 Make sure you come up and take a close look at this guy up here. Unfortunately, he didn't make it, but it's the real thing. And you can see how big they are when they're actually right up close. We got any swimmers on Curtis who like to get out there or others? And I know that loons tend to be more curious about someone in the water than in a boat. And so they may come right up. Colleen actually got pecked a few weeks ago as she's blessed for the rest of her life, you know? So you do have to be careful where the chick is when you're doing that. So again, my name's Eric Hansen, and I've coordinated the Vermont Loon Conservation Project. We used to call it the Vermont Loon Recovery Project. But loons are now recovered. They're doing really well statewide. We got over 100 pairs in the state. Back in 1983, we were down to 12 pairs in the entire state. So it's been a pretty amazing project to be involved with to see that level of success. And to me, even the bigger level of success is getting lake associations and the people on the lakes involved. And that's really kind of what I brought into this project when I started it, when I began. And this is my 21st year in Vermont. I took it at $6 an hour, four months. And I'm still seasonal, six months a year. It's a great job. I work at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center. And the wintertime is a ski trail groomer and a ski coach. So it's neat to have the seasonality that way. But I grew up in Minnesota doing loons, boundary waters. Actually did my master's thesis, setting up a loon monitoring program for the state of Minnesota, which is now in its 27th, 28th year, which is really neat to see that program going. And then before that, I actually spent two years catching and banding loons. That's all I did for two summers, three months, every night, out till 4 or 5 in the morning. I got home at 4.30 in the morning last night trying to catch a loon in southern Vermont. But unfortunately, we couldn't get it. It was one that's caught up in fishing lines. So we'll try doing that. So I hopefully won't nod off during the program here. So do lots of things. We're going to give the whole story of loons. They're sort of the summering life. We'll get into the conservation a bit, what we do, what volunteers do. And then at the end, the last sort of third of the program is a little bit more on behavior and some rescue stories, because those are always fun. We'll change gears in the middle. What else? If you're curious, when you come up here, these are actually leg bands that we would actually could put on a loon. We've only done two years of intentional banding in Vermont. And that was part of a mercury study. And that was back in 1999, 2000, 2001. And we're still seeing a few of these birds. We have two legs, two bands in each leg. Newark Pond, we're still seeing that bird around. We now know that loons, there's a banded chick from Michigan that's turned 31 this year. Still breeding. Amazing. They wound up on Newark at least 25 years old, probably older. And so they are long-lived. Some, they're done breeding at 12, 13. So it just depends. The competition is a big part of their life. Before I forget, I'm going to send around two clipboards about Vermont Center for Eco Studies. If you'd like more information, if you'd like this summer's loon collar newsletter, we put it out once a year. And our field notes, which is the VCE newsletter that comes out twice a year, put your name and address down here and we'll send you something. It's a great organization. And I'm going to just give a quick brief into what we do. As a group, we're based in Norwich, but I work from home in Craftsbury. So I'm married to Vermont. That's what got me here way back in the mid-90s. So all right, we'll get going. If you want to take my, I teach at Sterling College, ornithology every other year. And so that's what that was about, so oven bird density. So VCE, we do a lot of different projects, mostly with non-game species, so songbirds, insects, amphibians. And we do it all over. It's not just Vermont. We've thought about changing our name to something else because of the Vermont sort of designates us. But our grassland specialist, she's all over New England. She goes to South America. We have a big project in the Dominican Republic in Haiti that's followed the Bicknell's Thrush, which was sort of the, our group has done the basic research on that. I'm not Mansfield and Stratton. We still have a banding station up there. And we were following those birds to the Dominican Republic where their heart of their wintering range is. And our boss just did his second stint to Chris Remmer, to Cuba. And they're finding some birds there. So it may not be as big as the DR, but it's still a neat spot. And so there's lots of sort of big issues that way. We have a forest bird monitoring program, an ongoing thing throughout New England. Our biggest volunteer program for the songbirders is Mountain Birdwatch with 140 roots from the Catskills to Northern Maine. And that's where we're looking at high elevation species, good climate change project, but also one of the more sensitive ecosystems in New England. What else is up there? Vernal Pool Mapping. It's a neat project that's getting out to all the conservation commissions and towns to add Vernal Pools to their things to watch out for when you're putting in a driveway, putting in a house, expanding a road. These are just little things that you can nuance how you put something in so that you might minimize your impact that way. And so it's a neat project because it's not, those aren't listed as designated wetlands. So they get missed by the wetland maps. So we have a guy, Steve Ascio, who's been working on that now for several years. We have one guy who's really gotten into insects. And his most big project was bumblebees. And there's been about 10 species around Vermont over the years. They started revisiting data that was collected back in the 80s and 90s. They went back and revisited that five years ago. Three of them were pretty much gone within 20 years. And we don't know exactly why, but that's one of these reasons for all these monitoring projects is it gives you the guidance of where do we need to ask the deeper questions? And where do we need more serious research? Another guy who spent some time this summer up on the main timberlands, the commercial forests, and looking at species there. Because there hasn't been a lot of songword work in the commercial forests. It's mostly been on state and federal lands. So a lot of neat things going on. And for most of these, you can get involved as a volunteer. Some of them are very formal, like Mountain Bird Watch. Some of them are very informal. The Loon Project. You can go out one day a summer anywhere. You can just follow Ponds on Curtis, number 10, Nelson. I'm actually looking for some volunteers to help cover Nelson a little bit better. So Loon's is probably one of the more flexible projects. But then there's this whole Vermont Atlas of Life project, which are Kent McFarland's overseeing, where people can just record in all the things that are happening, plants, animals. And it's really to help, again, guide future conservation efforts and focused efforts. But we've got to know what's going on before we can actually figure out where to do the research. But we're here tonight about Loon's, especially the recent expansion down this direction. And I just throw this title out there just because there's so many fascinating things. And we'll just touch on a number of them tonight, but not all of them. And the only thing I don't touch on is sibling rivalry in the talk. And that's where two chicks might kind of go at it. There might be one that's more dominant. Sometimes the younger one, the littler one, doesn't make it just part of the cruel natural world sometimes. But I'll talk about the other ones as we go through. I do partner with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. Mainly work with the game wardens. If there's mainly an issue with an injured bird or one beaching itself, rarely do we have harassment cases, but occasionally. I'm really a coordinator of all these groups on the right. And the big one is volunteers. We have about 300 active volunteers statewide. And I couldn't do it without them, especially down in southern and central Vermont. And all these other groups help out a little bit. Hydroelectric companies are actually pretty key. They help control the water levels to prevent flooding when they can. Some of them are actually required by their license. Others just do it voluntarily, looking when the thunderstorms are rolling in. Tufts University has been amazing to deal with all of our dead birds and figuring out why. And then there are things that we can do to prevent those. And that's where lead sinker legislation has come in is because of all the work that Tufts has done. Our funding, I'll make a big plug for this. Almost two thirds of my budget comes from donations from individuals. So if you have the ability to help out, we're always in need, whether it's a $10 one or more, it all makes a difference. So pass the word, let people know. It's not a state funded project in the sense of 100%. We get a state grant for about a third of our project budget. But really, it's people who make this thing go. What's great is most of the photographs you see tonight are all local from people sending them in to me. This is a nesting raft up on Forest Lake in April. And we'll talk about nesting rafts. They kind of float, mimic an island. And we do all the things on the left. We monitor every single breeding