Tuesday, June 5, 2012 10:05pm CDT

 
70 degrees F     Clear     Calm
 
 
I just wanted to give you a end of the day update about our loons and our little loon chick.
 
They are doing well.
 
Amazingly our pair of loons seem to be getting along better now than they have previously this year.
 
For the entire day, the loons and chick have been in the area of the nest and better than half of that time both parents have been with the chick.
 
Surprisingly, 90% of the time they have been to the 'backside' of the camera.  Now I know that does not really help you feel better.  But even if we had a wider view of the lake, you would not have been able to see them  Like I say, I do not expect that to make you feel better but I just wanted you to know where they were.
 
Trust me, I fully understand how and why you would like a wider view.
 
As darkness was complete just a little while ago, the loon and the chick were straight out beyond the nest.  Only one of the loons was with the chick now.
 
It will be interesting to see if they try to return to the nest again tonight.
 
There still is no reason to completely give up on the second egg.  But with every passing hour, the chances of a successful hatch become less and less.  Especially with no loon on the nest and the egg exposed to the hot sun all day.
 
But the best thing is that right now we have one very healthy and active chick.  And he is doing well.
 
  

Tuesday, June 5, 2012 5:36am CDT

 

54 degrees F     Clear     Calm

Sunrise  5:26am     Sunset  8:57am

 

On a beautiful Minnesota morning, our loon once again faithfully sits on the second egg while it also shelters our little first chick.

Or is it still an egg?  Or has the second egg hatched and is it now a second chick?

We will not know until either the loon allows us to see what is under him or until a second little head pokes out from under a wing.

So once again we can only wait.  We can't rush things.  We can't change things.  We can only observe things.

I have often described the LoonCam as something that is like watching paint dry or grass grow most of the time.  But you can't take your eyes off it while you wait for that one time that something else happens.  Now granted, the loon is the best looking 'grass' or 'paint'  you have ever seen.

But there is something so addictive about watching these beautiful birds that you cannot take your eyes off them for fear you might miss something.

And when we saw our little chick for the first time on Sunday morning, it made all the waiting and watching worthwhile!

A number of people have asked if it is unusual for the chick to return to the nest.

It is not the norm but it is not unusual either.  Until the second egg hatches, if the adults return to the nest, the chick will try to get up on the nest as well.

There is a "chick ramp" that I have attached to the upper corner of the nest behind the irises.  But since the chick has not gotten up at that part of the nest, I am wondering if that ramp was destroyed or torn lose in one of our many storms this year.

Last night I was working outside and I heard the loon calling.  When I went to check to see what was upsetting the loon, I was surprised to see it on the nest since it had not been on the nest for most of the day.  I could also hear the plaintive cries of the chick as it tried to get up on the nest.  When I watched with the binoculars, I could see the chick swimming around the nesting platform and trying ever so valiantly to get up on that big nest.

The male sat on the nest looking, calling, encouraging.

But try as he might, the little chick just could not make it up to join dad on the nest.

Then things went silent.  Both the chick and the adult loon.

My fear whenever the chick is in the water alone is that a bass or a northern or a snapping turtle will see it as a nice snack and will pluck it off the surface of the water.

That happened a few years ago.  Within 15 minutes of getting in the water for the first time, one of our chicks was gone.  Just disappeared.  I did not see it happen but in that case I assume that a bass or a northern or a turtle took it.

So when everything and everyone went quiet last night, my mind returned to that day so long ago.

As much as I looked, I could not see the chick.

But thank you to all of you!  I came in to check the LoonCam on the computer.  And there in chat was word that the chick had gotten back up on the nest.  What I could not see in person, you had seen on the LoonCam.

Faithful viewer rgeegee had captured it all on video.  You can see some of what happened at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG2ZOT1iCFA

I think you will find it fun to watch.  Thank you rgeegee for capturing it all for us!

So this morning, our little chick sits under dad.  Waitng and anxious for his third day of life to begin.

