Tuesday, April 14, 2015 10:26 pm CDT

Guest User April 14, 2015

52 degrees Clear Wind Calm

Sunrise 6:30 am CDT Sunset 7:58 pm CDT

This has been a busy day for our loons!

It has been a beautiful Minnesota spring day with temperatures well above average. It got up to 76 degrees here at "loon lake" today.

Beautiful blue skies and gentle warm breezes.

Our loons have seemed to take ownership of the nest and have mated on it twice .... one time was a pretty clumsy attempt that I am not sure was an actual mating.

But they seem to consider the nest theirs. And they are willing to defend it.

They have chased geese off the nest at least once today. (I chased the geese off tonight when the loons were occupied on another part of the lake!)

They were occupied with an "intruder loon" today.

And then tonight there was yet another loon that showed up. I don't think that those loons are a 'pair' but they could be. My best guess - but it is only a guess - is that it is two single males.

It could very well be young loons that were hatched on this lake 3 years ago.

And our loons do not like that they are around. Nor do they suffer their presence lightly.

At least three times today, there has been an all out confrontation between our pair and the single loon. Confrontations that have included tremolos and yodels that you have heard. Excited diving. Penguin dances. And even prolonged chases across the surface of the water.

All behaviors that are very stressed and confrontational.

Our loons do not want these other loons in their territory or around their nest.

If you have not ever seen a "penguin dance", let me try to give you a couple pictures so that you know what it looks like when loons do a penguin dance. Hopefully you can see these pictures. It doesn't look like I can post the actual picture for you so here are links.

http://johnmfleming.com/gallery/albums/Amazing%20Moments/Common-Loon-Penguin-Dance-Display-_JMF9430.jpg

http://www.masterimages.org/Birds/Common%20Loon/Misc%20lakes/slides/IMG_2978c.jpg

The penguin dance is a very strong statement by a loon that they do not like what is going on and are willing to fight.

So even as they had to keep on eye on these other two loons, they also had to keep an eye on the Canada geese who were out house shopping and seemed to want to move into the loons house. But the loons had other ideas.

One of the other things that I have been meaning to mention is that if you listen carefully at night, some of the background noise you hear are thousands of seagulls. It is very loud in person but I am not sure it comes through over the computer.

Some of the seagulls have already moved on as the ice goes out of more and more lakes. But there are still a lot of them around. Listen for them at night.

But even as I type this the confrontations between the loons are still going on. With tremolos and yodels and wails.

It is that beautiful and haunting sound of the great north as the calls echo back and forth across the lake.

But I must admit I enjoyed the calls much more before I knew what the yodel and tremolo actually meant.

So sit back and just enjoy the beauty of the calls.

Monday, April 13, 2015 6:15 am CDT

Guest User April 13, 2015

39 degrees F Clear Wind 3 mph NW

Sunrise 6:32 am CDT Sunset 7:56 pm CDT

We can all relax a tad this morning.

Early yesterday morning our loons visited the nest for the first time this year.

Not only did they visit the nest, they mated on the nest. That is a very good sign of them taking ownership of the nest.

I have to say that it surprised me a little bit for all of it to happen so fast.

Usually they will make several visits before they mate the first time. But this was part of one seamless scene. Get on the nest. Mate. Leave the nest.

Now lest you think you are missing a lot of what happens off camera, you are not. I very seldom see the loons at all. Occasionally I hear them calling from some other part of the lake. But it is not as if they are sitting waiting just out of camera range. They are not in the area at all. That is part of what at times adds to my 'paranoia' that I have talked about before.

But now that they have not only been on the nest but have mated on the nest, that is a very good sign of them taking ownership of the nest and very hopeful that we will soon see them laying eggs and hopefully once again raising cute little 'loonlings'.

We got up to 80 degrees here at "loon lake" yesterday. That is very warm for us this time of year.

But along with it came very high winds for most of the day as a front was approaching.

Then last night the front came through and brought us rain and lightning and thunder. It was quite a show. Fortunately there was no bad weather here but a number of places got some hail along with it.

The rain will help green things up. And the old saying is "April showers bring May flowers!" That is true in general and even true of the plants on the nest. There are a couple new plants this year on the nest so you will be interested in watching them grow and trying to identify them.

Several of your have wondered about the 'white spots' that you see off in the distance. And have also wondered about how far away they are.

Those white spots are a number of buoys that have been placed around the nest to help keep boaters from approaching to close to the nest and disturbing the loons. Loons are a protected species and therefore it is against both State and Federal law to harass nesting loons.

The buoys are about 50 to 100 feet away from the nest.

On camera it looks like they are much farther away than that. But that gives you a little bit of an idea of distance and will help you judge distances on camera.

There is also a large swimming platform that the neighbors graciously put out so that it is a little harder to miss seeing the buoys.

Most boaters are VERY respectful of the nest and will go out around the buoys. We have even already had our first boat of 'carp hunters' a couple nights ago. And even though most of the buoys were not even out yet, they very carefully went out and around the nest.

But you get the occasional one who doesn't seem to put two and two together.

A few years ago I saw a boat right up by shore behind the cattails but right in the middle of the loon nest area. The loons had already been scared off the nest. I went down and asked them, "This is a federally protected loon nesting area, do you suppose I could ask you to fish off to either side of this area?"

