Loons & Eagles

[SAMIAM]

As many as 7 loons in our bay this year and not a single chick. Yesterday, Sammie saw a bald eagle attacking an adult loon.
The eagle made several passes and the loon escaped each time by diving but I'm wondering now if that's what happened to all of the chicks.
Also, this spring, while having lunch at Canoe, we saw an eagle attacking ducks in a small area of open water just before ice out.

[Greene's Basin Girl]

Eagles will pick up loon chicks and that will be the end of them. Lead sinkers and jigs are the greatest cause of adult loon deaths

[tis]

We haven't seen the eagles go near the loons, we have however seen them go after the ducks. We saw them kill one once. There is no doubt the eagles could easily get the loon eggs or babies.

[RLW]

We have trained our eagles here at our lake to only go after fish and that's all they do and they take them to a small rock island to enjoy their meal.:)

[SAMIAM]

We have trained our eagles here at our lake to only go after fish and that's all they do and they take them to a small rock island to enjoy their meal.:)

Good work. RLW maybe you can come over and teach our eagle some manners......don't they even know that loons are protected?

[tis]

Here too. RLW is going to be busy training eagles.

[SteveO123]

Hi all,

Yesterday morning I took the kayak, camera and telephoto lens out on Opechee. It was a calm, warm morning and when the fog burned off there were 14 (yes 14!) loons in the middle of the lake! It seemed there were a few groups of them, adults (http://flic.kr/p/ps5Pzo) and yung'ens too. For about 5 minutes they all assembled in the middle of the lake then each group went their separate ways.

Here's a shot of about 8 of them (http://flic.kr/p/paCcrq), and also one of the juveniles (http://flic.kr/p/pq5tTA).

I hope these pictures work! What a sight!

-Steve

[donnamatrix]

The loons are starting to gather, and "winger-cize" as they prepare for winter and their flights out. We watched on near Green's Basin on 9/28 as it "swam" under the water, flapping wings, stretching, cleaning and just have a good time. I love to watch them.

[tis]

Yes, they are. We saw 4 babies by Rattlesnake and the next day we saw 5 just inside Winter Harbor. We think the baby who is in WH had joined the others 4 that day. Last week I saw 7 adults gathered. It is such fun to watch them.

[Fargo]

We have two loons by the GI bridge but I've never seen any chicks. The geese haven't been around much this summer and fewer ducks here. What we do have are two herons, two hawks and two eagles. My thought is that these birds are discouraging the ducks and geese from nesting here. The hawks dive bomb our yard and pick up chipmunks. Pretty amazing to watch, happens real fast.

[tis]

Yes, if the loons have a baby, I think they stay in an area more and it keeps the geese away.