I do not see the female loon anywhere around.  I am sure she is out on the lake someplace, but I have not spotted her yet.  She is not close to the nest.

Yesterday the second egg was left unattended on the nest for most of the day as the loons spent the day in the water with the first chick.  Feeding the chick and teaching it all the things it needs to know about being a loon.

I have never seen an egg left alone for such long periods of time.

If there is a chick developing inside the egg, I was not too concerned about the egg or the chick getting too cool.  At this stage in its development, the chick is able to generate some of its own body heat.  And with the mild temperatures it should be ok.

Had it been a cold and rainy day, I would be much more concerned about the survival of the chick with the loons being off the nest so much.

Yesterday I was much more concerned about the egg and the chick overheating as it sat in the hot sun than I was concerned about it cooling off.

In all the years of doing this, I have not seen the loons leave a second egg unattended for so long.  

What does it mean?

I honestly do not know.  I don't know if it means anything at all.  Or if the loons sense something that we do not see or sense.

So once again, we can only watch and wait.

The second egg was laid 2 1/2 days after the first egg.  So the 'normal' hatching date, if we judged from when the first chick hatched, would tell us that the second egg should hatch later today.

However, 'normal' is not always normal.

Normally the second egg hatches a little faster than the first egg - a phenomenon called 'catch up'. n The 'normal' 28-day incubation time would not have the second egg hatch until Thursday morning.

So there definitely is still a chance that the second egg will hatch.  

But each day that passes, each hour that the loons are not on the egg, raises concerns about it hatching.  So like so many things, the results are out of our hands.  Once again, we can simply watch and wait.

I hope the loons stay on the nest today.

However, based on yesterday I would not be surprised to see this pair off the nest much of the day.  More unusual activity in this most unusual year of watching loons.  And today I would be much more concerned about the egg overheating in the warm sun than I would be concerned about it cooling off.

Join us and have your friends join us as we wait for the second egg to hatch.

And along the way, enjoy the antics of our impossibly cute first little loon chick!

 

Comments or Questions?   LoonCam(at)yahoo(dot)com

Copyright  2012     Larry Backlund

 

Monday, June 4, 2012 7:47am CDT

 
With some of the twitches and jumps of the adult loon in the last few minutes, could it mean that we are getting close to the hatch of the second egg?
The chick is not under the adult right now so he is not causing those twitches and jumps.
 
We can only wait and watch and hope!

Monday, June 4, 2012 5:28am CDT

 
 
55 degrees F     Cloudy     Calm
Sunrise  5:26am     Sunset  8:56pm 
 
 
Our little loon chick has already had a full and eventful life even though he is still less than a day old.
 
He has just peeked out from under the loon to look at his first early morning dawn.
 
He has already been for a swim last night.  He has heard the frantic calls from his parents who were concerned that a pontoon had gotten too close for their comfort.  He learned how to get back up on the safety of the nest to spend the night under a sheltering wing.
 
For being less than a day old, he has already had a full life.
 
Now we wait for the second egg to hatch.
 
Or has it already hatched?
 
It is impossible to tell until the loon gives us a look of what it is hiding underneath its body.
 
It is impossible to tell the difference between the twitches of a little loon moving under the loon from those of a second little loon trying to make its way out of the egg.
 
So we have to just wait to see if we have a second chick yet.
 
If the second egg has not hatched, I would expect that it will probably hatch today.
 
Then we should prepare for something that is difficult to watch.  That is the fight between the two chicks.  It seems to almost always happen.  There is only one year on this nest that I did not see it happen.  It is a fight for dominance and what we blithely call 'the pecking order'.
 
But I will warn you that it is difficult to watch.
 
You will think that they are actually going to kill each other they go at it so hard.  But I have yet to see them do any real damage.  And once the fight is over, it seems to be over.  And the chicks seem perfectly content with each other and get along just fine.
 
It is interesting that we had a fresh yellow iris for the arrival of the chick yesterday morning.  And now this morning there is a new yellow iris that has bloomed hopefully for a new chick today.
 
