Saturday, May 17, 2014 6:05 pm CDT

68 degrees F     Sunny     Wind  NW 3 mph

Sunrise   5:40 am CDT     Sunset   8:38 pm  CDT

Today has been a wonderful day in so many ways!

It started out chilly but it has been sunny and warm the rest of the day.  Last night there was a frost advisory in the area.  But we only got down to 36 degrees over night.

This morning started out with the lake absolutely calm and mirror-like as the sun came up.

But the most wonderful thing is that the LoonCam is back live and you can watch our loons.

Tell all of your friends and neighbors and kids and family and teachers and everyone that they can once again see the loons.  For those of you who are active on Facebook and twitter and other social media, now is the time to spread the word.

These days with the loons on the nest are so short and they go so fast.  The eggs will hatch in about 4 weeks from the time they were laid.  And then the little chicks will leave the nest within about 24 hours.  Never to return.  Except for our little guy in 2012 who seemed to love the nest more than anything else!

It is interesting to see the difference in behavior of the two loons.

The female is seems to be very shy and skittish.  Almost anything will send her into hangover mode.

On the other hand, nothing seems to bother the male.  He sits with his head held high almost all the time, no matter what is going on around him.

Yesterday there were 3 eagles that stayed in the area and sat in the trees on shore for a good share of the day.  They did not seem to be overtly interested in the loons and they were not targeting the loons at all.  But it was enough to send the female into hangover mode over and over.

The male simply craned his neck to keep an eye on them.

With the reaction of the female, I have been wondering if she is a relatively young and inexperienced female.  That would probably also explain why the loons did not nest last year if she was very young and inexperienced.  And it would explain why she seems to be so skittish this year.  She still is not fully comfortable with the nest or the whole process.

Let's watch to see if her behavior changes over the next few weeks as she becomes more comfortable with nesting and being out of the water.

Let's review - we have two eggs on the nest.  That is the "normal" number.  Rarely loons will lay 3 eggs and occasionally they will lay only one.  But two eggs is the normal number.

The FIRST EGG was laid at 5:17 am CDT on Monday, May 12, 2014.

The second egg was laid sometime between late Tuesday evening, May 13 and Friday afternoon, May 16.  My best guess is that the egg was laid sometime on Wednesday or maybe Thursday.  There is no way of knowing for sure since the LoonCam was down and we could not enjoy this wonderful and educational view.

Based on those dates, I would guess that the eggs could hatch as early as Friday night, June 6 or as late as Wednesday, June 11.

So now we have our goal in mind.  Now we know what we are aiming for.

But a lot can and will happen between now and then.  For those of you who have watched before, there is no predicting what will happen next.  As you have already seen this year.

I have noticed the loons already dealing some with black flies.

They are not bad yet, but as the weather warms more and more they will be an increasing problem for the loons.  We will maybe talk more about the black flies in the days ahead.

For now, enjoy the loons.  

Enjoy the nest.

Enjoy the eggs.

And look forward to two new little black downy loon chicks!

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

Copyright 2014 Larry R Backlund

Friday, May 16, 2014 9:06 pm CDT

47 degrees F    Mostly Cloudy    Wind NW 3mph

Sunrise   5:41 am CDT     8:37 pm CDT

Can you believe it?!

The LoonCam is once again LIVE!

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.  This has been the most challenging year technically ever with the LoonCam.  It started out that it looked like it would be the smoothest and most problem free set up ever.

But that changed quickly with the lightning.

The good folks at Broadband deserve big kudos for the long hours of work trying to get everything back.  Anthony especially, the Head Guru of Technical Type Things.  He has gone above and beyond anything that could rightly be expected.

We still have the issue of the sound.

Just know that they are still working hard on it.  But the amazing thing is that they have been talking to UStream, the large international company who transmits thousands of video sites.  Even UStream is  stumped by why we have the audio, we can hear it, they can hear it but they are unable to get it to come through to you.

It is baffling to say the least.

Just know that it is still being worked on.

Some of you may say, "But I heard the sound for a minute and then it disappeared."

Essentially that was us trying everything trying to pin down where the problem is.  So essentially we set up a camera on the camera.  And the sound came through.

But that is an  entirely unworkable and untenable solution to the problem.  But when they sound came through that way, it made it even more mysterious why it will not come through the way it is supposed to.

But now to the IMPORTANT things ... our LOONS!

We now have TWO EGGS on the nest as many of you sharp people have already seen.

In fact, you knew it before I knew it!  We were working so hard on everything we did not have the chance to watch the cam.  Then I read some of your chat and said, "They are saying there are TWO eggs!  We are right here and they knew it before we did."

I had suspected that there might be two eggs ever since Wednesday night because the loons were staying on the nest so much more faithfully than they had before.  You will remember for the first day or so they were off the nest for an hour or more.  But the fact that they have been faithfully staying on the nest was the first clue that there might already be a second egg.

So now we have loons, we have eggs, we have a camera.

And soon we hope that we will have chicks!

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

Copyright 2014 Larry R Backlund

Thursday, May 15, 2014 10:50 pm CDT

40 degrees F    Cloudy     Wind 8mph N

Well, I wish I could tell you that LoonCam is back up and everything is running again.

But I can't.  We have worked all day trying to get it back up again.  Well, Broadband has worked and I just pushed a button when they told me to.

They brought out a new router and we went through everything to install it and connect with it.

And we could once again see the picture from the camera.  So that confirmed the other router had failed.

