I want to see another nest built off the point next June. Wood marshaled longtime summer residents around the lake to adopt loons in particular coves or bays. Somewhere out in the dark, the loons are trying to protect their chick. He’s getting his break at last, I think, lowering the binoculars. This video is unavailable. Wood’s Mercedes, sporting a LOONS license plate, became a familiar sight around the lake. We hoped the little male would somehow survive, but the numbers are brutal: In 40 percent of such territorial battles, the defending male is killed. Roughly 50 million years ago, the five species of loons branched off from their nearest genetic relatives, a group that includes albatrosses. No chicks hatched there in 2007. These are premium shirts that are extremely comfortable. Susie Burbidge, field biologist with the Loon Preservation Committee, the nonprofit that monitors New Hampshire’s loons, drives up in the afternoon. Seven years later, an oil spill in Buzzard’s Bay killed more than 200 loons as they flocked up for spring migration. OR where would you suggest we visit this spring/summer to almost assure us we will hear them? It is, I’m afraid, the beginning of the end. Across New Hampshire, the number of nesting loon pairs had tripled. 2016 Spring-Summer Autumn-Winter 2015 Fall/Winter Summer Winter/Spring 2014 Winter 2013 Fall Spring/Summer Winter 2012 Fall Spring/Summer Winter 2011 Fall Spring Winter 2010 Fall Spring Winter 2009 Fall Winter 2008 Fall Spring Winter 2007 Spring Winter 2006 I see him on the nest and see persistence, along with the strength and size, and perhaps also a wisdom born of experience. In an Ojibwa creation story, Loon was the very voice of the Creator in spirit form. Rawson Wood, in his 90s emeritus director of LPC, was still working. 10% of proceeds are donated to the charitable organization No Kid Hungry. Rescue sick or injured loons to increase loon survival whenever possible. Native stories described mystical connections between loons and human beings. Most of them–roughly 70 percent of the world’s common loons–were headed to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Eric Hanson, the project’s lone biologist, mobilized a volunteer army that exceeded the number of lakes in the state–about 100–considered suitable for loons. Loons adopted the floating nests. Their investigation was a follow up to the research of the Loon Preservation Committee documenting elevated levels of contaminants (including PCBs) in unhatched loon eggs from failed nests on Squam Lake and our subsequent identification of areas with contaminated sediments in the watershed, including a site with elevated levels of PCBs. A single pair discovered at Quabbin Reservoir in 1975 grew into a population of 50 adults on a dozen Massachusetts lakes three decades later. I see nothing at first, then–stark, silhouetted against the mist–a long, tapered bill. Squam nests had again failed, one after the other. Residents reported occasional sightings in Connecticut. In the end, only two chicks survived to fledge on the big lake. They’re birds of the North American Far North. The male continues wailing. After each loon census now, Grade would call Rawson Wood at his home in Sanibel, Florida, to give him the numbers. Knowing what we know now, it’s probable that most of them, perhaps all, had flown to the ocean from lakes across New England. ft. cottage is the perfect place for those looking to soak in the peace and quiet of the natural world without leaving behind the conveniences of our everyday world. I want proof right here, outside our front door, and contrary to growing evidence, that northern lakes and coastlines remain healthy–that at least in some places we’re not fouling our own nests. The past week has been a challenging one for the loons of the Squam Lakes. From Route 109: It’s a magical yet a natural spot that became popular from the movie “On Golden Pond,” which was produced in 1981. BRI’s Dave Evers was called in to assess the spill’s injury to birds. I yell up to the house and Jim comes running down. It occurs to me that a loon’s drive to establish territory is a proxy for the real attachment: The crucial bond is between the pair and their offspring. This is the only chick hatched on Squam Lake this year, by far the worst record ever. Chicks hatched–and this type of successful human intervention was picked up by other organizations. The new organization would concentrate solely on loons. However, some of these contaminants were present in loon eggs at levels that have been shown to affect the physiology, health, and/or reproductive success of other bird species. Loons are fish-eating birds that spend the winter off the New England coast and return to New Hampshire’s lakes soon after ice-out. Every summer we rent a “lean-to” in Vermont’s Groton State Park at Ricker Pond campground. I’m floating, along with the new parents. A family of four loons may eat 900 pounds of fish over a breeding season. (Females wage territorial battles, as well, but rarely to the death.) The loons! But on Squam, once again, every individual mattered. ): they have lost all of their down, are in their beautiful juvenal plumage, and are able to catch some of their own food. In the aftermath of the Buzzard’s Bay spill, several organizations around the Northeast, including LPC, BRI, and Vermont’s Loon Recovery Project, filed a joint request for damages that might support their recovery work. When humans appeared on the North American continent, loons were there. I see one chance to help, and it energizes me. In time, mining decades of data, loon biologists developed a single number for indexing population stability: the ratio of surviving chicks to territorial pairs. Wood sent a worker to help build log rafts, four feet on a side. At the end of the 2010 field season, I’d spoken to Tiffany Grade, LPC’s field biologist for Squam Lake. Field biologists funded out of Wood’s deep khaki pockets determined that raccoons, drawn by garbage bins and roadside trash, were robbing eggs from shoreline nests. A single pair of loons defends a portion of a large lake like Squam, and often the same loons return to their territory year after year. And it would use those data to learn how to protect them. Susie Burbidge cleaned oiled birds on the Gulf before starting the summer field season with LPC. The lake is located northwest of much larger Lake Winnipesaukee. I’d heard it during the night and asked the manager in the morning what bird it was I’d heard. A territorial battle ended with the weakened male beached on shore, and its chick, hatched the day before ours, killed by the attacking loon. In the years since the 2007 low-water mark, the populations on those lakes had recovered only slightly. The research expanded beyond Squam and beyond New Hampshire. In the language of wildlife biology, the common loon is an indicator species. Sir: I read the very interesting article about loons. Levels of contaminants from Squam eggs during 2005-2007 were two to nine times higher than levels found in eggs collected from the other lakes. “That lead jig killed two loons,” Grade said. In early December, I wake to a grim scene: our pond frozen over, the young loon paddling far out from shore in a tiny black hole of open water. It appeared at first to be a graceful pas de deux, but the movements were no dance. 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