pair in the state. This year, we're a little less than we were last year, about 90, 91 nesting pairs. Last year, we hit our record at 97, an actual nest, but over 110 pairs that have nested at some point in the last five years. Some of those kind of disappear. Some show up again. Management, the nest morning signs, if you've seen them out on Curtis, if it's a water body that goes up and down, we might use nesting rafts. Or if there's a privacy or a land use issue with where they're trying to nest and we want to try to get them away from a very popular area or something. Obviously, lots of education. I go to our annual meetings in New Hampshire is where we usually hold it with all the New England moon groups and occasionally Midwest and West and Canada. And our record in Vermont for productivity is really high. It's off the charts compared to the North America average. And people are asking why. And I keep coming back to we have a really aware sense populace of how to help the loons and be aware of them. And I think you can't measure that very well, but I think it really has made a big difference. And then rescue when it happens and a little bit of research on the side. And again, volunteers can help out with almost all of that. But there's something special about being out on that water. You hear the loon call from the far end, or especially in the evening. And it's just a magical sound. It's sort of like our hermit thrush. There's something very musical about it. Sense of place. This is Green River Reservoir. And those stars are where the seven nesting pairs were back in 83. East Long is one of those long ones. Green River Thermandix Reservoir of all places has actually been one of the mainstays of productivity. We did our first annual count in 1983. 29 adults counted that year. They didn't get to every lake. So it was probably more in the 30s, maybe low 40s. And during the 80s and 90s, we started looking around. Like, where are they? What are they doing? Why are they here? And why aren't they not here? And so a lot of shoreline development, failed nests, fishing gear, especially lead being an issue. A lot of people on our waters. How do we manage that? And we realized that the nesting is really their most vulnerable period as far as human activity. So that's where the focus was. They start nesting anytime from early to mid-May. I always tell volunteers, May 20th to June 10th is really the start date, which means hatches end of June to mid-July. This year, we actually had some early August hatches, some very late nests. So that does happen. Usually with a re-nest, because they will re-nest if they have a failed nest. And they did that on Curtis last year, or, yeah. They nested at the North End last year up on the Beaver Lodge. And we got the signs all placed. And then a day later, the eggs are gone. Most likely some predator could have been that they knocked them in. They're really clumsy. They don't walk on land very well. They have to kind of shuffle on their bellies. So if they go up and down a steep slope, they could easily drag that egg right with them. And then that pair moved to the cove just over here and found a nice little spot. And once they're successful, they tend to return to that spot, most likely. So that's why they were probably back here again this year. And again, nice little spot. Takes about a month. Male and female take turns incubating two to four hours, two to five hours at a shot. And then they'll switch places. So it's not just mom on the nest. For most waterbirds, it is just mom on the nest. They can nest at three, but their average is later. They have to wait three or four years to find a spot in a territory when they come back from the ocean where they spend the winters. They like islands. In fact, that upper right picture is the Curtis Pond nest from their first nest attempt two years ago, where they built this amazing mound right out of the hummock and the vegetation there. But they sat too long. Over incubated. Something happened to the eggs. So they were sitting on dead eggs. They eventually gave up. We have a shoreline nest. We're on Kaiser Pond in Feacham, or Danville. And that's, I call that a shoreline nest, but it's really just a little bit out from shore. Because they have to watch out for shoreline predators. When a loon is scared off the nest, whether it's because of an eagle or whether it's a boater or a swimmer or someone on shore, the adults are fine. It's just, that's when the predators could get those eggs more quickly if they're off during a cold spell. Or if it's repeated busy Saturday and they just can't spend time on the nest comfortably, they may just give up. That's where these signs come in handy. And they really do work. They just kind of give people a sense of, okay, let's give that area of space for the next few weeks. What's great is when they're done nesting, they leave the nest site. And those signs can be removed back to normal activity, whether it's next to someone's camp or a swimming area or your favorite fishing hole. It's kind of back to normal as far as water use. And then the loons are just out with us on the water. The picture on the right, that's actually a loon in hiding. It's getting out of bird shape and going into sort of log shape. And so if there's enough vegetation around, a predator moving along the shoreline is gonna have a hard time picking out that loon when it's in that position, not moving an inch, not moving a centimeter. They'll just sit tight like that for a long time until the threat goes away. So I remember getting photographs from volunteers and like, oh, it's in its normal position with its head down. And I'm like, you're too close. You know, luckily we got birds that are stickers, but we got other birds that are flushers, that'll just get right off within 100 yards. Other birds, you can come five feet away and the bird's gonna stay on the nest. All depends on the bird, depends on the day, depends on what happened the day before, who knows. We mainly use artificial nesting rafts on reservoirs that we know are gonna go up and down with rainstorms, but we started using them a little bit more when there's lack of habitat. So Caspian Lake, Lake Fairleigh, Fairfield Pond, few others where they're nesting right near people and we wanted to get them into a slightly quieter spot. Greenwood Lake is actually a really great example. They started nesting on the island at the north end that has a little house on it and it was like, that's not gonna work. And so we actually put a little fence around that island at one point when they were starting to nest build there to deter them. And we put a nesting raft over in what's called Turtle Cove and within a week, they'd move to Turtle Cove and use the nest. It doesn't always work. We just did that on the first nest attempt in over near Lake, near Burlington in Hinesburg on Lake Iroquois. They nested on this island that is rented every week. There's a new renter with dogs. And we actually put a fence up. The owner was like, as helpful as could be, it was great. But again, it's just a busy spot. So we put a raft across the way in a Cove that's a little quieter. Well, the birds decided not to nest on the island. They went to the north end in the inlet. Nice little spot, but it was depredated within a week. But they renested on the raft that we put out this spring, had the chick, but then they lost the chick within a week. So we do all this work. There's gonna be failure. It's just part of it. I always kind of joke, both my grandfathers were ministers, actually no, my great-grandfathers were ministers. My grandfather and my father were both psychiatrists. So I put on my little psych hat and get a lot of counseling, the remorse of loss of chicks and nests. Because amazing, when you're watching these things, maybe not 12 hours a day, but we got people who were out there that's watching their birds and they become really attached. They check on them every day. They check on their chicks every day. And then there's a skirmish or an eagle comes in or something and it does happen. Oh, to give an example of birds near people and nesting, this upper left picture, way up the upper left, is on a walking path up on Caspian Lake, 10 feet from the water. You never see loons nest 10 feet from the water like that. And I knew right away, it wasn't even gonna be people. It was gonna be a predator who's gonna get that nest. Two days later, the eggs are dragged off by a raccoon or something. So I was already working with a landowner on Caspian Lake, literally this lower left picture, that's the longest section of undeveloped shore on the entire lake. The caverns are kind of spread out. Mostly, but there's just nothing that's not used. And these people don't rent, which is a big factor. So we snuck a raft in, that thing right up there. You can kind of see it right here and a board right there. There it is, right there. And I'm standing on the dock that are the owners. So they have this one section of undeveloped shore, but it gets hit by easterly winds. So I've never wanted to put rafts in exposed areas. And so I experimented. And part of this job is always experimentation. We put this board on it and you can actually see where the waters was hitting it earlier that day to help reduce the wave action so the nest wouldn't get flooded. They've now nested three for three on that raft and produced chicks. So it's really worked well. The picture on the right is down in Lake Fairleigh. Really busy lake. But at the north end, they actually nested on some mud flats that were created by Hurricane Irene. The following year last year, the