Jack and Lily, Part VI

(Also see Parts: I, II, III, IV, and V.)

Right around the end of September, Lily and Emma were in the cove next to the dock.  Lily was teaching Emma to run across the water while flapping her wings furiously: a precursor to flight. (Jack had been absent for several days; I assume he was getting ready to head south.) Lily showed Emma a full takeoff and headed down toward Pushineer.

That was the last we saw of her for over a week.

Nature is pretty cool. With migration-time coming soon, Lily left Emma to learn to sink or swim, if you'll pardon the pun.  Here's Emma on her own.  Notice how big she's gotten!  She'll keep her grayish coloring for two to three years until she fully matures.

Lily did come back for a few days but left again soon after that.  We never did see Emma take off, but we last heard her on October 10 and didn't see her on the pond after that, so she either flew away or walked away. (If you've ever seen a loon walk on land, you know there's a reason they don't, if they can help it!)

I did see her over on Denny Pond on October 16th, so I assume that she did learn to fly and that she's enjoying her winter down on the coast.  She'll probably spend the next few years down there while she matures, but we're looking forward to seeing her again when she comes back home!

Jack and Lily, Part V

(Also see: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.)

Here's a fun fact that you never thought about before- loons actually make great parents. Just the day after my embarrassing paparazzi episode (that nobody knew about until I shared it with the world), Jack and Lily brought Emma out to eat at the rock pile. I think Jack could just sense my presence at that point, because I again couldn't get near them even from shore. (The rock pile isn't that far from the point behind the Little Cabins.)

The fact that Jack hates me notwithstanding, watching the three of them was pretty neat. Jack and Lily would swim as a unit, sometimes close, sometimes fifteen feet apart, and always with Emma between them:

Sorry for the black-dot photos.  Trust me, the little black dot between the two larger black dots is Emma.  =)

More later!

Jack and Lily, Part IV

(Also see: Part I, Part II, and Part III.)

Before I start, I'll just note that I decided to call the chick Emma.  There's no particular story behind the name, and I don't know if the chick is a boy or a girl, but Emma is what stuck.

Anyway, three days after Emma hatched, I hoped to get a couple of pictures of  "the new family next door."  I paddled out around the left side of the Island, nice and slow, near the shore where I wouldn't be in the way or be a threat.

Jack was having none of that.  He popped up ten feet from my kayak and gave his now-famous "Get off my porch" call.  He dove and came up just on the other side of me.  Dive, call.  Dive, call.  Repeat as necessary.  Lily and Emma made for the other side of the cove.

I know when I'm not wanted, but I also know that I'm stubborn.  As reassuringly as I could (and, of course, without knowing what might actually be reassuring to a loon), I paddled back around to the front of the Island.  Jack seemed satisfied; proud of himself, really.

I kept going around the Island, thinking I'd try to catch up with Lily and Emma in the larger part of the cove (again, where I wouldn't be in the way).  I didn't make it far; I heard a splash right behind my stern.  When I looked back, Jack was diving and crisscrossing in my wake.  The yelling started soon thereafter.

Defeated, I headed back to the dock.  On the way, I had my most brilliant idea of the day.  Since Lily and Emma were in the cove, I'd simply walk the loop around the pond and play paparazzi from the shore.

The first part of the walk was uneventful.  I stopped at the outlet to take a couple of pictures of dragonflies:

 

And then I made my mistake.  I walked over to the water.

(I'll note right now that this story is 100% true.  I am not exaggerating in any way.)  Jack saw me on the shore, and he came right over.  He started sassing me and stuck within about 20 feet of the shore. 

"Crazy loon," I thought, and I headed into the woods where the trail splits from the road.  The trail swings away from the water for a while and then comes back to the shore.  When I got back to the shore, Jack was looking for me.  As soon as he saw me again, he swam to 20 feet in front of where I stood and called.

"Creepy loon," I thought this time, and I kept walking.  Sure enough, Jack kept pace with me.  He stopped calling, but he kept one eye on me the whole time.  (Lily and Emma were, at this point, well out of danger's way on the other side of the cove.)  He followed me all the way around to the back side of the Island.

This is the embarrassing part of the story.  Somehow, I had to outwit a loon.  (There, I said it.)  So when I had the chance, right after a small stand of trees that shielded me from the water, I stopped.  I not only stopped, I ducked down so I was sure he wouldn't see me.  I actually played a deranged game of hide-and-seek with wildlife a tenth my size on the side of a trail in the middle of the woods.  Thank goodness we don't have neighbors.

In my mind, Jack then went from crazy to creepy to downright psychotic.  When he realized that I should have re-emerged from the trees but didn't, he called.  He then went 30 yards down the shore, turned around, came back, and went 30 yards back the way we'd come.  He then did the entire circuit again, down 30 yards, turn around, back up 30 yards, even more slowly, watching the shore the entire time.  Never let it be said that a loon isn't thorough in its investigations.

