Thursday, May 21, 2015 5:10 am CDT

38 degrees F     Scattered Clouds   Wind Calm

Sunrise   5:37 am CDT     Sunset   8:43 pm CDT

It is a perfectly still morning.

The eastern sky is painted with pinks and blues and the sun will soon peak over the eastern horizon.  And with it starts a new day.

Our loon is awake on the nest, alert and looking around.  I assume it is our male.  If it is still the male, that means he has been on the nest since 1:27 pm yesterday afternoon.   Once again it is the male who has been taking the overnight shifts.  Very LONG shifts.

Other birds have started their morning songs and calls.

It is still chilly this morning.  But unlike the last two mornings which hit 32 and 33 degrees and struggled to rise during the day, today should be the start of a warming trend.

Late last night when I went outside to check on things, I heard a coyote howling and yipping across the lake.

I have been told for the last couple years that we have numerous coyotes in the area.  But this is the first time I have actually heard one howling.

You can add coyotes to your list of predators that would disturb loons that are nesting on shore.  I don't know if they would specifically target loons or their eggs.  But they seem to be very opportunistic predators so I think there is a probability that they would go after the adult loon or even the eggs.

I have never heard or read any reports of that.  Normally coyotes would not occupy the same area that most loons would be nesting.  But as coyotes become more prevalent, I think we may hear reports of increased conflict.

Several people have asked for more information about the nest and the area where it is located on the lake.

So let me try to give you a little bit of a  bird's eye view - or "loon's eye view" - of the nest.

The nest is located about 150 feet off shore in about 2 to 3 feet of water.  That level varies depending on the year and the time of year

It is anchored at two points to keep it from spinning and twisting in the wind.

One is a permanent 'screw' anchor that is attached to the bottom of the lake.  The other is a rope attached to a cement block.  Both have excess line so that if the water rises, the cement block will move and allow the nesting platform to rise with the rising water.

Some of you will remember a few years ago when we had very heavy rains and the lake came up 17 inches in 24 hours.  We ran out of rope and the nest was in danger of being pulled underwater and destroyed.

I had to go out there and add additional rope to keep the nest from being destroyed.

Going out to the nest is something I try to NEVER do when the loons are around.  Both for their safety as well as mine.

Even though the loons seem to know me and tolerate me, the danger of being stabbed is very real.

They have never tried to stab me in the few times that I have had to go out to the nest through the years.  But they have swam within a few inches of my legs.  Close enough that I could feel them as they swam by.

They easily could have stabbed me.  But I have not seen them try.

The nesting platform itself is built out of a framework of PVC pipe,  Then there is a 'base' of foam that fills the entire center of the platform.  This provides additional flotation and support for the nest itself.

All of that is bound together by plastic mesh and landscape fabric.

On top of all of that, I place cattails and weeds and other material that normally washes up on the shore of the lake.  All things that loons would normally find when they are looking for a place to build their nest.

On the 'back' corners of the nest platform, are willow branches about 4 feet high - behind the camera and also to the corner of the platform to your right. The camera and the infrared light are mounted on top of a very sturdy post attached to one corner of the nest platform.  It is about 3 feet high and that puts your view within 3 to 4 feet of the nest itself.

That is a view that you would never be able to get in the wild.

The willow branches actually grow roots in the water and the leaves begin to open.  Not as well as if they were still on the tree.  But they do grow nonetheless.

Those willow branches are there to try to prevent eagles from swooping down directly on the nest or on the loon who is sitting on the nest.

Around the edges of the platform I have planted a number of different plants.  Their function is to help keep the nesting material from washing away in high waves and wind.  Most of the plants are flowering plants, especially iris.

I chose iris as a tribute to the voyageurs who centuries ago plied our northern lakes along what is now the Canadian border during the fur trading era.

