Linda Grenzer’s striking photo from two weeks ago got me thinking about loon breeding success. The picture is a sight that will please loon fanciers — two big healthy 9-week-olds resting side by side while their parents circle with intruders. (The chicks are holding their legs out of water, as resting loons commonly do.) Since territorial pairs almost never lay more than two eggs or hatch more than two young, the photo depicts a monster year for the breeders on Muskellunge Lake. Despite black flies and raccoons (which threaten nests), eagles, muskies and snapping turtles (which attack chicks), and constant intrusions by competing adults (which seek to drive adult breeders off of their lakes), the male and female on this lake reared two chicks to adulthood. Quite an achievement!

For Muskellunge, 2016 marks the sixth year in a row of chick production. Ten chicks in all have been raised by the pair during this stretch (including one rehabbed chick we added to their singleton brood in 2014). While I am thrilled to see such an abundance of chicks come from a single lake, it is not the norm. As residents on most lakes well know, loon breeding is a dicey proposition.

Consider, for example, South Two Lake, a normally productive breeding lake where the sudden disappearance of two successful breeders after 2015 left the lake wholly without a pair in May and June of this year, until it was finally resettled by a male and female in July — far too late for nesting. Or look at the Boom Lake-Hodag Park territory, where the pair had fledged five chicks across the past four seasons until the male became entangled in fishing line in the spring of 2016 near Panama City, Florida and never reached Wisconsin. Baker Lake was a consistent chick producer until 2013, when a five year-old male settled there with an unmarked female; they have lost nests to predators each year since then. Most spectacularly, the productive pair on Blue Lake-Southeast weathered the storm of parasites, egg robbers and chick predators only to see the male lose territorial ownership to a young usurper, which resulted in the chick’s death. Finally, pity the pair on tiny Liege Lake or Wind Pudding-West where, despite successful territory defense and incubation, the parents were unable to locate enough food to raise a single chick past six weeks of age.

In light of the many hazards facing loon pairs, it seems remarkable that we ever see a photo such as the one above. As one might surmise from the preceding paragraphs, there are several requirements for successful breeding. Abundant food is essential, of course. Each year, many pairs attempt to breed on tiny lakes where food limitation prevents them from rearing even a single chick, let alone two. Nesting habitat is vital; lack of boggy or marshy shoreline or an island prevents many pairs from even attempting to breed. Two less obvious factors can make or break a breeding effort: 1) the ability of both pair members to maintain their breeding positions throughout the season despite an onslaught of young adults looking to evict them, and 2) the male’s familiarity with proven successful nest sites, which dictates whether the nest is positioned in a location likely to survive four weeks of incubation.

Some breeding pairs have everything going for them, so that they surmount all obstacles and raise chicks to fledging year after year. Muskellunge (see photo) is large enough — at 160 acres — that food abounds, and the lake features several shoreline zones that support nesting. The resident female is much larger than average and aggressively repels intruders that challenge her. She is paired with a tough 18 year-old male — a bird experienced enough to know the locations of multiple nest sites on the lake but young enough to be in good physical condition and not vulnerable to eviction. In short, Muskellunge Lake is currently in a “sweet spot” for raising chicks, like Townline, Manson, Little Bearskin, East Horsehead, and Buck Lake. Lakes that get on a roll like these produce a disproportionate number of chicks, which will mature, return, and sustain the population. In time, these productive territories will falter, owing chiefly to the loss of one or both members of the vigorous, experienced breeding pair. For now, though, let’s enjoy the bounty of offspring that these lakes produce and look forward to the emergence of new productive territories that will succeed them.