Monday, April 27, 2015 5:38 am CDT

Guest User April 27, 2015

27 degrees F Clear Wind Calm

Sunrise 6:08 am CDT Sunset 8:14 pm CDT

It is a chilly, crisp morning on "Loon Lake".

Today promises to be a spectacular Minnesota spring day with lots of sunshine, mild temperatures with a high of 69, light breezes and spring flowers blooming and everything turning green.

And with loons calling on the lakes, what could be better?

Our loons continue to visit the nest with greater frequency. Right on schedule. We want them to go faster but they will proceed at their pace and all in their good time.

There isn't much we can do about it even though we want to be in charge. Now the loons are in charge. And they will do what they want when they want.

But the increased frequency of visits to the nest and especially the start of nest building activity while they are on the nest are all encouraging signs.

I guess I have not mentioned it yet, but it seems to be definite that this is the same pair that nested on the LoonCam last year. The male with a blue stripe band and the female with a green band on her leg.

The female was new to this nest in 2013 but did not nest that year. Last year she nested and produced 2 eggs and 2 healthy chicks. We were able to catch (with some difficulty) and band her and both of last year's chicks.

The male was banded in 2012.

It still amazes me when the same pair returns to the same nest after many months and thousands of miles of travel. How do they do it? What goes on in those brains of theirs? How do they find their way? How do they know? What kinds of maps do they use? What do they "think"? What or Who guides them?

A thousand and one questions that are just too wonderful to understand.

Yesterday was a relatively calm Sunday with no crises, no Canada geese and no ospreys. That is a good thing for our loons.

Today you should watch for continued visits to the nest with increasing frequency and for longer periods of time.

Watch for more serious nest building. Rearranging of materials. Reaching out and pulling nesting materials in and placing them around the loons body. Digging with their feet to make the nest bowl deeper.

Someone asked a couple days ago how deep the nesting material is. That is a good question. Even though I have never actually measured it as I have built the nest and put the material on, I would say that it is 6 to 8 inches deep.

It is made up of cattails and bulrushes and other weeds and materials that wash up on shore.

Exactly the same types of materials that loons would normally find to nest on.

It has been interesting to watch which loon does what. With the bands we can now tell the difference between the two of them.

This year, as last, it is the male who seems to be doing most of the nest building. But it is still early so watch to see if there are changes in that behavior.

At some point, the nest building activity will become even more urgent.

And the we will hopefully see our first egg being laid.

Everything depends on that egg being laid. And that determines all that happens from that point on.

Enjoy our loons today.

Enjoy the sunshine.

And enjoy all the Wonders that have been placed in your life.

Saturday, April 25 11:28 pm CDT

Guest User April 26, 2015

41 degrees F Clear Wind 7mph NE

Sunrise 6:11 am CDT Sunset 8:12 on CDT

Once again today, we were reminded how little we truly know.

When you think you have seen everything, something unbelievable happens out of the blue.

Two days ago it was the geese that decided they wanted the loons nice nesting platform.

They didn't count on the fact that loons don't give up so easily. And one of the loons unceremoniously chased the goose off the nest and did not even allow it to save its dignity. The loon may have stabbed the goose because the goose jumped backwards, hit the camera with a loud "THUD!" and then bounced forward off the nest and beat a hasty retreat from the loons.

Hopefully a lesson well learned..

Early this morning it was encouraging that the loons were once again on the nest and mated. They definitely are calling the nest their own.

But shortly after they left, someone else decided to pay a visit to the nest.

A 'large bird' tried to land on the cable that helps to hold the camera upright.

He didn't count on the fact that the cable is flexible and isn't like a branch. When it began to give way, the bird quickly took off. And as he hurriedly left, he also hit the camera with a "THUD!".

But then he swooped back in a few seconds later and seemed to take some of the nesting material with him as he swooped in.

I cannot be 100% certain what kind of a bird it was, but looking at the video several times I think it may have been an osprey. You can see Lee's video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0oyPmapc-E

Now what is strange about that is ospreys have not been believed to be any threat to loons. An osprey is sometimes called a 'fish hawk' because they feed almost exclusively on fish.

