Friday, May 22, 2015 8:15 pm CDT

Guest User May 22, 2015

66 degrees F Clear Wind Calm

Sunrise 5:36 am CDT Sunset 8:44 pm CDT

Today has been a beautiful, quiet, sunshine-filled day here in Minnesota at "Loon Lake".

In fact maybe a little too nice.

Our loons can definitely cope with cool to even cold weather better than they can with hot weather.

When they are in the water, the water keeps them cool.

But when they have to sit up on the nest, the sun beating down on their dark plumage tends to warm them up.

That is why you see them often sit on the nest with their beaks open. They are doing exactly what dogs do. They are panting to help remove excess heat from their bodies. Or they may go into the water more often to help cool off.

This is Memorial Day weekend here in the US. A day to remember all those who have lost their lives in service to their country. Or just a general time to remember those who are no longer with us.

It is the first of the big weekend holidays of the summer.

That means that there will be a lot of people on lakes all across the state.

That also means possibly increased disturbances for our loons. From people who just want to get a closer look at our beloved loons. Or people getting too close just because they are not paying attention.

It is a good time to remind your friends and family to be on the lookout for loons when they are out on the lakes. And to stay well away from the nests. Too many disturbances could cause loons to abandon their nests.

One time probably won't affect them Nor will two times. And so most people think they have not had an effect on the loons because they disturbed them for only a couple minutes.

But when you add this boat to that canoe to that fisherman to that waterskiier, each one takes an increasing toll.

So if you stay well back from the nest, you will not disturb them Bring a pair of binoculars with you and you can observe them without disturbing them.

Or better yet, get the BEST view right here on the LoonCam!

We are expected to get rain on both Sunday and Monday so that will cut down on the boat traffic on the lake. And cause less stress on our loons.

One of the things that I neglected to mention yesterday when I was talking about the setup of the nesting platform was the "chick ramp". It is a small floating extension that is located right below the camera. While chicks normally do not return to the nest after they have left, sometimes the first chick may try to get back up on the nest before the second chick hatches.

This small floating extension is intended to make it easier for him to get back up on the nest.

Yesterday while I was mowing the lawn, I had a very small mayfly land on my arm. So the mayfly hatch has apparently just started. I have not seen many of them around yet. But when the hatch is in full swing, there can be a lot of them.

Here at Loon Lake we do not have excessively large hatches of mayflies. There are some places that have such large hatches that they have to actually scoop up large piles of mayflies. And sometimes highways can actually become slippery and hazardous due to large numbers of mayflies on the highway.

But we normally do not have those kinds of problems with mayflies here.

Most of the insects that I am seeing on the LoonCam today are not mayflies.

I do not know my insects well enough to tell you for sure what they are. But I think they may be a hatch of caddisflies. Someone here will probably know their insects much better than I do and can identify them.

Neither mayflies nor caddisflies are of any concern to the loons.

It is the blackflies that bother loons more than any other insects. So far I have not seen large numbers of blackflies on the loons this year. Which is a good thing.

We are now less than two weeks away from the probable hatching of our expected chicks.

Enjoy the wait. And the stress. And the wonderful expectation of watching this true miracle of nature!

Thursday, May 21, 2015 5:10 am CDT

Guest User May 21, 2015

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.

Tuesday May 19, 2015 5:03 am CDT

Guest User May 19, 2015

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!

Monday, May 18, 2015 2:30 pm CDT

Guest User May 18, 2015

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.

Sunday, May 17, 2015 5:39 am CDT

Guest User May 17, 2015

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!

Minnesota Bound

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