These voyageurs were often of French background and the iris is the fleur- de- lis on the French crest.  The voyageurs would often plant iris to mark some of the portages in canoe country.  To this day you will find iris growing near some portages in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

I have a couple new plants that I am trying as well this year.  But I haven't said what they are .  I am letting you watch them grow and see if you can guess what they are.  Hopefully some of them will bloom before the loons leave the nest.

The plants have really struggled this year.

From it being very dry early in the season, the plants have suffered from the lack of rain.  So they are way behind where they should be.

But in addition to that, the loons seem to love to 'excavate' around the plants this year.  I don't know what their fascination is with trying to take every bit of dirt.  But they have done just that.  They even pulled on plant out by the roots and moved it closer to the nest.  I think they totally destroyed one of the other plants because I cannot see it on the camera any more.

As the plants grow, it also give additional cover to the loons.

But everything I have done is to try to keep the nest as natural as possible.  To keep it close to the type of material and vegetation that loons would normally find when they would build a nest along shore. 

Around the nesting platform are 15 buoys plus a large swimming raft that the neighbors graciously provide.  These buoys are anywhere from 50 to 200 feet away from the nest.  The buoys that you can just barely see on the cam are about 50 feet out from the nest.

All of that is to try to keep boaters and fishermen and canoers and kayakers from coming too close to the nest.

It is a federal and a state crime to purposely disturb nesting loons.

In addition to that, there are a couple buoys and a number of stakes and posts that show where the tv cables lie on the bottom of the lake ... just in case a boat would ignore the other buoys hopefully they would not run over and cut the tv cables.

So there you have an overview of what you can see on the LoonCam as well as a few things you cannot see.

So enjoy the view of our loons today on the LoonCam.

And watch things that you would never be able to see in any other way other than the LoonCam!

We are probably less that two week away from hatching.

If your friends and family have not been watching so far, tell them it is not too late.

The most exciting time is yet to come.

Copyright 2015   Larry R Backlund

Tuesday May 19, 2015 5:03 am CDT

35 degrees F     Clear    Wind   3 mph NW

Sunrise   5:39 am CDT     Sunset   8:41 pm CDT

Pink paints the eastern sky with the promise of sunrise in a little more that half an hour.

The birds are just starting their morning songs.

Already the loon on the nest is awake, alert and looking around.

What will today bring?

The temperature is very cold but not unheard of for this time of year.  Yesterday set a new "record low high" temperature for a town not too  far away from "Loon Lake".

Right now it is only 35 degrees here for our loons.  It is still possible that it might drop to freezing in the next couple hours although I doubt it will.  Definitely there will have been frost in some parts of the state and they were predicting a hard freeze in Western Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Ahhhh the wonders of living in the Theater of Seasons.

At 2:31 am this morning we passed the two week mark since the first egg was laid.  It is hard to believe it has already been that long.

At the two week mark in the development of the chicks inside the egg, feathers have started to develop, the mouth has begun to open and the claws on the chick's feet have begun to develop.

It is hard to even comprehend the wonders that are taking place inside that egg.

Wonders too marvelous to behold.

It is so easy to take it all for granted.

To just say 'that is the way it is'.

But when you stop to think about what is really happening, it is more than the mind can take in.  How does the egg white and egg yolk of our breakfast eggs become heart and blood vessels and eyes and feathers?

And LIFE?

Who does it?  How do They do it?  Who came up with the plan?  And Who carries it out?

I know if someone told me "Go build a loon", I wouldn't have the slightest clue of where to begin.  Where to get the parts.  How to go about it.  How to make the pieces fit.  Not only how to make them fit, how to MAKE the pieces themselves before trying to fit them!

But this miracle takes place around us all the time.  And because it is so common, we do not stop to think how much of a miracle it actually is.

But that is what is going on under the loon right now.

In order for it to happen, it must be exactly the right temperature and humidity.  A few degrees too cold and the chick will not survive.  A few degrees too hot , and the chick will not survive.  But when it is just right, lifelessness becomes LIFE.

That is the pressure that our loon parents are under today.

