Breeding prospects for loons in northern Wisconsin seemed dim only three weeks ago. Not only had a frigid April delayed the start of nesting, but Simulium annulus was doing its best to keep loons from warming the eggs that had taken so long to appear. A statistical correlation between cold spring temperatures and black fly harassment had me fearing that the long-awaited nests would be abandoned in short order – delaying the season still further. My hopes for a bounce-back year of breeding, after 2017’s disappointment, seemed distant.

As I keep learning in life, unfathomably horrid situations often improve. So it was this spring. To be sure, loons were forced to abandon a few early nests – those at Langley, Fox, and Wind Pudding-East, for example – owing to fly harassment. But loon pairs that had been reluctant incubators in mid-May suddenly bent to the task late in the month. Even after accounting for the inevitable wolfing down of eggs in exposed nests – such as those at Two Sisters-Far East, Long, and Little Bearskin — by raccoons and their ilk, the vast majority of our breeders are sitting on eggs (like the male on Linda’s lake; see photo). At last count, 79 of 123 pairs we cover are on nests that have survived the crucial first ten days. Two weeks or more of incubation remain for most of these territories. But barring some unforeseen disaster, 2018 might be one of the most productive years for northern Wisconsin loons in the last quarter century. Who would have guessed that a breeding season that started so inauspiciously would gain such momentum?