11:32pm CDT Friday, September 6, 2013

Guest User September 7, 2013

76 degrees F Clear Calm Sunrise 6:40am CDT Sunset 7:40pm CDT

We now enter a time of increased activity and some danger for our loons.

Some of them have already started and soon all of them will begin to move on their fall migration. Most of them will fly more than 1000 miles to their wintering grounds on the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way, many of them will stop over on one of the Great Lakes, especially Lake Michigan.

The flight alone is a grueling trip of over a thousand miles. At up to 250 wing beats per minute and 90 miles per hour, it takes a lot of energy for a loon to fly from their beloved summer home to their wintering grounds.

But along the way, other dangers await as well.

Last year 1500 loon were found dead on the shores of Lake Michigan. Many of them had perished from botulism, probably caused by eating invasive quagga mussels. That number is how many were verified. So probably there were even more that died and the dead loons were never discovered.

Weather and storms along the migration route are also a danger to loons. Kevin Kenow, loon researcher with the US Geological Service, said that last spring during the migration north a number of loons were caught in ice storms and literally fell out of the sky coated in ice!

So it is no easy trip.

But our beautiful loons do it every year, as they have done for millenia.

The adults will begin to leave over the next month. And then the young from this year's hatch will follow about a month later. One of the many miracles of loons. The chicks will find their way on their own along a route they have never flown before, to a place they have never been before. How do they do it? How do they know when to leave on their trip? How do they know the route? How do they know where they are supposed to end up? And where should they spend the winter?

Some things are too wonderful to comprehend.

But the important thing is that the loons know when and where and how.

I have not seen the adult loons here for a few days now. They may still be here or they may already be on their way on their long migration.

Two days ago I did see one of the immature loons that I told you about before - the ones that 'should not be back up north yet' and that makes one wonder if they are chicks from two or three years ago. So at least one of the immature loons is still on the lake.

But soon all of them will be on the move once again.

And then our great northern lakes will go silent until next spring. We will all be the poorer for the lack of the beautiful and haunting calls of the loon.

But it just makes us anticipate next spring even more and the return of our beloved loons.

For those of you in the Twin Cities area, tomorrow [Saturday] night at 6:30pm I will be part of the MNBound program. The segment will feature what capture and banding of loons last summer when we also placed data recorders on the loons legs to show where and when and how they migrated. If you miss it tomorrow night or if you are somewhere else in the world, you should be able to find the program archived here on the MNBound website.

12:31am CDT Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Guest User August 6, 2013

61 degrees F Clear Wind 3mph N

In the last update I gave you one week ago today, I told you about trying to capture the loons on the lake here to retrieve the data recorders that we put on the loons last year.

For the last year, those recorders have been recording everywhere that our loons have traveled and so they contain so much vital and valuable information to understand loons better.

But in order to retrieve the data, we have to be able to catch the loons and take the data recorder off their legs and download the data.

In addition to showing where they have been, the data will also show how deep they have been diving for food. And with data from other loons, especially mates, whether they spend much time together on their wintering grounds or as they travel. Or if they spend any time together.

But since the loons did not have chicks, it becomes very difficult if not impossible to catch them.

Kevin Kenow and his team are trying to develop methods to capture loons without chicks by taking advantage of their territorial behavior. But at best it is diffcult. And we were not able to capture them.

So we will have to wait until next year to try to capture them and download the data off their recorders.

But there is news for you that I have hinted at a couple times but have not told you.

I apologize for keeping you in suspense but I think you know me by now - that I will usually not say something unless I am sure about it. And up until last week, I had only been 70 or 80% sure. So I didn't say anything.

The news is this - we have had a change of mate with our LoonCam loons! There is a NEW female with the male.

Let me just recap a little bit of what I have told you so far this year.

You will remember that I told you that the LoonCam female from last year returned the day the ice was going out of the lake. I was able to verify this from the bands that we put on her last year.

But the strange thing was that she was alone.

The male was no where to be seen. In fact, in consultation with Kevin from the USGS, we had sort of come to the conclusion that we may have lost the male over the winter. Possibly to botulism on Lake Michigan where almost 1600 loons were confirmed dead. Or lost to a shark attack or to poison from algae on the Gulf of Mexico.

But then lo and behold, 3 weeks after the female loon came back, the LoonCam male from last year appeared!

This was also positively verified by the bands that we had placed on him last summer.

Where had he been? Why was he so late? If one loon comes back before the other, it is usually thought to be the male that returns first. But I have seen them usually come back together.

So it was good to see a pair of loons swimming off shore and I was hoping that they would again use the nest.

But here the plot thickens.

As I tried to watch them through the binoculars and telescope, I could never see the bands on the female's leg. More and more it was looking like this was a NEW female now with the male loon! But I could never get a good enough look to be absolutely sure. I knew that the female from last year had been here. I knew that there was a 'single' loon on another part of the lake and also another pair of loons. And then there was this pair of loons that stayed in the area of the lake where the nest is located.