water was up a foot because it was really dry two years ago. They nested on Treasure Island, their picnic site next to the public beach. It was like, oh my gosh. Well, the town was, I talked to the select board. Again, this is where I spent a lot of my time. They were willing to shut down the whole picnic area for a month. But three days later, raccoons got the eggs. So we decided to put a raft out just near where that boat is. There's again a little cove up there at the north end, out of the wind, out of most of the direct boat activity. And now they've been successful two for two on that raft. So rafts definitely do work, but I've tried not to use them if there's any natural habitat. Herdespont is a perfect example. There's amazing habitat here. And if we can make it work with the landowners, let's go for it. Keep those natural nests. So here's the cute stage when they're backriding. One, two week old. They're kind of black, fluffy. Just, you know, they're swimming already. They'll leave that nest within 12 hours. Cruisin' along, mom and dad both taking care of it. They didn't get into their adolescent stage. They're not quite so cute and fluffy anymore. I call it kind of a cow patty stage. They're just like these little fluff balls. Their legs are actually getting adult size within three to four weeks. Not long, but whip. Literally, my hand is the size of a legged foot. Because those chicks gotta move, but they're totally adolescents. And it's not really until they get three or four weeks that they're doing bigger, longer dives and starting to feed. And then they get older and so you'll see this over the next month or so, hopefully on Curtis. They'll start growing in their flight feathers. Those two on the right are probably around eight weeks. They'll get flight lessons. And in October, the parents usually leave. And then not until later October do the chicks leave on their own. Maybe November even. The adults will do a partial molt. And that lower left picture, actually two adults in November who've lost their summer plumage and they're going into their winter plumage. Our birds head to the New England coast. We only had one Vermont bird found that was banded and it was from Island Pond found in Martha's Vineyard. So the circles in the colors corresponds to where the bird was originated from. The square is where they were in the winter, where they were sighted. So we got the gray Adirondack circles. They were seen down along Long Island Sound of the Cape. We got the black ones from up on Begog area in New Hampshire. Up and down the main coast down to the Cape. All those main birds mainly along the main coast in Cape. But one went all the way to New Jersey. We've had a few birds keep going to South Carolina, North Carolina. We see a lot of Midwestern birds heading to that area. And even more Midwestern birds heading to the Gulf of Mexico. So long distance migrant for those birds. Ours are really short. And one of the results of that is that our birds tend to weigh in the 11 to 16 pound range for New England. The bigger birds are from Nova Scotia, Maine. As you go to Minnesota, and actually the smallest birds captured are from Saskatchewan. They were four or five pounds. Much, much different. Even though they're the same, Gavia, Emmer, Common Loom. But they got to migrate 3,000 miles twice a year. So it pays to be small to fly, but it pays to be big to hold the territory. So their cruising speed is probably 40 to 60 miles an hour when they're moving. So you can think about it. You're heading to Boston in the Cape. Four hours later you're there. And those arrows correspond to satellite telemetry. They were actual implants that were followed by satellites. And the single arrow, they took a reading every other day to save battery life. And so most of those single arrows are probably a one single flight. Just boom, right there. There was an Adirondack bird that spent two days getting to Lake Champlain, then two days down to Vermont, and then another day or two to get to the Cape. The dotted line is the one chick that had the unit implanted. And that one took 56 days for it to figure out how to get to the ocean. And it was probably just puddle jumping ahead of the ice as it was forming behind it, and finally made it to Long Island Sound. So some of our birds make it. Some of them don't when they get caught up in fishing line. I think the bird on the left was from Nichols Ponds. The bird on the right was from Joe's Ponds. Actually the first bird I rescued in Vermont that lived. I was able to snip that one free and let it go. Other times it won't work. But we've led is probably still almost a third of the mortality overall. We've only had three or four cases now in the past since lead legislation in 2007. The band half ounce sinkers are less. Larger sinkers are still allowed. Jigs are still allowed. But we haven't had as many as prior, but it's still a small sample size. They're seeing a small effect in New Hampshire where there's a more rigorous lead legislation, but it's definitely something that we're able to get rid of. The fishing line is always gonna be an issue. Up on Nelson Ponds two weeks ago, I got a call all about a bird with really raspy voice. It just sounded like pneumonia. And it was actually a vet who was calling me about it. And the next morning it beached itself. They were able to grab it, put it in a box. I got there. The bird was definitely weak for them to be able to grab it. This bird I was trying to catch last night, this is our third attempt in two months and it's got fishing line all around its head. But it's eating and preening, even with this fishing line present. And it's strong enough to avoid us. Whereas this guy, they could just pick it right up. I took it to St. Jay. We've had an x-ray done. One lung was just filled with fluids and junk. We were able to call the vet from Tufts, who's now retired, but still totally involved. We got him on his camp up in Northern Maine or Central Maine. And he's like, well, describe the radiograph. And he's like, it's probably a fungal disease that comes in. And what caused the fungal disease? There was actually a two inch piece of metal somewhere in the body cavity. Likely a lure or a hook that had partially dissolved. And maybe that was the initial cause of the rupture and the infection. So we ended up having to euthanize that bird. But it's these connections that allow us to learn. Some we can save. Again, some we can't. Here's a chart of all that are up and least until 2015. I need to update this. But you can see that right side, phishing gear monofilament and lead being almost half of our mortality. So reeling in when loons are diving nearby, just being aware, it can make a difference. Aspergillosis, that's a fungal disease, usually a weakened bird. Something may have happened beforehand that caused them to be prone to that. Unknown, 15%. That's all. That's amazing that they can figure out 85% of the causes. Not always definitive, because we have trauma, but we don't know what the trauma was caused by. But we got a few boat hits, not that many relative to the numbers out there and how busy our lakes are. Attacked by other loons. That's actually a fairly common occurrence, especially with the males. They will attack and kill each other to win a spot in a territory. And the female will accept the winner. But it goes the other way. Females will have fights and kick another female out. And then the male will accept that female. So it goes both ways. But usually the ladies are a little nicer about it. Predation, those were an eagle that got two adults that were stuck in the ice. Infection, iced in, they just didn't get off. And then we had a few gunshot, but luckily not too many. And then our rescues, we've had 72 rescues. And a chunk of those all, we weren't able to monitor them all, but most of those actually lived. And a number of them are just, they make a mistake and land in the wrong spot. Road crashes or ponds that are too small to get off of. And we're able to get some of those. Some just don't leave soon enough, those usually chicks. And so they get iced in and we're able to get some of those. And then a few with monofilament, those are the big ones that just take more time. And then a long time ago, I had sort of coined this phrase that loon habitat and our recreational habitat on our lakes pretty much overlap entirely. They nest within a foot or two of the waterline. Occasionally it's back in a marsh, but rarely. It's usually right out in the edge of the marsh or on an island. They're out there feeding and raising their chicks right where we like to boat and swim. So there's really a lot of overlap, which is great because we get to watch them and see pretty much everything they do all day long if we want, but it also makes them a little more prone to disturbance issues or nest failure. But through a lot of these other things on the left, it's been a success. And so here's that graph. And I like to take credit because I started in 1998. So I can just say that's all me, but that's not true at all. There was a lot of groundwork going on before this and just a lot of people effort. All the volunteers become kind of the loon educators on their lakes. So everyone's gonna be emailing Colleen now. Yeah, and that's Central's Vermont and the Southern Vermont. And there's actually a new star. There's a whole little lake district over here in Western Vermont. And we have a new nest right here this year on a pond that I never thought they would nest on. It's full of lily pads, five feet deep, but it's right near some other good lakes, but it's good nesting habitat on