And loons do not seem to mind when an osprey is flying around the lake.

But let it be a bald eagle that is flying around and the loons go crazy.

One is a danger to loons, the other is not.

But it is doubly strange that the osprey would 'steal nesting material' off the platform.

There is an abundance of cattails and other nesting material all around the lake. They certainly do not need to steal from the loon's nesting platform.

Within a few minutes the loons were back and swimming around the nest. Once of them even got back up on the nest for a few minutes. Apparently they had been watching from somewhere out on the lake and when they saw the osprey messing around with their house, they were quite to come and check to see that the burglars had not done any damage.

Then apparently satisfying themselves that everything was ok, they left again.

The loons have been visiting the nest with increasing frequency and actually starting to work on building a 'bowl' to hold the eggs.

All of those things are very good signs that we are approaching that exciting time of seeing the first egg laid.

The excitement continues to build!

Text and tweet and call and let your family and friends and schools know that now is the time to start watching the drama unfold.

Friday, April 24, 2015 9:25 am CDT

Guest User April 24, 2015

45 degrees Cloudy Wind 3mph NE

Sunrise 6:13 am CDT Sunset 8:10 pm CDT

The loons have already been up on the nest and mated again this morning.

Each day we get closer to the exciting time when the first egg is laid. And the countdown clock begins.

There have been continuing questions about if this is the same pair as last year.

I have not been able to/taken the time to see if I can see their bands to identify them. But it has been my 'feeling' that it is the same pair.

Why?

Here are some of the reasons. But only definitively seeing the bands will tell us for sure. Both loons are banded, which argues that it we have had contact with them before. It still could be the 'other pair' on the lake which we have also banded. But that would mean we also had a territory change.

They seemed to recognize that this was the place where the nest had been even before I got the nest in the water. They swam in close to shore and watched me as I was working on getting the nest in the lake.

They seem to recognize the nest and the surrounding area and took ownership of it very early.

But all of those are just circumstantial reasons until we get a good view of the bands.

I got a note yesterday from Kevin Kenow.

Kevin is the person from the USGS that did the banding and has had a multi-year project studying loons. He knows them better than almost anyone else.

Kevin watched yesterday's video of the loon/goose confrontation on the nest and here is what he said:

"Hi Larry,

Thanks for sharing this great video clip! It appears that the aggressive loon is the female banded last summer...I got a glimpse of the green/silver band combination on the right leg as the loon was exiting the platform.

Kevin"

So it looks like it IS the female that we banded last year. I would trust Kevin's eyes and opinion over almost anyone else. And I think I have gotten a glimpse of the blue stripe band on the male, but not good enough view that I would swear to it.

And it is also fascinating that apparently it is the new female that was the one who got up on the nest and actually chased the goose away! She has definitely taken strong ownership of the nest.

When they start nesting, we will have many opportunities to get better views of the bands. But for now it looks like the female is the one we banded last summer. And probably it is our male from the last several years.

Thursday, April 23, 2015 11:31 pm CDT

Guest User April 23, 2015

34 degrees F Partly Cloudy Calm

Sunrise 6:14 am CDT Sunset 8:09 pm CDT

Today has been quite the eventful day on the LoonCam!

The loons have visited more often, especially this evening.

They have been up on the nest for longer periods of time and are even starting to get more serious about nest building.

They once again mated early this morning. The 6th time by my count but there may have been others I missed.

All of this is as I predicted and it is very much to be expected as we proceed toward the hopeful nesting, laying of eggs and hatching of chicks.

I would say that we are proceeding along very nicely.

But the biggest news today is not any of those things.

Very early this morning a pair of geese once again decided that this is the house and the neighborhood that they wanted to move into!

So they just moved in.

No realtor. No open house. No down payment. No contract.

One of the geese just got up on the nest while the other one swam around 'outside the house'. The goose even went so far as to start rearranging a few knick knacks int he house and even laid down and tried out one of the beds!