I became 70-80% sure that this was a new female. That is when I hinted about it. But I still was not sure enough to say anything to you.

But when we were out on the lake last week we were able to verify that the female with last year's LoonCam male definitely did NOT have any bands. She was a new female.

Why was there a change in mates? Who knows? One of the unknowable questions that we are not smart enough to answer.

As I have told you before, it has for many, many years been the 'accepted wisdom' that loons mate for life. But in the last 10 years or so, there has been some evidence that mate changes do take place. And that is obviously what we have had here. Not only a mate change, but BOTH mates back here on the lake. Just not together.

I keep thinking back to how 'dysfunctional' the pair last year seemed to be at times. Could that, for whatever reason, be part of the reason for a change of mates this year?

In speaking to a couple groups, I joked that there was a reason the male was 3 weeks late in coming back. He was tied up in divorce court. And then he had to fly out to Vegas for a 'quicky wedding' with a new 'chick' before he could come back to Minnesota with her! And so it took him extra time to get here.

But listen to this!

It gets even stranger and more interesting.

Last week we were able to verify something else.

The other pair of loons on the lake has ALSO HAD A CHANGE OF MATE!

Is change of mates more common than anyone had ever thought? Or is this some kind of a fluke? Is it something VERY unusual? Once again we are brought face to face with the fact of how little we actually know about loons.

Just when we start to think we know them and are beginning to understand them, something like this comes along and shows us how very little we know. And how much more there is to learn.

Thank you for coming along on this journey of learning!

Tonight shortly before sunset a pair of loons was swimming together right out in front of my place. All seemed to be right with the world once again. But in the back of my mind was the nagging question, can I still call them "our loons"?

Or which ones were they?

11:09pm Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Guest User July 23, 2013

57 degrees F Clear Calm FULL Moon

I spent the afternoon on the water with Kevin Kenow, Steve and Luke from the USGS, attempting to catch loons and retrieve the data recorders that we had placed on the loons last year.

Without the loons having chicks this year, it makes it very hard to capture them since they are not being protective of their chicks.

Kevin was hoping that the loons would still be territorial enough that it would give us a chance to catch them.

They showed some territorial behavior but they would not get close enough to us to be able to capture them.

So we will have to wait until next year to retrieve the data recorders to download the data and see where they have been.

There is something that I hinted at sometime back that we may have been able to confirm today. But that will have to wait until I have more time to give you the complete details.

But for now, suffice it to say that all of the loons seem to be healthy and active. Healthy and active enough that we could not catch them.

10:16am CDT Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Guest User July 23, 2013

67 degrees F Sunny Wind 7mph NNE Sunrise 5:47am CDT Sunset 8:50pm CDT

It is a beautiful, sunny day here in Minnesota.

Cool. Clear. No humidity. Even a little bit on the chilly side yet this morning.

It is nice after the heat and humidity that we had last week.

The wind is picking up a little bit so there are waves on the lake. Even a few small whitecaps but nothing major.

These are the beautiful days of summer that linger in our memories in the depths of winter. We savor them while we can.

I do not see the loons right now but they are still around.

We still have the 5 loons that we had earlier this spring - two pairs and a single loon.

But then a few weeks ago we had even more visitors! One of the neighbors called me and said that he had seen what he thought were two immature loons still in their gray plumage. He asked if that was possible and what might be happening.

I knew that he knew loons well enough to correctly identify them but we went through every possibility of it being other birds. But it sure sounded like immature loons. So he asked me if I would go out to identify them if he saw them again.

Early the next morning, he called and said he was out on the lake and he saw the immature pair of loons. So he came to get me and out we went to see if we could identify them. Wouldn't you know it? When we got out onto the lake we could not find them! He said, "I know I saw them!"

We looked and looked but could not find them.

Suddenly, there was one of them!

And a couple minutes later the second one showed up. It WAS two immature loons. It is hard to tell age but I guessed that they were maybe two year old chicks that had for some reason come back early. Kevin Kenow from the USGS said that they have seen a few cases of young loons coming back early and they usually come back to the lake they were hatched on or a lake in the area. One of the people from the Minnesota DNR guessed that they might be three year old loons who had not yet gotten their first adult plumage.

But as usual, there were more questions than answers of who they are and where they came from. They definitely were much to big for it to be any chicks from this year on the lake or on any other surrounding lakes. Any of this years chicks would not be in full feather yet, let alone would they be able to fly.

Is it possible that they are chicks from the loon cam two or three years ago?

We know they both be chicks that hatched on the lake here last year because we lost the chick from the LoonCam and one of the other two chicks that hatched on the lake was found on Lake Phalen in St Paul last September all tangled up in fishing line. In spite of heroic efforts by the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, even including surgery, he was too badly injured to survive his injuries.

