55 degrees Mostly Cloudy Wind SW 4 mph
Sunrise 6:00am CDT Sunset 8:20 pm CDT
Have you ever had days that seemed "snakebit"?
I feel that they last week has been that way.
After I last wrote to you late on Saturday night, I was gone for a couple days (in fact gone on a couple short trips this week) but I fully expected to come home and see the camera up and working and it also being online so that YOU could see it as well.
Small problem.
When I got home, I had no phone and no internet! No camera.
There had been a LOT of rain while I was gone and it was still raining when I got home. But there had also apparently been storms and lightning.
The storms apparently had fried some stuff.
When the cable company was finally able to come out, they confirmed that the modem which sends all of the pictures and sound to you was indeed fried. And he said that we had had some pretty severe lightning while I was gone and he was dealing with a lot of this type of damage.
Once we got that fixed, we still did not have any picture from the camera. Apparently the camera or something else had been hit as well.
It appears that the lightning may have taken out a couple channels on a router and may also have taken out the camera itself.
So even as I write this, the good folks from BroadbandMN are once again making the trek halfway across the state to bring camera. They have gone above and beyond the call of duty.
So once more, a little while ago I ventured out into the icy, painful water to retrieve the camera off the nest!
Now we wait for a few hours until they arrive with the new camera and hopefully we are able to fix the source of the problem.
There IS, however some good news!
When I had to go back out to the nest a little while ago to retrieve the camera, it was the first time that I had actually seen the nest since I had to go out there in the wind and the waves and the sleet last Tuesday.
All week long, with the heavy rains, we have also had high winds.
The winds created large rolling waves that rocked the nest and that splashed up over it.
On Tuesday when I was out by the nest, I did not see that the loons had been up on the platform nor rearranged any of the nesting materials.
In fact, I have hardly seen the loons.
They can be difficult to spot on a calm lake.
But on a lake roiled by large and threatening waves, it is almost impossible to see them. In addition to that, they will sometimes try to find a spot that is a little more sheltered from the wind and waves.
But this afternoon when I had to go out to retrieve the camera, it looked like there had been some rearrangement of the nesting materials. Had the loons been up there? It looked like they had. There was not much movement of materials. But they may have been up there.
I didn't see them anywhere in sight when I went out to the nest so I cannot say for sure that they had been up on the nest. But at least there was hope.
As I was finishing removal of the camera from its mount, THERE was one of the loons!
Swimming out a ways from me. Watching me.
And then the second loon!
They were definitely interested in what I was doing. And interested in the nest.
Neither loon called nor were they upset. Nor did they swim near.
They just watched.
Then as I left with the camera, they swam away.
Where had they been?
I don't know. I had looked for them and saw them nowhere.
But they had seen me!
And when they saw me they immediately swam toward the nest to see what was going on.
So far, they have not gotten serious about nesting nor have they spent time near or on the nest. But just the fact that they are closely watching the nest is a good sign.
When the good people from Broadband get here, hopefully we will be able to get the camera (and everything else that must work together perfectly) up and running and hopefully soon we will be able to bring you pictures from the LoonCam once more.
Questions or Comments? LoonCam@yahoo.com
Copyright 2014 Larry R. Backlund