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Project Noah Nature School
Gavia immer
Winter on the ocean shores and breed in northern lakes of Canada and the US. The call of the loon has become a symbol of the cry of the wilderness. On the loon survey that I participate in every summer, there are very few successful breedings in our area now:(
Even though these are 2 different individuals, I put them in the same spotting to show the spectacular breeding plumage in #1 and the partly molted winter plumage in #2. Hard to believe that #2 is going to look like #1 in a short time!
Spotted on Mar 25, 2012
Submitted on Mar 27, 2012
16 Comments
really beautiful birdlady6000!!!
Thank you for posting the link for the loon video. It is so excellent. I wanted to go camping right away:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ENNzjy8Q...
It's such a beautiful bird :)
i can't but marvel at the exquisite design of this plumage,second time around!
Overwhelmingly pretty!
Thanks Laura and Satyen.
The loon call is one thing that makes me really homesick - I used to live in Canada, and the sound of the loon makes me miss those summers spent by Lake Ontario! Beautiful spotting :)
Nice spotting. Amazing to see the two different plumages in one spotting. Thanks for sharing.
The call of the loon is one of the reasons I still go tenting in the summer! I love to hear them call in the evening and the morning when it is quiet and you can hear them so distinctly:) Kathleen
Beautiful pics! I'm from Minnesota and the loon is the state bird. We used to see them all the time on the northern lakes, but at our family cabin, they are pretty infrequent visitors now. I love their mournful call!! Thanks for sharing!
Sounds good! They usually have young here by the end of May so they should be arriving soon. Kathleen
Expect my pair of loons will be headed your way soon. Hope they settle down and breed sucessfully. They were showing courtship behavior yesterday.
beautiful.
Sad indeed. Lets hope things turn around for these loons.
Yes I have been recording the breeding success on 2 lakes in southern BC for years now and have only recorded 2 successful breeding attempts on one of the lakes and none on the other. Hopefully they are doing much better further north. There is a lot of recreational use on both of these lakes and people will boat right up to the loons even when they have young with them. Hard to understand. People think that because they don't fly away, the birds are not bothered by the activity but they won't fly away and leave their flightless young.
Such a difference in appearance! Sad about the decrease in breeding there.
Wonderful,
thanks for such a lovely sharing,