To maintain just those right conditions for our chicks to continue their development.

Anything that would draw them off the nest for any length of time in the cold during this critical time, could prove fatal to the chicks.

Whether it be an eagle that draws them off.  Or a person.  Or an animal. Or an intruder loon.  Or a fisherman getting too close to the nest.  Or a thousand and one other things that could draw them off the nest and away from the eggs.

We worry whenever they are off the nest.

But they feel something even more profound.  What is it?  What compels them to sit on the nest hour after hour?  Day after day. In cold.  In heat.  In rain.  In wind.  

What compels them to defend the nest?

Do they actually know that in a couple more weeks they will have little chicks?

Once again we are faced with our own inadequacies and our lack of ability to understand something so deep and so profound.

And so we can only sit back and say THANK YOU!

And enjoy the wonder of LIFE itself!

Copyright 2015     Larry R Backlund

Monday, May 18, 2015 2:30 pm CDT

48 degrees F     Cloudy   Wind 10 mph WNW

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

We have just had a very nice and smooth nest exchange between our loons.

The male got up from the back side of the nest and just sat and waited.

The female did not seem to be in any hurry to leave.  But finally she slowly slid off the front of the nest.  The male moved onto the nest, rolled the eggs and settle down on them, tightly tucking his wingtips  around the back of the eggs to shield them from the chilly wind.

The temperature got down to 39 degrees here this morning.  And it may be even lower tomorrow morning.  There are predictions of scattered frost around the area.  And there was some scattered snow flurries reported in extreme northern Minnesota, up along the Canadian border with possibly more tomorrow.

But for our loons, it is only wind and rain and chilly weather.

But weather that could do damage to the eggs if they are exposed for very long.

This is a very crucial time in the development of the eggs.  The chicks definitely should be developing.  But they are not far enough along to generate their own warmth and heat yet.  So it is important for the parent loons to stay on the nest.

I still have not explanation for what happened Saturday night/early Sunday morning.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be pretty intense.

I thought that the territorial battles were somewhat over and that the territorial lines had been drawn.  But apparently once again the loons saw and understood much more than we do.

It is interesting that loons will establish very defined territories.  You can almost plant surveyors stakes at the boundaries they are so well defined.

I got a call from  a neighbor on the other side of the lake last night.

He verified that the other pair of loons is still here and they have also  nested.  He said the nest is in almost the exact same spot that it was last year.  So I am assuming this is the same pair of loons that we banded and put data recorders on a couple years ago.

If they have chicks this year, hopefully we will be able to capture them later this summer and retrieve those data recorders.  That will give us a lot of information about where they have been and where they traveled.    We tried to capture them last year but were not able to because they did not have chicks last year.

Since you listened to many of the calls on Saturday night, this might be a good time to refresh everyone's memory of what the different calls of the loon are and what the calls mean.

Loons have 4 basic calls: the wail, the tremolo, the yodel and the hoot.

A very good resource for listening to these calls can be found at the the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology's website "All About Birds".  You can find it at http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Loon/sounds  and the recordings of the calls are there so that you can hear what each call sounds like.

Now for the meanings.

The WAIL is a call that loons use to keep in touch with each other.  It is a "I am hear, where are you" call.  I usually divide the calls into 2 'good' calls and two 'bad' calls, although there is not such thing as a bad call.  I simply mean that they 'good' calls mean the loons is not distressed, where as the 'bad' calls mean that the loon is very concerned about something.  The wait is a 'good' call.

The TREMOLO is a call that a loon makes when something is causing them concern.  It may be another loon, an eagle, a boat, a person, an animal - almost anything.  It is one of the 2 'bad' calls since it means the loon is concerned about something.  Both the male and the female loon will make the tremolo call.

The YODEL is the most extreme of the 4 calls.  It is made ONLY by the male and means he is very disturbed about something.  It is often used as a territorial call to warn other loons to stay away from his territory and to tell them that he is ready to fight if they insist on coming closer.  It is the second of the 2 'bad' calls.

