The Common Loon on the Lake

At dawn's first light I was up and ready to embrace the day. I stepped outside in dawn's early light and heard an unfamiliar sound that resembled a coyote.

You have to remember I'm not familiar with the wilderness sounds and we were, after all, in the Adirondack Mountains with images of Paul Bunyan and folklore stories dancing in my mind.

I woke the husband up from his slumber (it was 5:00 am and he wasn't all that happy about being awoken!)

"There is a coyote outside," he listened and chuckled, "Not a coyote, it's a Loon calling for her mate."

And so it began, three more mornings and evenings of watching and listening for the Loons. You can listen to the eerie yodel of the Loon here.

They swim underwater the length of the lake catching fish and resurface with just their head popped above the water. We watched and wondered where they would reappear and marveled at the distances they could cover without taking another breath. Some sources say the Loons can stay underwater for up to fifteen minutes.

During the month of May, Loon migration is at its peak and their nesting cycle begins.

Contrary to popular belief and Hollywood storytelling (like On Golden Pond), the Loons are more attached to their surrounding than to their mates. According to The Science of Loons, "recent studies have shown that loons do switch partners from year to year."

Proving once more that nothing lasts forever, not even the Loon partnership, so you should make the most of every precious moment.

One morning, I thought about Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn in the movie, "On Golden Pond." I imagined that in twenty or thirty years if we're blessed and lucky enough to still be camping, that we would be like them. Of course, if my husband is going to catch that "Walter" the big fish, he'll need a better fishing pole.

After watching him cast his line from the shore for three days, morning and night, without a single nibble, he finally called it quits. We overheard a man in the boat saying that the fish weren't biting in the center of the lake either.

Perhaps the Loon ate them all up.

"The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad." A.K. Best

Sources:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/common_loon/id

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/Page.aspx?pid=1019

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvHTLc02XUY