Thursday, April 9, 2015 10:17 pm CDT

Guest User April 9, 2015

32 degrees F Mostly Cloudy Wind Calm

Sunrise 6:39 am CDT Sunset 7:51pm CDT

Our first full day of the 2015 LoonCam.

I am sorry that I did not get a chance to write earlier today. I was in a Board meeting for a good share of the day and then spoke to a conservation group tonight about our loons.

Hopefully you will get a chance to glimpse the loons.

But it may not be much more than a "glimpse".

For the first week or two they will swim by the nest and then get up on the nest to check it out. They will probably even do some nest building behavior and move some of the stuff on the nest around. But don't expect them to spend much time there.

But I would expect (and they have proved me wrong so many times) that after a couple weeks at most, you will see a change in behavior and they will visit the nest more often and stay longer. They will begin to mate on the nest.

Then suddenly, or at least it seems 'sudden', they will become much more serious about their nest building behavior.

And that is the time that we wait so patiently (or not) and so breathlessly for.

So enjoy the view of the nest and the lake.

It is supposed to start warming up tomorrow and possibly reach 70 over the weekend. We should see the sun over the next few days.

Even as I am writing this the loons have a beautiful loons chorus going!

Contact some of your local teachers and encourage them to let their students view the Looncam. They will learn SO much. ALL ages of students.

I still remember the teacher from California who wrote to me a couple years ago to thank me for providing the LoonCam. She said that she had never had a more effective motivational tool.

She said her kids LOVED watching the LoonCam. They asked her to turn it on as soon as they walked into school in the morning. She said she started telling them that as soon as they ALL had their work done, she would turn the LoonCam on.

She said she had never had a more effective way of motivating them. The 'smart' kids would finish first and then they would help the other kids finish their work, because they knew that they could not watch the LoonCam until ALL of them finished.

What a great story of using it as a teaching tool!

Get your sleep now ... it becomes ever more intense and addictive with every passing day.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015 3:42 pm CDT

Guest User April 8, 2015

47 degrees F Cloudy Wind 4mph E

Sunrise 6:41am CDT Sunset 7:50 pm CDT

THE LOONCAM IS LIVE!

We are off and running for the 2015 LoonCam Season.

Now it is ALL up to the loons.

What excitement will this year bring?

Stay tuned!

Tuesday, April 7, 2015 11:47 pm CDT

Guest User April 8, 2015

35 degrees F Partly Cloudy Wind 3mph NE

Sunrise 6:43 am CDT Sunset 7:48 pm CDT

THE LOONS ARE BACK!

They arrived this afternoon.

About 1:30 this afternoon, while I was putting some finishing touches on the loon nest, I heard the distinctive and beautiful call of a loon from out on the lake. It is the first call I have heard this year.

And sure enough.

There was a single loon swimming straight out from where the nest is normally anchored.

I have to admit it put a smile on my face.

Within about 15 minutes, I heard more calls from the lake. And when I looked, there was a pair of loons swimming together.

Obviously the loons had just come back.

I assume it is "our loons" although I cannot say for sure until we are able to get a look at their bands.

As you know the male was banded 3 years ago and the 'new' female was banded last summer.

But there is no reason that just a random pair of loons would land and swim in the very area they have nested before.

Then just as it was getting dark, the pair swam in very close to shore and close to where I was working on the nest equipment. That confirmed to me that it probably was "our pair", even though I still have not seen the bands. But there is NO other explanation why a pair would come in that close to check things out.

The nest is in the water.

There just are numerous small adjustments and things that must be done even after it is in the water.

I am hoping that we will be able to "go live" with the LoonCam in the next couple days.

Tell mom and dad and the kids and grandma and grandpa and the neighbors to start watching.

I was just outside. And the loons are calling out on the lake. Announcing that they have returned.

It doesn't get any better than this.

What adventures and drama and twists will this year bring?

Another season begins!

Tuesday, March 31, 2015 11:29 pm CDT

Guest User March 31, 2015

52 degrees Clear Calm

Sunrise 6:56 am CDT Sunset 7:39 pm CDT

We are getting close!

I have been gone for the last couple weeks. I spent it in Tahiti! I know! I know! It is tough but someone has to do it.

When I got home, it felt really cold.

And it was.

The lake was still completely frozen. Now a couple days later, the ice is black and I think that it will go out tomorrow.

A lot of it has been melting in place.

We had high winds on Sunday and it pushed up on one of the other shores and formed large heaps of ice. But the ice sheet was still too solid to break apart.

But now with temperatures in the 60s yesterday and today, it is getting ready to go.

Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 70s with rain and possibly thunderstorms. That means it is almost guaranteed to go out tomorrow.

All day today there have been thousands upon thousands of seagulls on the lake. I would actually guess 10,000. But let's stick with thousands.

