Loon Magic/Loon Magic - Wayzata Technology (8011) (1993).iso/mac/text/daylife.a

Text File | 1993-07-26 | 9KB | 168 lines

NANCY MACMILLER
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A LOON


Slowly, the total blackness of a night with no moonlight begins to
recede and the faintest hints of light are seen in the east. After
floating in the cove all night, a loon, still with its head tucked back
under its wing, watches the lake become visible in the early morning
light.

Greeting the new day, the loon raises its head and looks around. Only
fifty feet away, its mate sits motionless on the nest, covering the
eggs, insulating them from the early morning chill. The loon on the
water hoots softly and his mate returns the gentle call. Turning to
face the open water of the lake, the loon suddenly rears up with its
neck outstretched, bill pointing to the sky, and flaps his wings
vigorously. Settling back on the water, he begins to swim slowly
along the shoreline, occasionally peering beneath the water's surface.

As he swims, he stops to preen his feathers. Obtaining oil from a
gland beneath his tail, he draws his wing feathers through his bill
one at a time, reconnecting the web of hooks and shafts and covering
the feathers with natural waterproofing. He preens meticulously
making sure no feather is missed. At one point, he stretches back and
rubs his head against his back feathers to waterproof one of the few
places on his body he can't reach with his bill.

A fish darting in the shallows catches his attention, but he doesn't
chase it. Instead, he continues to patrol the boundaries of the part of
the lake he and his mate have claimed as their territory for the
summer. Stopping over a submerged reef, the loon peers intently
into the depths. Upon spotting a small fish, he dives quickly and
pursues it, but it escapes into a weed bed. The loon resurfaces and
shakes the water from his head. Several more forays along the reef
fail to produce a fish.

Then, without warning, the loon begins to run across the calm lake
surface. After 100 yards it is airborne and it circles the lake gaining
altitude slowly. The female on the nest wails and the flying loon
gives a flight tremolo several times in reply. The loon flies over the
forest surrounding the lake to a nearby large lake almost two miles
away. As the lake comes into view, he gives the flight tremolo again.
On the lake below him there are many loons. One protests his arrival
by giving the yodel call while a group of four loons becomes alert
and watches him land.

The loon swims to the group of four and they begin some ritualistic
behavior reminiscent of a dance. Slowly and deliberately, they swim
in a circle and then a figure eight, heads held high. Then, they dive in
synchrony and resurface one at a time. After several minutes of this,
the loon breaks away from the group and swims nearly 150 yards
underwater to a shallow, weedy cove. There he begins to swim
slowly along the outer edge of the emergent vegetation, head held
underwater, eyes fixed on the bottom. A slow-moving crayfish
becomes his first meal of the day. He brings it to the surface and
manipulates it in his bill before swallowing it whole. He catches
several small fish in the next half hour and eats them underwater.

A distant wail turns his attention from feeding and he wails in
response. Another wail is heard and he gives a wail back again.
Laboring a bit with a full crop, the loon runs across the water and
flies off the lake. Within three minutes, he lands on his home lake.
His mate on the nest wails again and he replies. He swims toward the
nest. When he is within thirty feet, the female clambers off the nest
and heads for the open lake. The male climbs awkwardly onto the
nest and turns the egg several times with his bill before settling
down on them.

From the nest, he watches his mate feed and preen. He also watches
the first activity of the humans in the camps on the opposite side of
the lake. A slamming screen door and the sight of a dog running
down the shoreline cause him to lay flat on the nest, his head held
over the edge and his bill almost touching the water. Some fisherman
climb into a boat and start to motor along the shoreline. As they
round the corner of the lake and head into the cove, he stays in the
"hang over" posture. The boat passes the nest about 100 yards from
shore, but the loon does not leave the nest. As the human activity
increases and the sounds of human voices and outboard motors
become a droning hum, the loon closes one eye and then the other.

