Thursday, April 3, 2014 7:48 pm CDT

29 degrees F     Snowing     Wind N4mph Sunrise  6:49am CDT     Sunset   7:43pm CDT

Once again, the snow is coming down heavily.

Looking out towards the lake, it is just a sheet of white.  Nothing can be seen beyond the edge of the shore.

This is a wet heavy spring snow.  Perfect for making snowmen.

But the snow is coming down much too heavily for there to be any enjoyment in being out there making snowmen.

It is beautiful to watch it from the warmth inside.  A little while ago, I looked out at the beautiful scene of snow accumulating on every branch and needle of the deep green pine trees.  And there was the brilliant red of a cardinal against the stark white and the deep green.  He was watching to see if it was safe to fly to the feeder filled with plump sunflower seeds.

He quickly made the short flight and is now sitting gorging himself on sunflower seeds as the snow falls on him.

Beautiful!

The forecast has been all over the place the last couple days.  The weathermen - and the weather - can't seem to make up their minds.

The forecast was for 8 to 14 inches of snow for here.  Then they decreased it to 6 to 9 inches.  But today the forecast is back up there.  Possibly 6 to 14 inches of snow.

With this kind of storm, so much depends on timing.  When does the moisture arrive and when does it turn over to actual snow.  Plus a few miles either direction can make a big difference in the total accumulation.

There is nothing right now that is at all inviting to our loons.  It will still be sometime before the ice on the lake will be gone and there is any of the open water that they need - other than on some rivers that are starting to open.  The ice on the lake is still several feet thick and frozen right up against the shore.

So we can only hope that the loons, in spite of their biological urges to head north, do not try to push their limits.  But they seem to be able to sense and cope with those things much better than we humans do.

Snow still lies deep on the ground.  There has been some melting the last couple weeks but there is a lot to go.  In some ways it has been a perfect, slow melt.  This is good news as far as spring flooding is concerned.

What had been piles of snow over 8 feet high on either side of my driveway are now piles that are "only" 4 feet high.

One year ago today, crocuses were almost blooming, rhubarb nubs were poking their plump heads above the ground and green daffodil shoots were a couple inches high.

Not this year.  

The ground is still solidly frozen.

So it will still be sometime before we see flowers blooming.

Farmers always used to talk about a spring snow like this being "white fertilizer".  Apparently they felt that spring snow carried some of the nitrogen out of the air as it fell and acted like the best fertilizer around.

So this snow holds the promise of even better growth of all plants.

The storm is supposed to be done and out of here by tomorrow afternoon.  And this weekend the temperatures are supposed to be in the 60s!  Something we have not seen since way back in mid-October.

So much of the snow will melt fast.

Every year about this time of year, I have had it with shoveling snow!  I think I am at that point with this storm coming in.  I usually say, "OK, God.  YOU put it here.  You take care of it!  I refuse to shovel any more."  And I think He will take care of this snowfall in fairly short order.

No doubt many schools will be closed in some parts of the state tomorrow.  So the kids are going to enjoy a day off school with fresh white snow and mild temperatures.

The loon nest needs a lot of the usual spring work done on it.  But that will also have to wait.  It is still buried under a couple feet of snow and ice.

So we wait.  While our loons, already  back in their beautiful black and white plumage anxiously get ready to come north for another season!

Email and tweet and text and Facebook your friends and tell them to get ready for another season of the LoonCam.

If you give me your email address, I will try to send you and update as we get closer to the camera going live.  Just send it to LoonCam@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2014  Larry R. Backlund

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 8:32am CDT

22 degrees F     Heavy Snow    Wind  3mph NE Sunrise   7:19am CDT     Sunset   7:22pm CDT

It is a picture postcard outside right now!

Snow is coming down heavily.  Coating everything in sight.

The pine trees are highlighted with white against the dark green of the branches.

Other trees have a couple inches of new, fresh white snow piled up on each branch.

Every sound is muffled and there is a hush across the land.  Even the spring songs of the cardinals and the chickadees is muted.

The extreme temperatures and the 20 degrees below zero are but a distant memory (of a week or two at least).  The temperature is in the 20s ABOVE zero right now and headed for the 30s today, in spite of the new snow.

However, this 'winter of all winters' does not seem to be ready to loosen its grip just yet.

There are winter storm warnings out for the next couple days.  Some areas could get more than a foot of snow!  And with spring storms of this kind, the heaviest snow falls in a relatively narrow band.  A few miles either direction can make a big difference in the amount of snow.

Here are a couple pictures of what it looks like around here.  They are pictures I took last Sunday afternoon.  [Let's try this.  I am not sure how it will work with the new system of posting the blog.  Hopefully you will be able to see them.]

The first one is looking out across the lake - somewhere out there is where the loon nest normally is floating.  Even this view looks different right now during this snowstorm because you cannot see across the lake at all.  All you can see is 'a wall of white'.

The second picture is part of the loon nest trying to peek through the snow.  What you see is the top of the 'post' on which the camera gets mounted.  Somewhere under there is a loon nest buried in snow and ice!

The picture reminds me of the periscope of a submarine looking up to see if there is any 'life' up there.  Looking for open water for our loons to return!

That "periscope" is once again being buried under the new snow falling right now.

Hopefully our loons are staying far to the south where they are safe and have open water to swim and dive and fish.

But with each passing day, the urge to migrate north and to raise a new generation of loons becomes stronger and stronger.

For now, that urge must wait.

Copyright 2014  Larry R. Backlund

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 10:18pm CST

9 degrees F     Clear     Calm

Is it possible that we are already into March of a new year?

We are already into "meteorological spring".  But we are no where near what any of us would consider "spring".

For those of you in other parts of the country, or especially other parts of the world, this has been a very difficult and cold winter.  Since the first of December, we have had 63 days that were BELOW ZERO!  Today was the first day in the last 14 days that we did not go below zero.

But today there was a ray of hope that spring may actually arrive 'someday'.  Today I saw puddles of water.  Actual water.  Actual LIQUID water standing in some of the streets.  That is the first time I have seen that since last fall.

This winter has been a difficult one all across the country.  Snow and ice and cold has gone much further south than in a 'normal year'.  There is the third most snow cover in history across North America right now.

The Great Lakes are more than 90% ice covered.  Lake Superior is almost completely ice covered.  The normal shipping season on the Great Lakes is supposed to start in a couple weeks.  At this point, it looks like it may be late.

And our beloved loons are no where to be found.  If they have any sense, they are still down on the Gulf of Mexico.  But that mysterious 'tug' will eventually pull them North.  Right now they will not find any open water to land on except maybe a few spots open in the Mississippi River.  But even those spots are few and far between.

In 2012, the ice went out of the lake here on March 23rd, one of the earliest ice out dates I have seen here.

However, as you will remember, last year the ice did not go out until April 30th.  One of the LATEST dates I have ever seen.

So as much as we like to think we can control things, once again we are reminded how powerless we really are in the face of Mother Nature.  She will do what she wants, when she wants.

So we will just wait.  For there is nothing else we can do.

And once of these days, the snow and ice WILL melt.  And our loons will once again grace us with their presence.

The forecast is that we may actually get 40 degree temperatures as early as next week.  That is 40 degrees ABOVE zero, not below zero!

Welcome back to a new season of the LoonCam!

We can't wait to see our beautiful friends again.

Now is the time to tell your family and friends to get ready for another season of the LoonCam.

Hope springs eternal!

Copyriight 2014  Larry R, Backlund

11:32pm CDT Friday, September 6, 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.

Copyright 2013   Larry R Backlund

12:31am CDT Tuesday, 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?

Copyright 2013     Larry R Backlund