The sound they make is almost deafening.

There was a bright blue sky with puffy white clouds. A blue lake more than half covered by black ice. And white tornadoes of seagulls as they land on the edges of the ice and then take off and spiral up and around. Only to land on the ice once again. Squawking the whole time.

I looked and looked but I could not spot our loons.

Either they are not back yet or they are effectively hiding. But if they are not here, it will not be long until they are back.

The nest is almost ready to go into the water.

But it cannot go until all the ice is gone.

If I put it in before all the ice is gone, if the ice is driven this way by the wind, the ice will destroy the nest.

We also have to work out all the technical stuff to bring the picture to you. That work is already underway. So you will just have to be patient a little bit longer!

This is over 3 weeks earlier than last year and almost a month earlier than 2013 for ice out.

No doubt the loons are on the way and working their way north as ice goes out of lakes.

Since we banded the new female last year, it will be very interesting to see if both the same male and female come back to the nest this year.

Also, if you have not had a chance to check out the USGS's website to track the juvenile loons banded last summer, you will find that very interesting.

Conventional wisdom says that the juveniles will stay down on the Gulf of Mexico for 2 to 3 years before they come back to Minnesota. But so very little is known of their true behavior. So it will be very instructive to watch them to see what happens.

USGS Juvenile Banded Loons

http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/terrestrial/migratory_birds/loons/migrations.html

It gets very interesting now so stay tuned!

Thursday, March 5, 2015 6:57 am CST

Guest User March 5, 2015

-21 degrees Clear Wind Calm.

Sunrise 6:44 am CST Sunset 6:05 pm CST.

There is something wrong with this picture..

It is a beautiful, sunny, "spring" morning.

But it is 21 degrees below zero!.

That just is not right for this time of year.

Even though March can be our snowiest month, usually we do not have the extreme cold that we are seeing this year..

There is an old saying among Minnesotans. We like to call it "The Theater of Seasons". And this year has been no exception.

In fact this year has been the perfect example of that in one of the more exciting 'productions' of recent memory.. In November we had a huge snowstorm here that dumped 16 to 18 inches of snow. Then December and January were relatively low snow months with no bitterly cold weather.. Then came February! And we have had a lot of very cold weather..

Hopefully this is our last blast of the brutal cold.

This year has been an unusually cold and snowy winter all across the country, especially in the Northeast!. The cold and snow that has reached all the way down into the Deep South has hopefully kept our loons safely in place on the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean..

If you have been following the juvenile loons on the USGS page, you have seen they are still on the Gulf of Mexico, clustered especially along the South Florida coast.

USGS Juvenile Loon Tracking Website

http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/terrestrial/migratory_birds/loons/migrations.html .

It will be so very interesting to watch these juvenile loons to see how they behave when the spring migration begins.

Conventional wisdom has told us that juveniles will stay down on the Gulf for 2 to 3 years before they make their first trip back north.

But there is SO little that is known of the life of Common Loons during the winter months. So the data from these loons will add immeasurably to our knowledge about them and especially about juvenile loons.

We can be very thankful to Kevin Kenow from the USGS, along with his team of Steve and Luke and Bob, for their work in making it possible for us to be a part of this interesting research.

Unfortunately it appears that already 4 of the loons have died. One of them was apparently shot! He was somewhere along the Mississippi River between Arkansas and Tennessee last November.

By now, the adults should be already changing back into their black and white plumage that we are so familiar with and that we know and love. They have been a drab, non-descript brownish gray all winter. But soon will once again be the typical beautiful black and white.

With the approach of the spring migration, they are changing back into their 'tuxedos' and they are also regaining their voices to express their excitement about coming back home. But with all the lakes here in Minnesota still solidly covered with thick ice, they must just wait for a while yet

The weather forecast for this weekend says that we may reach 50 degrees here at the loon's lake

That is a swing of 70 degrees in just a few days!. And it means that things will start to change rapidly

Right now, the loon's nesting platform is buried under a big snow drift of snow that has blown off the lake. All that is visible is the 'post' that sticks up from the corner of the raft where the camera gets mounted. It looks like a periscope from a submarine that is looking to see what the world and weather are like "up there".

For sure we are weeks away, if not a month or more, from being able to do anything with the nest. Let alone being able to put it in a lake that will finally be ice free

But now is the time for you to prepare for another season with our loons. It will be here before we know it.

Tell your family and your friends to get ready. Encourage your children's or granchildren's teachers to consider using the LoonCam as a wonderful teaching tool for their students. The myriad of stories from teachers of how they have used the LoonCam to not only teach but to motivate students has been humbling.

It makes all the hard work worthwhile.. So here is to another successful nesting season ... for ALL our loons!.

Minnesota Bound

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