that lake. So I think they're nesting on that one and feeding on other lakes. And there's no public access. It's gonna be a no management site, which is great. So yeah, really neat. And then one thing, especially for landowners on lakeshores, and unfortunately I forgot my brochures that I have all guide for how to do better management of your land for wildlife along riparian areas, but really to maintain healthy lakes. And it's all up to our lakeshore owners to do that. So promote insects, promote amphibians, promote fish and fish eggs, cooler waters. So it all makes a difference in helping to make our lakes a little healthier, which then helps the loons. It's hard to get excited about phosphorus and runoff, but if you're doing some lakeshore things, like planting more vegetation and more shrubs and more trees and thinking about helping the loons, a little easier to do sometimes. All right, so we're gonna switch gears. We're gonna start talking a little bit about behavior. And there's a lot of, we've got your pair out there all spring 99% of the time you're gonna see that pair swimming around, but occasionally you get two other birds. Who are these other two on a lake that normally asks? You know, only two, there's four now. Or the lower right picture. Why are these two swimming around with their bills down? That's not the normal relaxed posture. It could be courtship. They will do that. They do kind of these little circle dances, which is really fun to see, but it could also be an intruder. And they're kind of having a little discussion. And most intruders, when they come in, it's not an all out fight. It is a discussion. They're kind of, you know, letting each other know who's who, who's where. And that intruder will then move off and fly away, go down to the other end of the lake. And this guy out in Wisconsin, Walter Piper, and he's got this great, this site, everyone should visit it, loonproject.org. Pretty easy to remember. He's got great stories of following thousands of banded birds. And I actually need to update this. It's 2,000 plus banded birds in a 200 lake area. And he's been following them now for 20 years. And over the last 10 years, he's finally got enough data to really see how loons are finding a spot in the territory. He's got 700 chicks banded. He's seen 400 of them come back to the area. And he can then follow them. Where are they going? Where, you know, who do they visit? What are they doing for three or four years before they find a spot? And it's all through these band observations and hiring lots of seasonals who spend hours and hours just looking for loon legs. It's a very tedious thing to do and hard to pick out. To catch the loons, we actually go out at night with big spotlights, a dip net. And if there's chicks present, catching them is usually pretty reliable. Although I went over to Maine a few weeks ago to get a kind of a refresher in banding and catching. And we went after about eight loons. We caught one. They avoided us that night, just big time. The moon was out, they could see the boat. They were all spooked. I mean, it was just, it wasn't a good night. I've done other nights where we get every bird. You know, we'd have 12 birds that night. The entire family of all three territories. But we'll take a blood and feather sample for toxicology studies, mainly mercury. Loons are high up on the food web. Good indicator of what's going on. And then you can follow those birds. And one of the first things we learned was 70 to 83% of the time. The same two birds coming back. But up to 30%, there's a switch in one of the mates. And it's usually just one. They don't mate for life. That's what the literature in the 70s and the 80s said. They might mate for life if they could, but there's too many things going on. There's death. There's like, I'm going on vacation. I'm moving over there. The real estate's better. And then there's these evictions, these territorial takeovers, which are the most exciting part where you get intruders coming in and causing a little ruckus. And because our birds aren't banded, we don't always know when there's a switch. But that's one of the ways that they'll find that spot. So some of the basic things learned, males tend to show up between three and four years of age. Females, a year later, four to five, six years of age. And then it's three years later on average that they'll actually find a spot in a territory. They are on some of the bigger lakes, or they're on these little tiny lakes, or they're at the far end of the medium-sized lakes hanging out, avoiding fights. So I get a report about a single loon on Sodom pond quite a bit. Cranberry meadows. There's a single loon hanging out there quite a bit. These are these non-breeders. We got other ones that are continually floating around. You get three birds constantly, and then they prevent nesting, let's say, on Buck Lake. In fact, Buck Lake nested for three years in a row, and then 10 years of no nesting. There was constant third and fourth birds. So it could have been just constant little action. If you go paddle Caspian in August, there'll be 10 to 15 loons kind of hanging out as a group in the middle, almost every day, all summer. And they're all singles or singles? A lot of them are singles, yeah. They could have lost a spot on a territory, so they could be older, or they could be the young ones. But you can't tell. So finding a spot in a territory, some of them, at least this is all based on Wisconsin, up 38% find an empty lake. So Curtis pond a few years ago, we got some new birds or kicked out birds that find a spot in that territory. Passive replacement, so there's a mortality. The Nelson pond, we've had one nest attempt that I know of on Nelson. Well, a bird died up this year, so maybe we have a quasi-pair and that bird now gets replaced by a non-breeder. And then these evictions, that's about a third of them. And these, go ahead. For those empty lakes, it seems to be just sort of two birds kind of show up and figure it out. What I have found is when we banded our 25 birds over those three years, and all of a sudden that banded bird disappears from the territory, all of a sudden two miles away, we find that banded bird and it's the one starting a new territory. So experienced birds are often the ones finding these new territories. It could be young ones too, but it's a mix. But these intruders, you'll find them, you'll get a third bird coming in and there was one like, or several cases in Wisconsin, where literally a bird flew in three, four, five times a day, spent 10 minutes and then flew away. Two hours later it came in, did the same thing. Met with both the male and the female, had their discussion, flew away. Came back two, three hours later and it was like, whoa, this guy is really intent on this. But then what's interesting is that, now when there's an actual takeover, does that bird go to that pond that he kept visiting the year before or she kept visiting the year before? Not necessarily. There's like, he didn't find any correlation with that. It was just sort of like, that was the summer, this is the spot. And you'll find that certain years you'll get the pair and no intruders are very rare. And then other years, it's constant. So it depends on that pair, how strong are they? Are they able to tell all the singles out there? Don't even bother landing here. And that's true, if it's a big male, big female, they're gonna be dominant. But if they show any signs of weakness, boy, it could be trouble. So get ready to sort of step back from your chick in your nest and see some potential failure. Is there a bird that could be either like a baby that isn't finding a place at it or single? Yeah, probably not this year. Loons are slow about establishing pairs and nesting. It takes time. Yep, number 10 pond was a great example. When I first started this job, we had two birds almost consistently there starting in the late 90s. It took 10 years for them to finally nest. And it was probably not the same two birds. There was probably some switches going on in the middle of that. And we had a volunteer who put a raft out there. There was a nice island now for them. They ignored it for 10 years. I was ready to just like, you know, forget it. Let's see, like, leave it be. And then finally, two birds were seen on the raft. So rafts don't necessarily cause nesting, but if there's something there, they might use it. Yeah? How do takeovers like happen to just like a plunder? Usually, that's a good question. Usually it actually, the actual fight happens in the spring, late April, early May. And that's when that third bird will come in. They'll really kind of go for it. They'll have potentially chases. And finally, the former occupier in that territory leaves. And that's the fight. Again, it doesn't have to necessarily be the killing of the bird, but it could just be the driving of it out. So it's not like multiple birds come over. Usually just one. Rarely do you ever see a double takeover with two birds coming in, kicking two out. In fact, that almost never happens, but it probably has happened. The last thing is this last lower picture, social gatherings, you get bigger groups coming in, especially later summer. Territoriality goes down, the chick is more independent. The chick will usually get stashed, whether it's a social group or an intruder. So if you get a third bird and you don't see the chick, don't think that it's been killed. It's most likely just in hiding until that third bird goes away. But these social gatherings become more common later in the summer. There's probably some territory observation. Can I do a