One of the fishermen looked around and then said to me, "I didn't see any signs!"

I asked him, "What do you think all those buoys and that swimming raft were for?"

He looked around at all the buoys and the raft and then turned back to me and said, "I didn't see any signs!"

I just shook my head and walked back up to the house.

As I got back up to the house I turned and looked back down to the lake at them. They had just blithely continued on through the nesting area. I shook my head again and continued on about my day.

It was not until a little while later that it hit me that they had gone right over the tv and IR light cables that go out to the nest!

It is probably good that I did not remember it right away or I would have gone down there screaming at them. Fortunately they did not cut any of the cables with their motor.

But that is just one small illustration of all the things that have to happen just right to continue to bring the pictures of the LoonCam to you.

Any one little thing going wrong, and it all stops. Unfortunately if the loons are already on the nest, there is very little that can be done to fix any problems.

So, for today, let's hope all 'problems' manmade or natural stay away.

Enjoy a beautiful Minnesota spring day.

And enjoy every glimpse that you get of our beautiful loons.

Saturday, April 11, 2015 11:21 pm CDT

Guest User April 12, 2015

53 degrees F Clear Wind Calm

Sunrise 6:35 am CDT Sunset 7:54 pm CDT

Today has been an absolutely beautiful spring day here in Minnesota. Blue sky, sunshine, 74 degrees and the early spring flowers like crocuses and forsythia have started to bloom.

Cardinals and chickadees are in full spring song.

Minnesotans will often joke that you can't really appreciate a spring or summer day until you have survived a Minnesota winter. So today was payback big time for winter!

Now we wait on our loons for spring fever to hit them.

The pair of loons that I think and hope are "our loons" have done a couple of swim bys but have not yet shown real serious interest in the nest. But at this point I don't' think there is any reason for concern that they have not gotten on the nest yet. There is still plenty of time.

But I have to admit that every year I go through this phase of paranoia.

What if we do all the work and get everybody excited and watching and then the loons don't use the nest. So far at this early stage the 'paranoia' is very small, but a tinge of it is there. I tell my self it is silly. But that doesn't make it go away. And even if I did worry, it would not change anything.

From this point on, we are totally dependent on the loons to do whatever they want to do.

I feel VERY fortunate that the loons have used this loon nest every year except one. Researchers say that artificial nesting platforms are only used about 50 to 60% of the time. So we have a stellar record of the loons using this particular nesting platform for so many years.

For those of you who are new to the LoonCam, the nesting platform is made out of PVC pipe and foam. That supports the nest material that you see on the cameral. That material is cattails and reeds and other weeds and material that naturally floats up on shore and which the loons would naturally use.

A thick layer is placed on the platform and then it is left to the loons to rearrange it however they want to make their nest.

Loons are opportunistic nest builders and will use whatever is available to them. This nest is quite plush to what they normally would have.

Many times they will build their nest on top of a muskrat house. Or simply form a shallow depression in the gravel or sand or mud along the shore. I have even seen a couple loon nests up in the Boundary Waters where the loons laid their eggs in a shallow depression in a rock with no other nesting material.

Since loons find it almost impossible to get around on land, they will usually build their nests within a few feet of the water.

They are very vulnerable to predators like raccoons, skunks, mink, crows, seagulls, eagles and even dogs and cats in populated areas.

Thus a floating platform like this that is away from the shore gives them a great sense of security against many of the normal predators that they have to contend with on land. But even on this platform they can be vulnerable to raccoons and mink and eagles and seagulls.

But it is apparently one of the reasons a nest like this has been so successful.

The nesting platform is about 150 feet from shore. So it tends to discourage even raccoons from swimming out that far from shore.

You will notice some green on the corners of the nest. These are plants that will grow as the season progresses. It helps to give the loons some protection and a sense of being out of view. And you will find it interesting to see the changes as the weeks go by.

On a sunny day, you may see a shadow that moves across the nest as the afternoon goes along.

That is a shadow of the camera that is sending you the video that you are watching.

The square or rectangular part of the shadow is the camera itself.

Then there is another smaller 'ball' that sticks up from the camera on a stand. That is the infrared light that allows you to see what is going on in complete darkness. It gives you a very clear view of the nest but the loons cannot see the infrared light and it does not disturb them at all.

So all of this allows you to observe the loons in their 100% natural behavior without disturbing them at all.

Until the LoonCam, the only way to observe loons was to go out in a boat or canoe and find their nest. But simply by being there near them you would change their behavior.

So the LoonCam has been a major step forward in really seeing and understanding loons.

As far as we can tell, when we videotaped a loon actually laying an egg a number of years ago, that was the first time that it had ever been recorded or maybe even ever being seen by humans. And now you can see it every year from the comfort of your home!

And this is the only way most people would ever have a chance to actually see a Common Loon on a nest.

So 'enjoy' the anticipation of our loons showing up and nesting.

At this stage, every glimpse is exciting. And we never know which time will be the time that they actually get up on the nest and make it their own and begin to build their nest.

So let your friends and family know that it is almost time for them to start watching and not to miss a moment. Tweet and twitter and instant message and facebook and email and even go so far as to use an old-fashioned telephone to let them know!

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.