It took about 4 or 5 minutes for the loons all the way across the lake to see that they had intruders in their house. And they made a beeline for their nest. As the agitated loons swam around the nest, just out of view they were chasing the other goose. While the goose up on the nest peered over the edge with great concern and tried to keep track of where the loons were.

Finally one of the loons vaulted up onto the nest.

I could not tell if the loon actually stabbed the goose. But I would not be surprised it it did or at least tried.

The goose jumped backwards, hit the camera with its wings, then bounced on the nest as it took off as fast as it could fly.

It was quite amazing to watch.

Gail, one of our faithful viewers for many years fortunately was recording the whole incident and posted a video of it at Larry's Loon Lovers on Facebook as well as on YouTube. I think you would find it very interesting to watch at one of those two places.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsqcKu8luNE

I asked Gail if she would allow me to send it to our NBC affiliate tv station in the Twin Cities, KARE11 and she graciously agreed.

KARE11 used the video on at least one of their newscasts tonight, although unfortunately they did not include the sound so people did not hear the 'bang' of the goose hitting the camera.

As of right now as I write this, there have been over 11,000 views of that video!

I have even gotten word that television stations in Houston and Seattle have shown the video tonight! I am sure we will get word of even more stations in the days ahead!

Isn't this incident SO typical of what happens on the LoonCam?

99% of the time you are watching plants grow on the empty nest.

And then in an instant out of nowhere something unbelievable like this happens.

Keep watching to see what will happen next.

You don't want to miss it!

And thank you to all of you who watch so faithfully and document every thing for everyone else.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015 5:15 am CDT

Guest User April 22, 2015

31 degrees Cloudy Wind 15mph NW

Sunrise 6:16 am CDT Sunset 8:08 pm CDT

The wind just will not let up.

All day yesterday it blew from the northwest. Cold and biting.

There were snow flurries off and on all day. Dark scudding clouds blew across the sky. Mixtures of rain and snow would turn to all snow. Then to pellets of ice. Something meteorologists call "gropple", which is snow that has partially melted and then refrozen and falls as an icy pellet. Then back to snow. And rain. And even hints of sun.

The waves on the lake have been constant as well. The nest has been bounced and battered and buffeted by the waves and the wind.

So far everything on the nest is still holding together. The constant action of the waves always pose a danger of washing loon nests away.

This floating platform can at least 'ride with the waves' to a certain extent. Although there is still the danger of the waves washing the nesting materials away.

But a nest on shore is even more vulnerable to high waves which can batter it and wash up over it. And literally wash the eggs out of the nest.

That is why loons often try to build their nests in a somewhat sheltered area if they can find one.

And that is why in some ways this nesting platform is 'all wrong' - because it can be exposed to the effects of the wind and waves. But it also illustrates how strongly loons value its protection from shore predators.

Even though they sometimes bear the brunt of the wind and waves, they are protected from shore predators by being out in the water about 150 feet from shore. And they seem to choose that over being on shore.

Our loons have been visiting the nest periodically. And their visits seem to be increasing in frequency slightly. Even with a little bit of nest building activity.

That is a good and very encouraging sign.

Over the next few days I would encourage you to watch for that increase in nesting activity. More frequent visits to the nest. Longer times spent on the nest. Possibly more matings. And increased nest building activity.

They will move a lot of the nest material by taking it in their beaks and placing it along side them. By doing this they gradually build a 'nest bowl'.

But the more serious nest building is when they start to dig with their feet and dig down into the nesting material to deepen that bowl. They will dig and then settle down into it, making it feel just right. Then they will turn some and repeat the procedure.

Each time the nest becomes more defined and deeper and made just to comfortably fit them.

I would say we are still a few days off from egg laying. But we are getting closer.

One of the surest signs we are getting closer is when you see the loon on the nest getting serious about nest building.

But it is going to be a rocky ride for them. The wind is forecast to continue all day today and maybe in to tomorrow And the unseasonable cold continues.

Our loons take it all in stride.

They have seen it before and they will see it again.

Minnesota Bound

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