takeover maybe next year or the year after? But it's probably more of just getting to know your neighbors. In fact, yeah. But they're usually not feeding during this time. It's usually very, they're hooting at each other and they're moving around and kind of neat. What they find is the five to 10 year old males are the ones that do the fighting and do the takeovers. As they get older, they like to find an unoccupied lake or this passive replacement, replacing someone who didn't return. Females, there's no correlation with age. The takeovers can occur at any time. The passive replacement can occur at any time. Those intrusions, when they're coming in, what are they looking for? Do they really make a difference? And they find that there's more intrusions a year after there's been a chick. So it says this territory's been successful. Yes, it's got a mate, it's got a nest site, it's got food. This is a good spot. I'm gonna do more intrusions here. And then the other time you see more intrusions is actually there's been a mate switch and the pair is new to each other. That's probably a weak pair. So they're primed to be another takeover. So it's good to be married for a while and be able to hold that territory. One question, sometimes in Maine you see the intruder with a chick. Yep. So are you gonna talk that? So a intruder comes in, there's a ruckus and the chick gets killed. And it can happen both indirectly and directly. It can be actually an attack by the intruder, but it can also be, there's a ruckus going on between the adults and something just happens to the chick being off to the side. But yeah, the intruder will kill the chick and it's probably trying to put a dent in that pair bond, make it weak, and then it makes it more susceptible to do a takeover the next year. If there's a failed nest, you often see change in mates. Is there something about says, oh, I don't have a good mate. I'm gonna get a different mate. That's not been answered yet, but that's one of the thoughts. So if you've been through a fight, you get kicked out, what do you do? Well, they tend just to live in the area for a while. And if you do find a territory, it's actually usually just a few miles away. So if there's an experienced bird who started the territory on Curtis, it's probably a bird from Nelson or Woodbury Lake or not Nelson, number 10 or Woodbury Lake. Those are the two closest breeding sites to here prior to this. But they tend not to do any more fighting for territories. It's too risky. It's probably, I forgot my speaker. So the Yodel is the male territorial call. I don't think we can hear it over the fans. People wanna hear those? Yeah, just turn them off for a moment, back on. There's a crescendo and then this up and down, up and down, repeated notes. And then only the male does that. Yep. And this is a territorial call. It tells all their males to go away. Tells the eagles to go away. It tells the boater to go away. Use your reserve for each other. Yodel? Yep. I've seen a female go into that body position though and nothing comes out vocally. So it's almost doing more of a visual display than the vocal. And essentially what, I'm gonna go through more of what the Yodel means in just a second. The whale call is more of an identification call. The wolf call. Like, okay, where's my mate? Where's the chick? Who are you? One, two and three notes. Most often at night because they don't, they can't see each other at night as well, so they use calls. In day, they can see each other, so they don't need to call as much. They might give this when a boater comes in right at the beginning, but not really a threat, but just sort of an alert. The tremolo, which is a little bit more of a something's up. It can be an agitated, full out agitated call. I'm really upset, but it can also be an excited call. See, I remember the day when the chick was born, that's when they asked you. That's what I heard. So that was the excited call with the chick. And I actually did a rescue once where a chick got separated and picked up and brought to a rehabber. And we had to go find out, you know, like, what lake did this chick come from? And what happened is the chick got stashed with an intruder and people thought it was an orphan duck. And they picked it up and they brought it. And then their friend, there was dogs and kids. And so I tracked down the lady and she says, I think it's a loon chick. I'm not sure it's a loon chick, but, and we found out it was from Island Pond. And I knew the hatch date was right around then. So I brought it out there in my kayak. It's about 85 degrees. And there's two birds swimming really fast, right by me, as I go to the island. And I'm like, that doesn't look like the mates. I look more like the intruder and one of the birds. And I come around the corner to the nest. There's one still incubating. This is the first chick. The other one is sitting on a second egg. Takes it 24 to 48 hours, usually for that second egg to hatch. It can happen sooner. And so I sat there thinking, I don't wanna throw the chick out with a bird on the nest. I'm gonna wait for the mate to come back. But I knew it was gonna be risky because if they didn't identify the chick, they might just pop it and kill it. And so I sat there for four hours. And it was like the longest four hours. And I got this little bird in my hands. And finally, the bird comes back, goes to the nest and I paddle in, throw the chick, back up and the bird on the water just started to get in trouble. And I'm like, oh, you know, it's doing, but then it got kind of excited to swam around it. And then the bird on the nest yodeled. So the male was sitting on the nest and I've never heard a yodel on the nest before. And it was just total excitement that they got their chick back. Really cool. So it's not always agitation. And they'll just do that to anything. I mean, it could be a loud noise. It could be a beaver swimming too close. You know, who knows what can set him off sometimes. And you got certain birds that are just a lot more sensitive than other birds. Greenwood Lake had a bird, their first few years nesting back 2000, 2001. It would respond to anybody coming within a quarter mile. It was bad. It was like, ah, stop. And then the hoot is sort of the close communication call amongst the family group or in a social gathering. And that's one of the best ways we used actually to catch a loon is that we get close enough, we get 20 feet away, but we need to get 10 feet away. And I'll just do a little hoot, hoot, hoot. And it'll kind of like look, see who's there. And then that's just enough to get your net. So a little trick. It's amazing how far the calls will, I don't know if it depends on the air pressure or whatever, I live on Bain's Moly Road and I can hear the loons on numbers. There's something about, yeah. Number 10 and Nelson Park. They got big vocal cords and big lung, big, there was some other questions here. I have one of flies over my nose, which is over that way, making from Lisbon to Curtis doing the tremolo. Tremolo and flight, I gotta get that one on here. And that's sort of that, but it's a little faster, more rapid. And it's really, that's more of just probably a communication amongst other birds they might be flying with, but sometimes they just do it when they're flying. It doesn't seem any, there's nobody around. It's like every other day. Right. I haven't done that in my house in Craftsbury between Elago and the Hosmer's all the time right up the valley. But it can also be before they land, it's an inspection. Do they get a yodel return? You know, if they get a yodel back from the water, it says don't land. So it can be, you know, definitely good communication there. So, clean. The elitist sells the cooing from the mating and then they're done when they hash. I guess that was his gut roll. They can do a real mix. Incredible. They said they'd never heard anything like it and they always do it. An announcement. I hear these sort of whale-tremolo combination call that sort of garbles all up together sometimes. The chick. It is real. So cool. And then the chick does a little cooing all the time. That's a chick call, a begging call, or you know, help me out. And then the whoo, whoo, whoo. You know, when they're just kind of cooing to each other. That's one of my favorite sounds when they're just together. So. The thermatrized leg of the mane a couple of times, I've heard. They're too far away to see. It sounds like a bunch of loons. Absolutely cooing to the sir. I mean, beyond the wild, it's the only part that you've ever ever had with an absolute view of the state. Do you know what that is all about? Most likely it's before a fight might break out or it's prevent a fight from breaking out. And they're doing just their calls to each other. I've seen dual yodeling, two males kind of going at it side by side. But it can also be, I think, they just get excited. One starts yodeling, the second one starts going. And not the yodel, the tremoloing. And they sort of do all those laughs together. And I'm not sure what's going on in those things. And that's, I've heard that before. I've heard recordings of it. I don't know if I've actually heard it. But yeah, it sounds like, yeah, there's something crazy. Eric, have you ever heard this idea? I read it a number of years ago in the Callas, Lakes, and Collins newsletter that the bird, that's a lake, actually, the body of water itself has a certain song. And they said that actually the looms change their song according to the body of water. So the yodel is the one that's been studied the most. And there we go. And what she's mentioning is when