57 degrees F Clear Wind 2 mph WNW
Sunrise 5:31 am CDT Sunset 8:49 pm CDT
Egg Hatch Expected Sometime June 6 - 11
Today has been a cloudy, rainy, cool day.
It has been a quiet day on the lake. Most of the boaters and fishermen have gone home. And the residents are either back to work or resting up from all their Memorial Day activities.
That has also made it a much quieter day for our loons.
Amazingly, our female loon who has been so reluctant to stay on the nest for any length of time today spent most of the day on the nest. The longest I have seen her on the nest.
And then she was on the nest again for about 3 hours this evening.
So if it is because she is young and inexperienced, she seems to be starting to figure out how this whole thing works.
But any little thing today would still send her into hangover. Luckily there were not many 'little things' today.
I have come to find it an easy way to determine which loon is on the nest when I am outside working. All I have to do is walk around to the front of the house. And if the loon immediately goes into hangover, I know it is the female.
Whereas, I can go down to the lake or even mow the lawn and the male will sit undisturbed with his head held high.
That has been the norm for most of these years until this year with this female loon.
But she has done much better today. So we will see what the next two weeks are like.
For those of you who are new this year, last year the loons did not nest on this nesting platform. Nor did the other pair of loons on the lake nest either.
I do not have any explanation for that. It was the first time in 10 years or more of doing this that the loons have not nested on the platform. So it is good to see them back on the nest once again this year.
We apparently had a change of mates last year. It was the same male as the previous year, 2012. But it was a different female from the year before. I am assuming that this year we are watching that new female from last year.
The change of mate may explain why they did not nest last year.
And it may also explain why she is so easily spooked this year if she is young and inexperienced. There is no way of knowing for sure but that would be my best guess right now.
A couple days ago I had given you a YouTube video that showed the development of a common chicken egg.
http://www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=PedajVADLGw
We are now at the halfway mark for our loon eggs, give or take a day.
So it you look at the chicken egg video, you can see how far along our loon chicks probably are if you look at the 10 or 11 day mark on that video.
If we use that as a rough guide, our loon chicks now have their mouths open, claws have begun to develop and tail feathers have started to appear.
It is amazing how much has already happened.
And even more amazing how much more will happen in less than two weeks!
Now is the time to let everyone know what is happening.
Because these next few days will go so very fast.
And then within about 24 hours after the chicks hatch, they will leave the nest and will probably never return.
So our window of opportunity to watch them is so fleeting and so quickly it is gone.
Tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors.
And tell any teachers you know. This is one of the greatest opportunities for teachers to use to teach children about the miracle of birth. And the kids can see it first hand on the LoonCam.
Now the pace picks up.
And the excitement mounts.
Questions or Comments? LoonCam (at) yahoo (dot) com
Copyright 2014 Larry R Backlund