49 degrees F Cloudy Wind ENE 13 mph
Sunrise 6:06 am CDT Sunset 8:15 pm CDT
Once again it is a cold blustery windy day here in Minnesota.
There was some chilly sunshine this morning but clouds have now moved back in. There is a prediction of more rain later today and off and on for the rest of the week.
There still have been no loons using the nest.
It was very encouraging when one of the loons was on the nest for 10 minutes back on April 13th. (Thank you Lee and others for posting video of that while I was in China. btw, there were four wonderful young people with us on the trip. Hi to Sam, Isaac, Paula and Jack who said they would be watching the LoonCam!)
It is so good to have so many eyes on the nest documenting everything that happens.
Especially after that extended visit to the nest I am surprised that they have not been back up on it again. It is obvious from the video that the loon was banded. But I have not been able to get a good enough look to say definitively what loon it was. It may have been the female from last year but I am not sure at all.
IF it was her, that explains why she seemed so comfortable getting up on the nest and staying for some time. It also may be that it is an entirely new male that we have not seen before. And that that is why he dove excitedly over and over. He just wasn't sure what to make of the nest.
It has been encouraging to know that they are still on the lake.
And it is encouraging to see them continue to swim by the nest to check it out, even though they have not gotten back up on the nest.
There is still time for them to nest successfully. So don't despair. Yet!
Many loons do not nest until even the end of May.
For whatever reason loons have used this nest about a month earlier than many other loons. I do not have a good explanation for that.
But for us that is a very good thing. Because we would not be able to do the nest at all if they nested later. It is not fair to neighbors who limit the use of their own property out of deference to the nesting loons.
So if we go to the middle of May at the latest and they have not nested, I will need to pull the nest in.
In other nests, if the nest fails, eggs do not hatch or chicks die very young, loons will sometimes attempt to renest. However such second nests have a fairly low success rate. It gets to be too late in the summer for the chicks to reach maturity and strength to be able to migrate in the fall. But such attempts do sometimes take place.
So for this year, let us hope that the loons (any loons!) will successfully use the LoonCam nest.
We still have time.
But we are rapidly approaching the time that I would expect to see some - ANY - activity on the nest. If we do not see some activity, then it becomes more and more likely that the nest may not get used this year. So keep your fingers - and your toes - crossed in hopes of nesting loons.
You will remember that a few years ago the nest was not used. That is the only time in all the years I have been doing this that the nest was not used. But that is also the year that we had a change of mates.
So what will this year bring?
Once again, we can only watch.
And HOPE.
Questions or comments? Email us at LoonCam at yahoo dot com. Because of the volume of email I will not be able to respond personally to each email. But I will eventually read every one and for recurring questions I will try to answer them here in this blog.
Copyright 2016 Larry R Backlund