the bird, when a male comes in, it has a certain yodel that you can identify. Birds can identify each other that way. And we can identify it using computer analysis. And when there's a switch in the male, the male adopts a yodel very similar to the male that was there before or can do that. But there's been some discrepancy on the studies. And so that was one late. And then there was another one that found, well, no, he's identifying something totally different. But he's changed his yodel from what he had five miles away. He's changing it to something more distinct than any other bird in the area so that other birds know. So this is the more current research now, is that they really kind of, it sometimes adopts something very similar to what was there. But sometimes it can just be different than all the other nearby yodels. So it can end up being similar to what was there originally. But then over a year or two, it'll switch back to what the original yodeler sounded like from five miles away when he lived there. And so it sort of changes back. But he wants to make sure that all the other males know that he's unique. One of the things about all these calls is that you might be directing it at that male or that female saying, OK, this is my territory. But all the nearby territories around can hear what's going on. All those non-breeders can hear what's going on. So there's a lot of information being conveyed about who's where and what and who occupies what. In that first note, the crescendo, before the up and down, up and down note, the deeper the pitch, the bigger the male. And that right there tells other birds, watch out, I'm big, I'm fit. Whereas a higher pitched might say, I'm vulnerable because I'm smaller. Because males will actually lose weight over time. They spend so much time nesting and rearing their young that they actually lose like 50 grams a year or something. And that can add up over five years of nesting. And they become vulnerable. Females tend not to lose weight like the males do, for some reason. We don't know why. Um, so it might be good to take a few years off. Get your weight back. But the other thing, the repeat syllables, though, those smaller birds tend to use more repeat syllables. So I might be small, but I'm motivated. And the guy doing the studies would actually go illicit yodels. He'd do playbacks. And he got more people upset than loons upset, I think. Getting all these loons riled up and then he'd record them. But there were some really neat studies, controlled studies. And he was able to determine that when you got a loon really, really angry. They were doing like up to 30 of those repeat syllables. Usually it's just four or five. The other thing is neat is that the neighbors all know each other. So if I recorded number 10 pond male, brought it to Curtis Pond and played it, he's going to come over and say, you know, get angry. And you probably yodeled back. But he's not going to get that angry, because he knows that it's number 10. He recognizes that bird. And like, you know, what are you doing over here, Ralph? You know, you live over there. What's the deal? We already got this situated. But if I go to Maine or Minnesota, record a yodel, bring it here, they're going to stop everything. They'll stash the chick. They'll leave the nest. They're going to go look for that male until they can tell that bird that, hey, this is our territory. You're the new kid on the block. So they know who's around. And they recognize everybody. Really neat. But again, communication, it's really fight avoidance. That's what all songbirds and pretty much behavior. You know, that's what communication is about. Try to avoid the fight, because fights aren't good for anybody, unless you actually have to do it. So if you have a very quiet pair, they're not being threatened. They're not. They're holding their own. They don't need to. They don't need to. Yeah. And so single territory lakes like this one, tech, she tend to hold territories longer than, let's say, Molly's Falls Reservoir or Peach and Pond, where they can just swim into a territory and swim out of the territory. Here, they've got to fly in, fly out. And we're a little bit more separated. We're not right up in the Woodbury Lake District. You know, it's a little bit of a distance to get down here from Nelson Pond or Dog Pond or what have you. What's the minimum size of lake or body of water that they can get from? We got one pair that nests on a seven or eight acre beaver pond. But when the chicks are a week old, they call the chicks through the woods to the 70 acre pond to raise them the rest of the year. So that's one thing that they can do. They have multiple lake territories. But really, 30 to 50 acres is about as small as you'll see. They can be smaller, but you're starting to maybe not. Curtis is? 120. 120? 72. 72. That sounds better. But 70 to 100 acres is a really good size. Like the north end of Peach and Pond is a nice 60, 70 acre area that that pair has been the most successful recently. So if they can have a visual area that's separate from the rest of the lake, they're going to be more successful. So a lake like Caspian, like 700 acres, there's one pair on it. Partly, there's no other island or marsh. So there's not great habitat. But even if there was, it's around. And so they can see each other all the time. So not great for multiple pairs. Green River Reservoirs got the most in the state with four pairs. There's all those bays and islands, which divided up. There's a lake in northern Minnesota that's got 70 pairs of loons on it, Lake Vermillion. It's incredible. They'll count 160 loons out there, 170 on their loon watch day. But it's up again number 10 times. This year, they took the year off. And they were like three a lot. OK, so maybe we got an intruder who's kind of causing trouble all summer. And there's no babies this year? Nope. They got on the raft early, but we don't even think they laid eggs. Mike Fullerton and Debbie Paskins, watch out for that. That intruder's probably just prevented them from nesting. Oh, but what if there's no intruder? It's going to get that situation in the maids. There could have been a switch in the maids that you didn't know. And often they'll take a year off after there's been a switch, especially if there's a switch in the mail. Males tend to choose the nest sites. And we'll switch to a different site sometimes. So that's one thing that they learned, following the banded birds. If there's a change in water levels, and their typical nest site is no longer available, or they might not nest that year. So we got lakes with no great habitat. Willoughby's probably had pairs, but there's never been a nest on Willoughby. They're just, it's all rocky shoreline. I'm waiting for the day to have them sneak up on shore somewhere, most likely a predator would get the nest, the eggs. So a few other things that they learned from banding, or Walter Piper has, is that when a chick comes back, nests at six, seven, eight years of age, they tend to choose a lake very similar in size to the one that they hatched out on, and similar in pH. So if they were hatched on a 100 acre lake, they tend to come back to something like that, single territory. If they like the 10,000 acre, they're looking for the big lake. And then pH, pH is probably a indicator of the food. Most males are within 20 miles, but not to the same lake. Females tend to be a little further dispersed. There's been one case of inbreeding that's been documented in Wisconsin that I've heard about, but usually that's not the case. Then you get kicked out of a territory when you're nine, you're 15, you find another territory, it's your second nesting site, size no longer matters. pH still does, so they like certain types of fish. And then clarity now is the other big factor. So if they've been on a clear lake, good visibility, they tend to go back. So that's a type of fishing mechanism. Whereas if it's a really murky water, they learn how to feed in murky waters, whereas they wait for something to move and then grab it. So instead of chasing it down. So kind of neat, that's a little side thing. Maintenance, preening, they gotta do this all the time. Every two to three hours, they're gonna do some sort of preening. Sort of zip those feathers up, put some oil on, there's an oil gland in the rear end. They'll spread that on their feathers and how it feathers or it zips together. If they lose that waterproof layer, water gets into the downy feathers and they become like a wet log. Literally when I pick up an injured bird or a bird that's really sick, oftentimes those feathers, and then the thing weighs five pounds more than a normal bird because it's all waterlogged. And then they'll beach themselves and get out. That's when we catch them. So really important, sometimes the preening is really just sort of gentle, it might last a minute, sometimes they'll work on it for half an hour. Other times they do this and it's probably my most common phone call. Cotton fishing line, they're trying to get it off. It looks like it's having a seizure. Literally. But think of it as like a really bad itch and oh, I gotta deal with this. And it feels really good to get, they're getting water deeper into those feathers to get the mites out and the dirt. And then they'll usually finish it with more low key preening. And this is, I call this extreme preening. I mean, look at that one in the upper left. I mean, it was literally upside down in the feed out. That's it. So isn't this why they're called lunatic? One of them. Lunatic, the relation to lunatic. Yeah, and you know, it looks like a