[Editor's Note: A followup on the previous guest post.]
Hi All,
Last night I was dodging boat traffic and riding boat wakes to watch the
loons feeding their fast-growing chicks. While the slightly bigger chick
was swallowing a bass caught by the father loon, the mother loon surfaced with a sunfish for the other chick.
The chicks are starting to grow in their gray and white contour feathers, and will soon enter the homely stage where the brown down feathers are being lost and the chick looks patchy and
unkempt. The whole loon family is very tolerant of people and canoes.
I am surprised and happy that both chicks have so far managed to survive the
heavy summer boat traffic. The loon family seems to do a circuit of the
lake, and appears in my part of the lake for 2 or 3 days at a time, then
disappears for 3 days or so. Unfortunately, their schedule has them near
my part on the weekends when the boat traffic is heaviest, which is tough on
the loons and tough on me in my little canoe trying to watch them. Only a
little more than a month before Labor Day! Hang in there, little loons!
Ellie