The Nest

   Because nests are just small heaps of readily available vegetation, a 
common loon would never win a prize for either design or 
construction technique. After one nesting season, Sigurd Olson 
dissected a few loon nests and could not find a single material 
common to all the nests. Popular nest materials in his Minnesota 
wilderness study area were sweet gale, sedges and cedar boughs. 
Most likely, loons first select a site and then utilize whatever 
material is handy.

   Loons are open-minded in their selection of the exact spot for their 
nest. Olson observed loons nesting on everything from sedge mats 
and floating muskeg to gravel bars and bare rock ledges. Often loons 
will plunk down right out in the open, making no attempt to 
camouflage their nest. Perhaps being large and aggressive 
compensates for such indiscreet behavior. However, many loons do 
build nests in heavy cover and attempt to keep their presence quiet 
and such loons probably have greater nesting success.

   The loon nest is primitive, indicative perhaps of the loon's ancient 
heritage. There is no careful interlacing of materials or delicate 
placement of vegetation. Observing loons construct a nest, Judy 
McIntyre thought the placement of materials to be careless, a "lucky 
throw" when something landed in the right place. The loons she 
watched did not travel for any supplies; they simply pulled materials 
from within reach. Such an approach limits the physical dimensions 
of the nest. The largest nest McIntyre found weighed about forty 
pounds. Not much compared to an eagle's nest which crashed to the 
ground in Ohio years agomit weighed over 4,000 pounds. Of course, 
that nest housed eagle families for about forty years, with each 
family, no doubt, doing a little custom remodeling work. Common 
loons take a different view of home ownership. They return to the 
same site each year, and salvage old nest materials as best they can. 
Generally though, a great deal of new work has to be done. The sight 
of the old nest may be the reason loons tend to reuse the exact 
nesting site. One Maine study indicated that over half of all nesting 
loons reused the same nest.

   The nests of the yellow-billed and Pacific loons are used more than 
one season and are far more substantial. Living on tundra lakes with 
little relief, yellow-billed and Pacific loons may need larger and 
consequently higher nests to provide a vantage point in the endlessly 
flat tundra country.

   The nest building of the common loon does not consume a great 
deal of time. Judy McIntyre watched a pair of loons construct a nest 
over a four-day period. Recording the time the loons actually worked 
on the nest, McIntyre clocked the building project at three minutes 
shy of six hours. The male provided slightly more than half of the 
avian labor.