breaching whale. It's cool to see. I've talked a lot already about so many things, but the only thing I wanna point out here is that this guy spent 4,500 hours over many years just watching banded males and females to decide, do they behave differently? And the question, every one of those numbers is statistically the same for the male and the female, whether it's foraging, locomotion, moving around the lake, resting. The only thing different was resting with the young. The dad spend more time with their young. The females want a little extra time off after they've laid those eggs and all of that. So otherwise everything's the same. But so a neat study. All right, we'll wrap up with some rescue stories. The one on the upper left was a birdcaught and ice fishing line at Lake Willoughby. And we were actually able to catch it really easily about three weeks after it was originally reported. I don't have a motorboat, so I couldn't really go search for it. I was waiting for other reports and we finally got it. We caught the bird and we banded it. And that's not the amazing part, is that it is now seven years since we caught that bird and released it. It keeps coming back to the same cove on Lake Willoughby now for seven years in a row. Really cool. It didn't show up this spring, but it showed up a few weeks ago. We got word from the person who lives there. So you banded it. How do you know it's it? You catch it every year. It's got two color bands on each leg and it's a unique combination. So you see the blue over the red and the silver over the white. Yeah, it's hard. It's underwater, but you can see it. So you see that bird that I'm releasing in the lower left. You can see the bands on the leg there. The one on the right was in Williston on the water retention fire pond. It landed late May, right by Friendly's and Shaw's. Anyone who's driven by there has seen it. And we saw osprey fishing there. We saw cobrants catching fish. So we thought, let's leave it and see if it can make it over that fence and under the power lines and avoid the building. Two months later, it's still there. And so we decided to put together a team to go out there. They weren't gonna let us do it because I don't have enough insurance. And but we have thousands of people watching this bird. And so they realized the political repercussions of doing that. And the Williston police actually came and watched us because they didn't have anything else to do that night because we had to jump the fence. And I actually brought a gill net in case we couldn't get it. I'd never used a gill net to do it, but because catching them is no, I mean, it's probably 20% for these free swimming birds. It's not reliable all the time, but we actually did get it pretty quick. I went to put bands on it. The band went right over the foot. And I'm like, what's going on? And then it dawned on me. This bird is probably from Northern Quebec, who was coming up Lake Champlain, made a mistake late April, late May. They have a delayed migration because their lakes are still ice in early May. And so all I could do is release it on Lake Champlain and let it go. But it was much, much smaller than a Vermont bird. Kind of neat. The chick on the left was one that was on the, it was like a 15-acre pond. And the parents left and probably were trying to call it to Island Pond, but there's spectacled pond right nearby that already had a pair with a chick on it. And some people came across some birders who knew Lune's a little bit, new VCE. And this chick's in the middle of the road on an 85-degree late morning. And they're like, what do we do? And they're making phone calls. They finally put it in spec pond. Finally, I got the message. I was away that day. I went up, found the pair with the chick. I'm like, okay, did this chick actually leave the pond and go up on the road for some reason? Or is it from that one that's a third of a mile over there? And they're calling it to Island Pond. But it made a mistake. It went the wrong way. I'm not finding any birds. I'm like, oh good, maybe it was just this chick did a weird thing, because I could see the family. And I come around the last corner and there's a chick in the weeds, hiding. And so it was. It was this bird from this tiny little pond trying to get to a bigger pond. No idea where the parents are. So I grab it. I bring it to Island Pond thinking, okay, can I find the parents? And there was a single adult. There's also another pair out there with a chick. So I didn't want to release it in the territory. So we were on the other side of the lake. We release it. I had two volunteers with me. And we're just kind of like waiting, see what happens. And they're both really interested at each other. They come together, cooing and hooting, and then wham. I was like, oh no. So I grabbed the lady's kayak and I went out there. I forgot my net. And I'm like swimming around, breaking up the fight. And it's shallow water. And I'm like, okay, maybe I can get above this bird and catch it. And so it's swimming around, swimming, diving, coming up. You know, it's six weeks old now. It's pretty big. And next thing I hear is a little thump on the bottom of my kayak. And I just reach under and I grabbed a leg. And I was able to get it in my lap. And this one we actually brought to a rehabber in Maine. There's only one group in New England that does water bird rehab. And with tanks and ponds. And they raised it for six weeks before it got really feisty and definitely needed to get released. And that's the picture in the lower left. It's first died, it came up with a crab. And there's a great series of blogs that the lady who sort of originally found the bird and was with me and she kind of followed the whole progress of the rearing of the chick. So it was kind of, it worked really well. The bird on the upper right, look at that left wing. What happened? It had a chick, it had a mate. I really wanted to catch that bird to find out did it get snapped by a snapping turtle? Did, was there a hormone thing and the feathers just fell out? So we tried three or four times to catch the bird. We just couldn't get it. Finally, it froze over on Christmas Eve. I got up there Christmas morning. The bird had actually waddled up through the woods to try to get to a nearby pond which is obviously frozen as well. And I'm following the path. It was like following an otter path and it was sliding down. You can see where it slept. It moved over and then coyote tracks. Oh. So it didn't make it. The volunteers were devastated but it was just like, it was a really interesting thing. The bird on the right, I actually rescued that bird from fishing line on West Hill Ponds. We released it, let it go next week. It's gone, flew off, but a month later it showed up on Nichols Pond. Really bad shape. Must have had a, it must have swallowed something. We ended up having to euthanize that one. And then occasionally we get a red-throated loon. They come through in migration, then breed way up north but they'll come down to the Mid-Atlantic states for the winter. And so really cool bird to see. The upper left pictures were a nice rescue on Elago and we've been watching this bird and it had a wing that was not sitting right. It was a chick of the year. And so we thought maybe it had a wing injury. It's not gonna make it. It's sitting in a hole now. It froze it in. I totally forgot to call the game warden. And finally he got word from someone else. He calls the Woodbury Fire Department who just bought this airboat for ice rescues for fishermen or snowmobilers. They used it during Irene. And they thought this would be a great time to test it on ice. So they called the fire department but they made a mistake. They went out on the 911 repeater and said, ice rescue, Lake Elago, nothing else. I show up, there's 20 pickup trucks, the rescue vehicle, all these guys are like, a bird? But that motor was really loud and once they fired that up it was all, it was fine. And they actually got stuck a few times. They had trouble turning it. So they learned a lot about how to maneuver this thing. They were able to get the bird and I brought it to LaMoya Valley vet in Morseville and sure enough there was. It was a broken wing from the summer, it healed wrong, it couldn't fly. It could eat, it could preen, it could do everything it needed to. It just needed to get to big water, the ocean. So some friends of mine actually took it to Portland, Maine and had New Year's Eve dinner after releasing the bird. So that was a neat one. And then this last one is out, two years ago at Lake Champlain, some long distance ice skaters who loved to ice skate all the way across the shallow sea up there above Sandbar. Sand came across this pool with nine loons in it and it was a year of warm winter. Some of them probably couldn't even fly if they wanted to and so we put together a group to go out and we brought a canoe and some boxes and thinking, okay, can I get out there? Can we get close to the edge? It was not a chance. Luckily I caught one bird that first egg by total chance because those birds would dive, they'd come up, anyone been to the biodome and seen the penguins, they would like surface for a second and a half and then down. Not even a second and a half, they were just enough to get air to go down. We weren't even getting close. So we came back another day with a tarps to put over the lower left picture, forcing the loons into these openings. But even then, it was too big, too much area, but we were able to get six of them that day as they popped up. But there were two that we couldn't get. Finally we went out a third time a week later