But they still could not upload the picture so that you and everyone else could see it!

We have been working on it all day until just an hour ago.

They even had me go buy another router.  But even with that router, they could not access the serveer to upload the picture to the website.

We could still see it but they still cannot get it to connect.  So it has been a frustrating day for all of us.  Because we so badly want you to be able to see the loons.

We have not given up.  But this is far beyond me to understand and know what to do.  These people are brilliant.  And when it stymies them, it is something.

We are still working on it for you though.

So, with all of that, let me give you an update on our loons.

It has been a cold and windy day with high waves on the lake.

Since I got home late last night, the loons have been very faithful and remained on the nest.

Which is good because this morning was near freezing and yesterday morning it dropped to 30 degrees here.  It did not even make it out of the 40s for a high temperature today.  Very unusual weather for this late in the season.

Once again, there is a possibility of frost tonight.

I am assuming that by them staying on the nest so faithfully it means there may be a second egg.  But I cannot tell you that for sure without seeing it.  And in the few times I have been able to check when we got the camera back on, the loons have not budged off the nest.  So I have not seen whether there is one or two eggs.  And it is not something that you can see with binoculars or even a telescope.

That is what is so wonderful about the LoonCam is the ability to see things that you can never see in any other way.

If I do get a chance to see whether there is one or two eggs before the cam is back up, I will let you know.

Hopefully the problem will be identified and corrected tomorrow.  The Broadband folks are so good and so dedicated to getting it working again for you.  The problem is just strange.

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

Copyright 2014    Larry R Backlund

Thursday, May 15, 2014 12:26 am CDT

When I got home tonight, I see the cam is still down.

But there was an email.

Apparently a router has now crashed.

So they are going to try installing a new router tomorrow.

Hopefully that will take care of the problem and you will once again be able to see the LoonCam and our beautiful loons.

Thank you once again for your patience and your understanding.

I will try to keep you up to date on what is happening.  

I don't think  ... no I KNOW that we have ever had so many technical problems in all the years of doing this.  It is amazing what a little lightning will do!

Copyright 2014    Larry R Backlund

Wednesday, May 14, 2014 am CDT

30 degrees F     Cloudy     Wind  Calm

Sunrise   5:55  am CDT     Sunset   8:35 pm CDT

There is a touch of frost in the air in some areas.

But the first egg is warm and safe under the loon.

And a second egg could happen at any time.

Now is the time to watch closely.

The time to let all your friends know that the loons are on the nest.  twitter.  Facebook.  Or any of the other social media that you are a part of.

These days are all too fleeting and they will pass so quickly.

And then the loons will be gone for another year.

With eagles, they are there for months.  And we get to watch the little eaglets grow.

With loons, they hatch and then in a day or two they are gone.

So don't miss a minute of it.

Some of you have asked about where things are located so that you can get an idea of distances.

And for many of you, this may be your first time viewing the LoonCam.

So let's go over a few of the basics.  Some of the viewers have been here for many seasons and they are great sources of information for you as well.  And they are more than happy to share their knowledge with you.  Just ask.

This loon nest is on a lake in central Minnesota.  For protection of the nest, we don't identify the exact location.

It is a floating platform that is anchored in about 3 feet of water about 150 feet from shore.  The nesting materials are placed on the platform but then the loons do the rest as far as actually building the nest.  

The green growth that you see on the edges of the platform are irises and daylilies.  As they grow they help to hold nesting materials in place and help to prevent erosion of the nesting materials from wind and waves.  Also they give the loons some measure of concealment and security.

There are willow branches at two corners of the nest.  You can see the ones on the upper right side of the picture sometimes.  And there are some right behind the camera.  these branches are intended to keep eagles from swooping down directly on the loons.

The camera that allows you to watch the loons is mounted right on the nesting platform.  It places your "eyes" about 3 feet away from the loon on the nest.  Nowhere in nature could you come that close to a loon and observe it without chasing it off the nest.  But here you can watch totally natural behavior close-up and personal.  All without disturbing the loon or changing its natural behavior.

The camera is a brand new camera that we got just a few days ago.  The previous camera ( and a lot of other equipment) was struck by lightning and destroyed.

So we have been frantically rebuilding everything in the last few days.

The shoreline that you see in the upper left hand corner of your picture is about one mile away!  There are are 13 buoys plus a swimming raft that surround the area to try to keep boats away from the nest.  The white buoys that you can sometimes see in the top of the picture are about 100 feet away from the nest.

In 2012, in cooperation with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the USGS, we were able to band loons on the lake here.  Each loon received a colored band and a silver band on its right leg that are unique to that loon.  On the left leg we attached a data recorder that has recorded everywhere the loon has gone.

So when you  see the male on the nest, look at his legs and you will see the bands and the data recorder.  From those, we know he is the male and he is the same male that has been here in the two previous years.  It appears that the female is unbanded and is therefore a different female than the one that was here in 2012.

It appears that the cam went down last night for some reason.  Just a reminder once again of how many things must work perfectly to bring you this experience.  It was reported last night and hopefully it will be back up soon.  Sunday morning we\hen it went down, "an encoder had crashed".  Whatever an "encoder" is and wherever it is located along the long line that the signal has to travel.  Hopefully it will be back up soon.

Once again, enjoy watching these beautiful loons today.  

And be amazed again at the wonder of Creation!

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

Copyright  2014     Larry R Backlund