A couple of periods of thunderstorms came through the area this week just before cold fronts rolled in from Canada. The first one was the night we started banding loons for the second three-night period on Wednesday.
Luckily these ended late in the afternoon and we banded rain-free for the rest of the night.
The second bunch of storms came right at daylight on Sunday and lasted about an hour and a half.
We heard that someone was hit by lightning at Golden Beach Campsite during these storms.
It is unknown at this time how they made out.
One of the storms hit the main telephone office in Lowville in Lewis County and knocked out service to several thousand customers.
We banded loons six out of seven nights this week with one night off in the middle for good behavior.
The first night we traveled from Saranac Lake to Piercefield Reservoir where the loons did not cooperate.
We only caught a chick there and took a little blood from it for testing.
From there we went to Long Pond in the St. Regis Canoe Area. This is a walk-in pond so we took the canoes and gear in on canoe carts.
There were two pairs with chicks there but we only got to try for the first pair before the sun came up. We caught two chicks there.
We nearly got a shot at the female loon just before sunrise, but she could see us even with our bright light shining in her eyes.
The second night we traveled to Chaumont Pond up by Cranberry Lake where we caught both the male and female loons that were both unbanded.
They are now wearing bands and the female has on a GEO locater which is attached to one of her bands.
Then we went to Cranberry Lake and boated way up the lake to find a pair with a chick.
We caught both adults and found that the male had been banded back in 1999 during our second banding season here in New York.
The female also got a GEO locater put on with her bands.
The third night was visitor night at Little Clear Pond water source for the Adirondack Fish Hatchery.
Regional Director Robert Stegerman from Region 5 and his wife were there along with a few other folks, and we had a good night catching birds.
We caught the male from the Island Territory and two chicks. The other team caught the male from the Outlet Territory and we caught two chicks there but not the female.
From there we traveled to Upper St. Regis Lake where we caught the male, female and one chick in the Birch Island Territory.
We processed birds for a while as the other team traveled to the Spring Bay Territory.
They caught the male there that was first banded in 1998—our first year of banding loons in New York. We came behind and caught the chick.
Three females were missed that night. I guess they are smarter or the males were on night duty with the chicks.
We saw a beautiful sunrise each morning…so much for this 9 to 5 job.
In all the years I’ve been watching loons, I experienced one of the most moving experiences during this time.
I was checking a platform that had a sitting male loon on a private lake.
He looked funny on the platform with his wing bent way back like he was hiding something.
It was about the time that the chick was going to hatch so I hung there for about half hour, watching from a distance on shore.
Then, out from under the wing—in back of the sitting bird—popped a little black head of the chick. It popped out in front of the male’s bent wing.
The female came in cooing with a small fish in her beak.
The chick must have been fed on the platform once already, because it knew her call and came out from hiding again.
The female went around the platform, cooing the whole time. The chick followed her first out back under the wing and then out front from under the wing.
The female stayed about a foot off the platform and dipped the fish in and out of the water.
The chick stood right at the edge of the platform for a few seconds before taking his first plunge in the water and a first swim.
He went right to the female, took the small fish and did his little wing flap as if to say, “Look mommy, I’m a big boy now. I can swim.”
When the male slid off the platform I could see that it was not banded, so the female had switched mates since we banded her for the second time two years ago.
She was originally banded as a chick in 1999 on Nicks Lake.
They swam away as a family and I caught it all on my camera. What a day in the life of a loon observer—one I’ll never forget.
Three more nights of loon banding, but that’s another story. See ya.