Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary

This video shows how quickly a loon can change direction and accelerate underwater in order to capture prey. This is possible, in large part, due to their long, powerful legs attached at the rear of their bodies and large feet that provide lots of thrust for their streamlined bodies. The 9-10 inch alewife is swallowed quickly when the loon surfaces. The loon rises out of the water, does a wing flap, and stretches out its neck to get the fish a little farther down the very elastic esophagus. No chewing or picking apart, just straight down whole, head first for this unlucky fish.

The two common loons in this video were focused on each other for half an hour, employing various behaviors indicative of anxiety and aggression. One of the birds may be one of last year's resident territory holders trying to dissuade a challenger without resorting to high stakes physical contact fighting (with the potential for injury, sometimes serious) or it is possible that two newcomers are sizing each other up. Rapid, jerky bill dipping with quick placement of faces in water is a displacement behavior of anxious, confrontational loons.

Another confrontation type behavior called splash diving was occurring frequently during this pronged interaction as well. Very different from the effortless submergence of a loon leaving the surface to capture underwater prey, splash dives are exaggerated, usually short duration plunges. Typically when one bird dives all in the group go down so that they are not left alone on the surface – a "sitting duck," that may be speared by the bill of another from below.

Unfortunately, neither of last year's resident breeding pair were leg banded so it is difficult to impossible to ID them if engaged here (or when 2 other loons joined this pair later).

Ice melted off Mt. Desert Island's lakes about 10 days ago creating the opportunity for loons to move from the ocean to potential breeding territories on lakes and larger ponds. The next several weeks will involve a lot of conflict on many territories as past residents defend and challengers try to take over.

FYI – as I was filming this a truck with a trailered boat was backing down the launch ramp so you can hear that in background.

One step up and one back for many of these inbound migrating fish. The missing left side of the V-notch on one of the wooden baffles has been repaired, making it easier for fish to swim through the column of water in the "V" and not get blown back down by the outflowing water. You can see one or two alewife shoot through the notch of the upper baffle. Almost to Long Pond for spawning! After a week or two, they will start descending the streams and ponds along the way back to the ocean, hopefully to return the next spring.

The Jordan Pond male is shown here restlessly moving about in the nest cove with the few hours post-hatch chick tagging right along. The male and this 1st hatched chick went back to the nearby nest where the female was sitting while the other chick was working its way out of the shell. The JP nesting male has a faded yellow band with a black dot on the right leg and a silver band on the left. He was banded as a chick on August 26th, 2005 on the Echo Lake North territory, making him 14 years old during the summer of 2019 when this video was filmed.

The chick would like to crawl up on the father's back but he's moving around too much. A common yellowthroat warbler male is singing in the nearby wetland edge if the tiny cove. The video was filmed from the edge of a bridge for a busy trail that traverses the mouth of the nest cove.

Both chicks from 2019 were able to fledge from the lake. The past two years the same territorial pair chose not to nest, likely due to fluctuating water levels (too high or too low) and social disturbance from territory challenging intruding loon presence.

Sanctuary Volunteer John Correa asks students about how to age alewife (river herring) as they look closely at them before they are placed into the Somesville Mill Pond. The fish are on their way to spawn in Somes Pond or Long Pond, and then return to the ocean.

Sitting still in our kayaks the Echo Lake South full grown chicks swim by, with their father fishing along the way. Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary Volunteer Ray Yeager, Assistant Maggie Denison, and Director Billy Helprin enjoying the show:)

These two chicks should be about ready to fledge (leave their natal lake) anytime now. At 12 weeks old they should be able to fly and feed themselves. As long as their parents are around to feed them they are likely to stay. Loon chicks/juveniles sometimes leave before their parents to head for the ocean and sometimes it is the reverse. The ultimate deadline to leave their natal lake, or any Lake, is before substantial ice coverage. Needing a long "runway" to get airborne with their heavy bodies and relatively small wings, shrinking open water means trouble. With our generally late onset winters on the coast of Maine, they still have plenty of time.

The 12 week old chicks/juveniles can be seen here, largely watching the single parent present by "peering" with faces under the surface this late afternoon of September 14th, 2021. The adult loon (not sure if male or female) spends a lot of time underwater likely chasing fish. When the adult surfaces the chicks' whining/squealing food begging becomes more insistent. The young loons are perfectly capable of catching their own food now, but will always try to get more from their parents.