Satisfied that I'd either given up on the hunt or I'd been eaten by something bigger myself, he left me alone.  I realized this would be just about my only chance of the day to get any pictures, so I ever-so-slowly made my way closer to shore.  Unfortunately, even after half an hour, Lily and Emma never did come back over to where I sat, and this is the best picture I was able to get:

 

(Note that Emma is swimming in this picture.  This is 3 days after hatching, from what we can tell.  The shadow on the right-hand side is me still trying to hide behind a tree.)

All in all, it was a good day with our new neighbors.  More to come later.

Jack and Lily, Part III

(Also see: Part I and Part II.)

By now, you're probably wondering why I keep calling this story "Jack and Lily."  

If you've seen the movie Legend, you know that it's a classically-cheesy Tom Cruise flick from the mid-80's; it's one of my favorite movies to watch around Halloween.  (It also has a great soundtrack.)  Legend starred Mia Sara as a sweet and innocent free-spirited princess named Lily who befriends a sweet and innocent forest-dwelling boy named Jack.  In the usual fashion, Lily and Jack fall in love; Lily inadvertently plunges the world into darkness; Jack saves the world (from Tim Curry, no less); and everyone lives happily ever after. 

Fast-forward to 2010 after the loon chick is born: every time I go near the Island, the male decides that I'm a threat and gives a series of "Hey you kids, get off my porch!" calls.  The female responds with calls that I can only imagine mean, "Who's at the door, dear?" or something similar.  At any rate, they're loon calls that I haven't heard on the pond before, but their pitch and volume are uncannily similar to Lily calling for Jack the first time she visits him in the forest in Legend.

And just like that, our loons have become Jack and Lily.

Here's Jack giving me the evil eye:

 

More still to come.

Jack and Lily, Part II

(Jack and Lily, Part I)

It seems like we waited forever, watching for signs that the loon eggs would hatch.  Being new to baby loons ourselves, none of us knew exactly when that was supposed to happen.  The internet told us that loon chicks usually hatch in mid- to late-June, unless the pair lost their first nest or bred later for some other reason.  The latest date I could find for successful hatches (and subsequent migration in the fall) was early July.

When July came with no sign of a hatch, we started to resign ourselves to the fact that the eggs were no longer viable.  I was bummed- I know that some folks don't like loons because they compete with the fishermen (sometimes literally, but that's another story), but in my opinion, the loons just keep the trout on their toes.  I don't think any of our guests come here with the burning desire to catch fat, lazy fish; they can do that at a fish farm.  Folks come here because it's real.

Stepping off my soapbox and returning to July, though, after the first couple of weeks came and went, we were pretty sure that our hopes of having Island Pond's first loon chicks were dashed.  Lucky for us, we were wrong.

On July 14, exactly one month after I took the picture in Part I of this story, the loon pair started acting crazy and calling in a manner I hadn't heard before, and two of our guests came in off the water after basically being attacked by the male.  That was good enough for me- I grabbed my camera and a kayak, and I went to see what I could see.

Out by the island, the male was calling up a storm and generally making a nuisance of himself.  I didn't get close enough to see the eggs, but the female wasn't on the nest.  I swung back around the Island, and the guests who had been attacked earlier pointed me to where she was swimming over by the shore on the other side of the rock pile.

Thank goodness for a decent zoom lens on my camera, because this is what I didn't quite see with my own eyes:

If you look close, you can see the little black fuzzball riding on mama's back.  Call me sentimental, but it was a good day for Red River.

I'll pick this story up again in a later post.

Jack and Lily, Part I

Alright kids, gather around for story time.  I should have told this one as it was happening, but since I didn't, you get the re-telling now.

It was a sunny day last June, right around the 12th if I remember correctly, that one of our guests came in to tell us that they'd spotted two loon eggs on the back side of Matt's Island.  (Matt's Island, named after my brother when we were both kids, is the little island right behind the big one.)  I thought it was a pretty momentous occasion; we'd never had loons nest or raise young on Island Pond before.

Unfortunately for our loons, though, we'd had a group of youngsters at Camp the weekend before the eggs were spotted.  The kids were a great group, but the best part about being in the woods is that you can make all sorts of noise and commotion without getting into trouble.

We didn't know if the nesting loons were new and inexperienced parents, or if they were old hands.  (By all accounts, loons are easily spooked from their nests- they prefer to nest on lakes with little human activity, which is probably why they've steered away from Island Pond.)  We had no idea if they'd stayed with the eggs through the unexpected ruckus.  If they'd been abandoned, the temperature could have easily dropped low enough for the eggs to lose vitality. 

I paddled around Matt's Island one or twice and saw the eggs but never saw the parents.  I didn't have high hopes for their success, but the only thing to do was watch and wait.

Which is exactly what you'll have to do now, because today's part of Jack and Lily's story is only the introduction.  More to come in future posts.