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The Haunting Cry of the Loon
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Paul Provost stood on the deck of friend Greg
Gachowski’s Raquette River Drive home, his hands clasped as though in
prayer.
Paul was indeed making a supplication, but not one of prayer.
Placing joined hands to his pursed lips, he blew hard, and the result was a
mournful wail — the signature call of the common loon!
From across the river in a bay of Lake Simond came an answering wail. A wail
so like the one created by Paul that it could have been an echo. It was not
an echo, however. It was one of a pair of loons that in the past two years
has adopted Lake Simond as their territory.
The haunting cry of the loon, the very epitome of wilderness, to be heard so
close to the village almost daily, and especially early in the morning or
late at night, has to be termed extraordinary.
It is extraordinary because, for one thing, loons return each spring to an
increasingly hostile environment.
Along with many other man-made threats to their survival — including
harassment by boaters, loss of nest sites by high water, mercury poisoning
on their wintering grounds, and the increasing acidification on so many of
our local ponds — the loons chances have become severely threatened. My
neighbor and former school chum, Herb Trimm, who has returned here in
retirement, sums it up best: “I love to hear the loons across the pond. It
reminds me so of the remote ponds I visited as a youngster growing up in
this God’s country. The best part is that it could indicate that Lake Simond
has retained its clean water, its sizable fish population and its
uncluttered surroundings. We are so lucky to live here!”
Paul Provost agrees with Herb and adds that loons mate for life and return
to the same lake year after year. The very fact that for the second year in
a row the residents of Lake Simond have watched two chicks, hitching a ride
on their parents back, which is a striking example of breeding success and
insures in part that the loons have found a safe haven and will return (if
they have a safe migration) next year.
It should be pointed out that Paul only calls loons in August. There are
several reasons for this:
First, early in the spring, loons are very territorial and could possibly be
upset by Paul’s rendition of another loon. Secondly, he doesn’t want to
disturb them while they are nesting, or later, when the chicks are not
capable of swimming or diving. Only when they reach the juvenile stage at
this time of year does he call to them.
Despite the loons threatened existence elsewhere, local observers like Joyce
Thomas, Inge Sapp, Dawn Andrews, Greg Smith, Charlcie Delehanty, and Cindy
Lewis, to mention a few, report a healthy population and high rate of
breeding success in this area. Mrs. Delehanty notes that loons can’t fly
until they are eleven weeks old. This means that they are confined to the
lakes where they are born for that period and increases the accuracy and the
ease in assessing breeding success. Only one pair of loons in the ten
traditional areas surveyed by local observers failed to raise young (Eagle
Crag/Sapp). One hatchling was lost to predation (Hitchins Pond/Andrews), and
one nesting pair only incubated a single egg (Lows Lake/Andrews).
Sometime next month, the young loons will migrate separately without their
parents to the Atlantic Ocean. They will remain there for two or more years
until they reach sexual maturity. How do they find their way the first time?
How do returning loons time their arrival to coincide precisely with ice
out? Science doesn’t have these answers. We can only hope that this area
will continue to be a safe refuge. |
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