The HOOT is a call that almost no one ever hears.  It is a very quiet call that adult loons make when they are close to each other or that an adult will make with a chick.  It is the second of the 2 'good' calls and is just communication at close quarters with not stress or concern involved.

There are two other calls that have not been well documented.

The first is the MEW.  Loon researcher Judith MCIntyre first described the mewing sound some 40 years ago but very little has been written or documented about it.  Much of that has been right here on the LoonCam since you have often heard the MEW from the loons on or around the nest.

The other call that I have seen nothing to document it, has been heard by me often during mating here on the LoonCam.  I am not aware that anyone has ever described it before.  And I don't have a good name for it yet but it is different enough that I would classify it as a separate and distinct call.  I have heard it only being made by the female.  After she has gotten up on the nest, it is a rapid series of 'clucking' sounds made by the female.  It seems to be an invitation to the male to mate.  And I have only heard it used in those circumstances.  Some of you may have heard it as well.

But like I say, I have not come up with a good name for it.  "Clucking" just does not seem to do it justice.  But it does seem to be a very unique and distinct call by the female, different from all other calls.

Once again we are able to observe and hear things on the LoonCam that we have never been able to observe before.

We are well into the countdown to the hatch somewhere around the last couple days of May to the first couple days of June.

You don't want to miss a minute of it. 

Let alone all the drama that happens in between!

Let everyone on your social media know that now is the time to start watching if they have not been watching before.

Copyright 2015     Larry R Backlund

Sunday, May 17, 2015 5:39 am CDT

67 degrees     Cloudy     Wind Calm

Sunrise   5:41 am CDT     Sunset   8:39 pm CDT

Late last night was one of the strangest nights I have ever seen on the nest.

Around midnight there were some yodels and other calls from way out on the lake.

The male on the nest answered with 6 repeated yodels but he never left the nest.

I have never observed a male yodeling repeatedly from the nest but never leaving.

Then things quieted down for about 25 minutes.

Then once again the male loon on the nest yodeled several more times.  Until he finally left the nest and swam off toward the calls coming from somewhere distant out on the lake.

It started to rain heavily.  And the eggs lay exposed to the rain.

But then a few minutes later, a loon got up on the edge of the nesting platform.  It did not get up on the nest or cover the eggs.  It just sat and looked around for a minute or so and then got back in the water.

Was it our loon?  Was it an intruder?  I could not get a look to see if it had bands.

I must say it had a creepy feel as if a burglar was casing the  joint.  It may have been one of "our loons".  But why did they not get up on the nest?

There were more repeated wails and tremolos from out on the lake.  Many of them.

But no sign of our loons returning to the nest or to cover the eggs.  At least the heavy rain had stopped after just a few minutes.

After 33 minutes off the eggs, one of the loons gets up on the nest, rolls the eggs and settles down.  It is very hard to tell in the dark but I think it may be the female.  This is also unusual because she normally has not take a shift over night.

Once again, when you think you have seen everything, something totally new happens.

Right now, the lake is like a sheet of glass.

Frogs are singing and the birds are waking up.

The forecast for today is for more rain and possible thunderstorms.  But hopefully there will not be any severe weather.

Last night there were 9 tornadoes in western Minnesota.  But thankfully I have not heard any reports of severe damage or injury.

After today, the weather is supposed to turn much colder.  With even the possibility of the temperature dropping close to freezing tomorrow morning and Tuesday morning.

Welcome to Minnesota - The Theater of Seasons!

Let's hope that in today's "play", it will be a quiet and calm one for our loons!

Copyright   2015     Larry R Backlund

Saturday, May 16, 2015 7:30 am CDT

57 degrees CDT     Mostly Cloudy     Wind  Calm

Sunrise   5:42 am CDT     Sunset   8:38 pm CDT

Birds sing their morning song.

