Common Loon Parents and newly hatched chick at Spring Lake in Cuttingsville.
It all started with a phone call late Thursday evening. For close on two months Connie had watched over a pair of nesting Common Loon and by her best estimate hatching was imminent, probably the next day. But Connie was off the next day for a three day conference, would it be possible for me to be there the following day to record the highly anticipated event.
By 8.45 the next morning, Friday, I was ready, camera poised, adult on the nest, mate patrolling nearby and the sun clear and well placed. Fifteen short minutes later, the female loon, slid from her nest followed immediately by a single fluffy black chick. The chick “hit the water running” scampering over the surface at full throttle, ending up with a couple of head dips two or three meters later! For the next thirty minutes the two adults introduced the single chick to its immediate surroundings. The male, again I assume, took it upon himself to catch the first shiny morsels for the chick, but the actual transfer was not observed. The two adults, usually swimming together with the chick between them, if they decided temporarily to separate, the chick appeared to be in two minds as to whom to follow, but invariably, if the observer’s determination was correct, it would choose “Mom”.
After a thirty minute leisurely “swim about”, with the chick at times hitching a ride, the female loon clambered back on to the nest site, this time in the opposite direction to that first observed. Common Loon usually produce two eggs, hence the female must have decided that there was a second chick to be brought into the world.
For the next two hours the male’s behavior was somewhat confusing. With a very small minnow clasped in his beak, he was seen to circle many times around the nesting platform with the intent of feeding either the chick or his mate both on the nest. But the mate was apparently facing in the wrong direction and he could not fulfill his intent. What appeared to be in desperation, still clasping the shiny morsel and on three separate occasions the male clambered not only on to the nest but he appeared to be on top of his mate. While the trio was on the nest a few low vocalizations were heard. The retreat back into the water was “clumsy” to put it delicately!
Shadows began to close the curtain of opportunity to any further picture taking and so the events that followed were once again returned to the intimate privacy of the principal participants.
To be present at the birth of one’s own child, is humbling. To be present at the “coming out” of a not so common Common Loon chick, is a rare gift!