Loon Magic/Loon Magic - Wayzata Technology (8011) (1993).iso/mac/pc_text/09homeb.txt

Text File | 1993-07-25 | 3KB | 52 lines

   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.