An excited tremolo call from his mate startles him awake. Some
children in a canoe have entered their cove and are heading right for
the nest. His mate attempts to distract the canoeists by diving from
one side of the canoe to the other. The children are unaware of the
loon nest nearby and try to catch the female loon. They paddle
furiously, shouting and laughing, but the loon escapes easily by
diving underwater. The children respond as if its a game of hide and
seek trying to guess where the loon will come up next. Purposely, she
leads them to the open water part of the lake away from the nest.
Then, she dives and swims all the way back to the nest underwater,
leaving the children wondering where she could be.

Hooting softly, the loons trade places. For an hour, the male sits
motionless in the shadowed shallow water near the nest, watching
the lake, preening occasionally. Later, the loon swims out onto the
lake toward the loon territory on the other side of a peninsula. He
swims much of the way underwater surfacing only for a breath of
air. He stops near an area that serves as the boundary between the
two territories where he sees another adult loon nearby feeding in
the shallows. He swims toward the loon. They interact
nonaggressively for several minutes before a third loon approaches
from behind an island. All three swim in a circle and dive several
times before one of the loons lays his head low over the water and
gives a yodel while the other bird watches from nearby. Feeling a bit
uncomfortable away from his own territory, the loon swims away
and heads back toward the nest. As he leaves, the other loon yodels
two more times.

A large boat speeding across the water causes him to dive although it
doesn't get closer than fifty yards. He swims to a shallow area in the
cove and feeds and preens for nearly an hour.

He then swims back to the nest where he finds his mate snapping at
mosquitos and black flies buzzing around her head. Upon seeing her
mate nearby, she slips into the water for a cooling dip and relief
from the flies. The loons leave the eggs uncovered for a half hour as
they lazily feed, preen, and loaf. They perform some subtle, pair-
bonding rituals that consist of synchronized head movements and
shallow dives before the female returns to the nest.

 For the rest of the afternoon, the male loon swims in his territory,
occasionally preening and peering below the surface. Several times,
he stops and lifts one leg out of the water, shakes it, and tucks it up
under one wing. Leaving one foot in the water as a rudder, he drifts
with the wind, sometimes closing one or both eyes.

With the sun now low over the treetops, the loon swims back to the
nest and relieves his mate of incubation duties. He turns the eggs
again and picks at some vegetation with his bill, adding a few sticks
and blades of grass to the shallow nest bowl.

His mate is off feeding as he watches the activity on the lake. A stick
breaking behind him in the forest causes him to become motionless
and to lay low on the nest. More sounds and the approach of an
animal make him slip off the nest silently and he swims several
yards from the shore. A white-tailed deer walks out of the forest and
comes to the water's edge to drink. It walks along the shore in the
shallow water directly in front of the loon's nest. After it leaves, the
loon returns to the nest.

Just before nightfall, the loon on the nest hears the flight tremolo of
an approaching loon and sees it land on the lake near his mate. The
female and the visitor swim together for fifteen minutes before the
visitor swims off toward the other loon territory. The female returns
to the nest and they switch places again. This time the male swims
out to the middle of the territory where he preens and swims around
with no apparent destination.

Several hours after the sky has become dark, some people go out in a
boat with bright lights and a noisy motor. The loon gives a tremolo
call four times and the loons in the other territory call also. From
nearby lakes more tremolos are heard. Then the lake becomes quiet.

Sitting out on the lake away from the nest, the male loon gives a wail
call several times. His wails echo off the water and trees and he calls
again. He hears wails, tremolos, and yodels from the other loons on
the lake and from loons on other lakes. He continues to call,
chorusing with the other loons. At one point, he stretches his neck
over the water and gives the yodel call several times.

Later, he swims back into the cove and gives a couple of hoot calls.
His mate hoots back softly and they change places once again. He sits
quietly on the nest for several hours listening intently to the night
sounds. Nearby, his mate sleeps on the water. Then, he sees the first
light of dawn.

*****