Peaks of sunshine sneak through what is a mostly cloudy sky.

The lake is calm except for a few ripples from whispers of wind.

The geese seem to be much quieter now.  At least three families of geese have new goslings that apparently have hatched within the last few days.

And there is a loon sitting on a nest in Minnesota taking care of the 2 precious eggs that contain the promise of a new generation of loons.

Does life get much better?

Once again overnight the male has done the yeoman's service of sitting on the eggs, keeping them warm and keeping them protected from predators.  This last shift overnight was 15 hours and 8 minutes!

It would be interesting to know what goes through a loon's mind that drives them to spend so much time in an environment that is so foreign to them.  For being out of the water is very foreign to them.

They were made for the water.  That is where they spend their life.

But for these few short weeks, something changes and drives them to leave the water and to sit high and dry on a nest.  Out of the water.  In hot sun and cold and rain and wind and sometimes even frost and snow.  Something so deep within them causes them to totally change their behavior for these few weeks.

Luckily for us and future generations of loons that change in behavior results in 2 new loon chicks!

Today they are predicting rain moving in later this afternoon and lasting through most of tomorrow.

Temperatures are supposed to get up into the upper 70s today.  So the clouds and the rain will help to keep the loon on the nest cooler.

You will notice when the loon is sitting on the nest and the sun is out, that they will sit with their beak open.  They are doing exactly what it looks like - panting.  Much like a dog panting, it is the loon's way of coping with being out of the cool water and it helps to cool them off.

Before we had sound on the LoonCam, some people thought that the loon was calling when it had its beak open.  And they were wishing they could hear the loon calling all the time.  But no, the loon is not calling.  It is just trying to stay cool.

Loons for the most part are very silent when they are on the nest.  That seems to be a way of not drawing attention to the location of the nest.

But with today probably being a warm day, watch for the loon panting as it sits on the nest.  It would probably be much happier to be swimming in the cool water.  But sit it must.  The eggs demand it.

Also watch for something else today.

This is one of the many miracles about loons that just amazes me.

But it also makes me feel sorry for the loon.

You may notice very small flies that fly around the loon's head and land especially around the eyes and the 'nostrils'.

This is a species of black flies.  Not the kind of black flies that fly around us and bite humans.  This is a black fly that is the size of a gnat or even smaller.  But it is not a gnat either.

It is a black fly that to me is one of the stunning examples of the specialization of nature.  For these black flies are thought to feed almost exclusively on loon blood!

I shake my head every time I think of it.

How can a fly develop and survive if it only feeds on loon blood?!

The scientific name for that black fly is Simulium euryadminiculum. 

It was first described in 1949 in Ontario.  But has since been studied and verified by a number of different scientists through the years.  The latest being studies done by the University of Northern Michigan.

All of these studies seem to confirm that this particular black fly only targets loons.  In fact, in several tests, when given the choice between an old museum loon skin specimen and a live duck, the fly targeted the old loon skin!

It is not known what the attractant is.  But it is thought that one of the prime possibilities may be the smell given off from oil that loons produce and use to coat their feathers.

There is a small gland at the upper surface of the loon's tail that produces this oil.  If you watch a loon grooming, you can see them use their beak to rub against this gland.  And then they will spread that oil over their feathers.

You can actually feel and see this gland if you handle a loon.  It is a small bump on the surface back by the loon's tail.

Now as amazing as the specialization of this black fly is, one cannot help but feel sorry for our loons being tormented by the fly as they sit on the nest.

They do not have our luxury of bug sprays.  They cannot go inside a screened in porch to get away from this biting black fly.  They have to just sit on the nest and endure it.  

There have been cases observed where the black flies have become so bad that loons have actually abandoned their nest.

For no other reason than black flies, I am sure the loon would prefer to stay in the water.

So watch today for this black fly around the loon's head.

And if you want, brush your computer screen and see if you can help the loon by keeping the black flies away!!

Copyright   2015   Larry R Backlund