So out of the three chicks hatched on the lake last year, only one survived.

So these two immature loons cannot both be from the lake here last year.

When we finally were able to spot these two immature loons, my friend said, "I am so glad you saw them, too. Or people would think I was out here drinking while I was fishing!"

Kevin Kenow and his crew are going to come out here today to see if there is any possibility that we can capture the loons that be banded last year.

We so much want to recapture them to be able to download the data off the geolocater tags that were attached to their legs.

Those geolocater have been recording data for the last year. It has recorded the location of the loons every day. It will show exactly where they have gone and when. So it will add so much to our knowledge of loons and their migration and especially what happens to them during the winter down on the Gulf of Mexico.

But we have to catch them to retrieve the data recorders.

Without the loons here on this lake having chicks, that makes it VERY difficult to capture them. To capture a loon, you rely on their natural instinct to protect their chicks. This make it easier to get close to them and capture them. But without chicks, some of that defensiveness is not that and it is much more difficult, or even impossible, to capture them.

But Kevin and his crew want to retrieve that data almost as much as you and I want them to.

So we will see what they think when they get here later today.

I apologize to you that it has been so long since I have last updated you. I have been gone a lot this summer. But I will try to let you know what happens today and what the decision is about capture.

This is the first time I will have updated the blog since they made all the changes to the website. I now no longer post my blog directly but send someplace and then it gets posted 'automatically'. So hopefully this works and the blog is there for you to read.

Friday, June 14, 2013 9:34pm CDT

Travis Frank June 14, 2013

72 degrees F Partly Cloudy Wind 2mph N

Sunrise 5:24am CDT Sunset 9:02pm CDT

The yellow irises are in full bloom on the LoonCam nest.

Unfortunately, that is the only thing that is blooming on the nest.

There are no loons. There are no eggs. There are no little chicks 'blooming'.

This truly has been one unusual year in every respect.

From the historically late ice-out date. To the failure of the loons to nest this year, even while other loons in the area nested almost immediately after their return.

There were still at least 5 loons on the lake here as of last weekend.

One neighbor witnessed a territorial confrontation between two pair of loons, one of which was apparently the pair that has been hanging around this side of the lake and the nest. In addition, they also saw a single loon on another side of the lake.

But it does not seem to be just our LoonCam loons that have not nested.

The other pair of loons that nested on the lake last year has not nested either. At least not in the same area where they nested last year. A couple people have told me that they have not seen any nesting loons on that part of the lake. A week ago I took the canoe and went looking to see if I could find a nest.

I could not find a nest or any indication that they were nesting in that area of the lake where they had been last year and successfully hatched two chicks. They were the two chicks that we banded last year, one of whom was found on Lake Phalen in St Paul in September, entangled in fishing line. Unfortunately, in spite of valiant efforts by the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center the loon succumbed to his injuries.

This may be the pair of loons that my neighbors saw in a territorial confrontation on another part of the lake.

Whatever the truth may be, where last year two pair of loons were nesting on the lake and had chicks by now, this year neither pair of loons appear to be nesting. Who know what the reasons are.

I had one report by someone else that they saw a loon on a nest on the other side of the lake [probably one of the two pair that were in the territorial battle]. So a couple days ago I went looking for the nest where they said they saw the loon. It may be there somewhere. But I did not find it. And I did see a pair of loons swimming out from that area as they preened and fished.

It is something that I will investigate again to see if there is indeed a pair of loons nesting there. But I could not find them a few days ago. If I find something, I will update you on what I find.

The loon pair that has been staying around this side of the lake has periodically come up to the nesting platform. But they have not been up on the nest since Monday morning. And each time it is only the male that has gotten up there. The female seems to be much more wary and she seldom comes to the nest.

The nest is still in the water and available to them if they want to use it. I gradually moved it over a period of many days so that they would always see where it was and so that there were no drastic changes.

But so far they have shown no indication that they are going to lay eggs this year.

If they do not, it will be the first time in 10 years that the loons have not used the LoonCam nest.

One of the other ramifications of the loons not nesting is that we will probably not be able to catch them and retrieve that geolocater recorder tags that we placed on all 4 of the adult loons. Those recorders have documented everywhere the loons have been for the last year.

But in order to retrieve the data, we have to be able to catch the loons. And in order to be able to catch the loons, they need to have chicks that they are protecting.

So it is a disappointment that we may also have to wait to learn where our two pair of loons spent the winter and what the route of their migration was.

So many unusual circumstances. So many questions. So few answers ... yet.

All we can do is to continue to watch and learn.

For now you can be assured that the loons seem to be very healthy and doing well. They are still around. They are fishing and preening and swimming and diving.

They just are not laying eggs.

Minnesota Bound

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