The first chick was born sometime between 6:09am and 9:25am yesterday morning and probably between 8am and 9:25am.  It is difficult to tell the exact hatching time because we cannot actually see under the loon. The eggs were both definitely still intact shortly after 6am.  Then the cam feed went down for a while from 8 to 9.
 
By 9:25am there was a definite view of a new little chick.  Here is one picture captured by faithful viewer Pegaloon.
 
As you can see from the picture, the new little loon chick is laying next to the left wing of the parent, totally exhausted.
  
It doesn't even look like the chick has dried out yet.  This picture was taken at 9:29am CDT.  And the fact that the chick is not even dry yet leads me to believe that the actual hatch was at or after 9am.  The chick is probably only minutes old at the time of this picture.
 
So today as we watch for the second chick, it will be difficult to determine exactly at what point it hatches.  Other than if the loon decides to give us a look.  With the first chick under there, movements and twitches of the loon are not a reliable indicator now of hatching.
 
So today we enjoy the view of our little loon chick.  A view that is ever so brief before it goes in the water for good.
 
Today promises to be a good day with highs around 80 degrees.  With only slight chance of thunderstorms later on today.
 
And we wait patiently and with breath held until we see the second little chick free of its now confining eggshell.
 
The wonder and the miracle continues!
 
 
Comments or Questions?   LoonCam(at)yahoo(dot)com
Because of the amount of email, I am not able to answer each one individually.  But I do try to read each one.  And I will try to answer questions from emails here on the blog.
 
Copyright  2012     Larry Backlund

Sunday, June 3, 2012 8:59pm CDT

 

The sun has just set.

The western sky is painted with oranges and golds.

The blazing colors are reflected in the absolutely calm waters of a northern Minnesota lake.

No artist could do justice to the scene.

And an artist could never do justice to the justice to the picture of a loon on a nest with a beautiful downy black ball of fuzz that is a newly hatched loon chick.

So the sun sets on our little loonling.  Let us hope and pray that he has a quiet and peaceful night and stays on the nest until at least tomorrow morning.  The lake is big and dark and scary to a little loon chick.

He has already gone for a swim!

I watched holding my breath as time and time again he struggled to get back up on the nest where his dad was.  He almost did it several times but not quite.  He called and called.  And dad called and called.

He didn't know where the 'chick ramp' was that was put there just for him.  Just for a time such as this.

Somewhere out in the lake, mom heard and came back.

Dad got back in the water, too.

And our little loon was soon up on one of the parent's back, safe and sound.

But the drama was not over yet.  The reason the loon had left the nest again was that a pontoon boat had stopped much too close to the nest.  He was just outside the buoys but he was still too close for a pair of loons with a brand new chick.  

And they made their displeasure known with their calls.

I finally got his attention and motioned for him to move away.  He graciously immediately did just that.

I am still not totally sure how the got back up on the nest.  One of the adults got back up on the nest and the second egg almost as soon as the pontoon had left.

My heart sank when I looked for the chick.  I expected it to be with the other loon which had now moved out beyond the buoy.  But I did not see a chick swimming alongside the adult.  I tried to convince myself that there was a bulge under the wing.  If there was a bulge, it was awfully small.

My concern grew about where the chick was.

Then when I looked back to the nest, I saw a distinct form on the loon's back.  So I came back to the LoonCam and was so relieved when I saw that the chick was under the wing!

How he got there, I am not sure.  He must have been under the wing when the loon jumped back up on the nest.  That is unusual because I have seen numerous times when the chick is on the back of the loon and the loon jumps up on the nest, the chick goes unceremoniously flying back into the water.

However he got there, the important thing is that he is safely sheltered under the wing of the adult loon on the nest.

Let us hope and pray for a quiet and uneventful night.  And a SAFE night.

This chick has already had too many adventures in his short life!

 

Comments or Questions?   LoonCam(at)yahoo(dot)com

Copyright  2012    Larry Backlund