and the hole was smaller and we were able to get the last two. But I wouldn't have done it without the help of these people who really knew ice safety. Actually the commissioner chimed in on this one saying he didn't like it, he was gonna take responsibility for the loss of these loons. But it was like these guys knew ice safety. So we all had dry suits, a lot of ropes in case anyone went through. So it turned out to be fine. But it was three full days of work to try to get these birds. And yet, as for the population, it didn't probably matter. It wasn't gonna make a dent in it. But for those nine loons. What did you do? We brought them to the lower part of the lake, which is open most of the, all winter usually. So we were able to release them just out of Burlington. And in fact, the upper right picture is a kid from town who was home school to help me that day. And so he got to release one. But yeah, there's something special about giving that bird a second chance. And letting it live for another day. All right, so you can tell lots of great stories. And I'm sure you have your own. Do we have any, who are some balloon volunteers here in the audience? I know we got a few. So, great. Are you here? Sure. I'd like to know that the loons swings were not out, but it raised up on the surface of the water and sort of that S. Yup. And just attacking it. Penguin dance, they call that. Yes. What is that? It was amazing. Was there another bird nearby? Well, this is Nikko's pond. And this year, they're here to not have a nest. They're not a nest here this year. Was there another bird nearby? Okay. So that's a territorial display. It didn't go anywhere. It just rose up. Yup. That's like. That's called the penguin. Penguin dance. Okay. And it's a total aggression. Full of angst. Letting that other bird know that he's not happy or she's not happy. Really? There was no aggression. Usually they don't associate, usually they chase cormorants away. But it may be that now it's late summer, dog pond had a failed nest this year. They've only had one successful nest last year for the first time ever. Yeah. So. Yup. I have a question. I'm gonna get this lady for you. Yeah. On the way through the reservoir, there was a loon on the nest and right on the beach by on an island was a heron just walking up and down. Is it like waiting to kill? No, no. No. Okay. Yeah, there's no, and they really is eagles. They're the ones that they're concerned about. And even osprey, you don't see loons react to osprey like they do an eagle. I know some folks on Woodbury say they've seen the osprey kind of come in at them. But osprey are really fish-eaters, exclusive. So they really aren't going after chicks. Maybe opportunistically they could, but for a lot of things, unless they just kind of get in the wrong position at the wrong time, like a beaver swimming right by the family or something, they won't have really any interaction. There's actually been a nest that we, I saw with painted turtles all around the nest with a loon sitting there. You know, like no big deal. So. When you say they call the young for another pond, are they waddling over land? Yes. Or are they, they're not flying? They're, yeah. And that's how the parents are getting there as well? Parents are usually on the other lake calling. Right, but how do they get there? They fly. They fly and then they call the baby. But the chicks aren't flying yet. Right, so they have to post for themselves. And that's if there's a really good nest site on a really tiny pond that probably doesn't have a lot of fish. And then they want to use a nearby pond. How often are they successful in waddling over? Certain lakes, if it depends on what the crossing is. It's every year and really successful. Up in Glover on Daniel's pond, where these little guys are going and they're doing it when they're really young, younger than I've ever heard or seen before. It's maybe 40 to 50%, something like that. But how do the adults take off on such a small pond? Just don't they need, They need two to 300 feet to get airborne. And if there's an open area beyond and they know it and they understand it, they can get over that comfortably. Oftentimes they don't. When they land on a pond they've never landed on. Even if there's a field, they're uncomfortable getting over that land even when they're four feet off the ground. But if they, for some reason, if they picked the pond and got used to it, maybe they can figure it out. You'll see them circle six, seven times around the woods to get above the tree line and then pop over. You didn't talk about what they eat. I was just wondering, is there just one fish they go after or quite a few? Perch tends to be their favorite based on some very limited type of studies. Most of the time they're eating everything underwater. They're eating the two to four inches, small fish. Occasionally they'll get the bigger fish, a trout. They'll definitely take them and those are the ones that bring it, the big ones are the ones you'll see at the surface and they're trying to force them down the throat just right. And it takes them a while to get that. And sometimes it doesn't work. But they'll eat crayfish and crabs in the winter. So definitely chomp on those. Let me ask about climate change. Do you think there's any effect that detrimental to looms that? I mean, definitely concerned about shifts in prey base, in the prey. If there's a big shift in the fisheries, oxygen levels change in a lake and all of a sudden you can't support the fish life, that could be a concern. Algae blooms and water clarity. Those are all concerns. Overheating while sitting on a nest. You'll see them off the nest a lot more on those 90 degree weeks. I really would love to have had more things set up to really watch during that first week of July this year. And hopefully we could sort of try to figure that out for some monitoring to see, do we see more nest failure during those really hot spells. New Hampshire's got some preliminary info that's showed that. But they've also done a little bit more with data loggers where they actually put a little device in the nest to measure temperature, temperature loggers. And they can see what the temperature is going on in the nest. So that's definitely some of the type of research we'd like to be doing. Very interesting about pack, behavior and fishing. I grew up on Swam Lake, which is much bigger open areas of up to a mile. And got a chance in the 70s and 80s spent a lot of time watching the behavior on the lake. Although they were isolated or in pairs in the early summer, late summer they'd be groups of 16 or 18, maybe as many as one. Right, and there's a behavior where there'd be approximately a hundred yards circle, like the points of a block, a dozen moons, skylighting point. They'd all go down together, a hundred yards apart, come up in the middle and get near us apart. And the clear impression I had was that they're driving fish for each other in a coordinated behavior. It's underwater, there's limited behavior. Does anybody know whether that's really what they're doing? No. And there's mixed things. Some of those social things are, they feel like they're seeing them when they're together and they're totally preoccupied with each other. And so, but in this case, could they be doing a group feed, especially later in the summer like that, when there's no territorial stuff going on? When they're trying to build some body mass. Yeah. So it couldn't make sense that they do some of that, but it really hasn't been documented very well. What about navigation and flying and migration time? Do they fly in large groups or is there an individual? Mainly small groups, but not like a geese. But they do tend to congregate to, well, it depends on what type of flying they're doing. Arborists probably go very individual to the ocean once they figure out the flight path. It's 45 hours of flight time that makes sense. Right, and the only basis I have to say this is I spent, some of my early bird work was at Bird Observatory in Michigan on Lake Superior. And there was usually two days in early May, went up to 2,000 to 3,000 loons would fly over over two mornings. And they were probably all together at night on Lake Huron, lift off together, but you'd get one there and then three there and then two. And they'd be spread out over four or five hours, but literally a thousand birds within four or five hours. And so yeah, they're sort of keeping tabs, but not like the water birds. And then they gotta sort of figure out where they're gonna school up if they're gonna do that. But definitely more individualistic. You know, when I've gone down to the Cape, Nantucket area in April, I see one bird there, one half mile up another bird, half mile up another bird, they're spaced out all over the place, but not really big groups. So even a lot of the winter time, they're still by themselves. Okay, one more question and then I'll stick around for any others and really appreciate you coming out and hoping to support us. Is there any relationship between families like brothers or sisters, or is it just like once they reach maturity, they'll like never see each other? Most likely they'll run into each other, but they don't seem to recognize each other once they get old. But no, good question. Just your recognition. No, but there's definitely recognition once they get old, knowing who's in the neighborhood. Very important. Cool, well enjoy them. Call me, email me. So I got some newsletters back there from last summer, along with a brochure, some basic information. Come up and take a look at this guy. If you wanna see a Luna close.