. That is one of the big dangers with ‘natural nests’. When the water rises, there is always a danger of the nest flooding and being lost.

We are on our final countdown to hopefully a successful hatching of our beloved loons.

There is a slim possibility that hatching could be as early as tomorrow or Thursday. But I do NOT expect that to happen. I think it is more likely that it will be this coming Saturday, Sunday or Monday.

But all of that is out of our control. So all we can do is wait and watch. And guess and hope!

And we can only guess and imagine what is happening inside the egg right now.

If the eggs are fertile and developing, the growth of the chick is almost complete! Can it be possible that there has been such a profound and miraculous change inside those eggs in such a short amount of time.

Now we sit back and wait for the first glimpse of those impossibly cute little balls of black down that are known as newly hatched loon chicks!

If your kids and grandkids neighbor kids have not been watching so far, now is the time to encourage them to log in to the LoonCam and watch this miracle of nature. Or if the kids are still in school, encourage their teacher to let them watch the LoonCam. It is sometimes so hard to remember internet addresses. So I often tell people that if you just Google “Larry’s Loons” or “Larry’s Loon Cam”, it will bring you right here to the Minnesota Bound site and the LoonCam. Along with SO much other information about loons.

Especially at this time of hatching, once again I am reduced to not having the words or feelings to describe what is happening.

So I often say, “OK, God. I don’t know how you done that! But you done GOOD!”

So sit back and enjoy the view.

And like the ketchup commercial says …. A N T I C I P A T I O N!!!!!!

Copyright 2019 Larry R Backlund