As of today, 32 of our territorial pairs have hatched chicks. We are on pace with last year, despite the three-week delay in nesting resulting from the cold winter. I am encouraged; 2018 looks to be at least an average year for chick production.

My optimism about the breeding season has been tempered of late, as we have gotten fresh evidence of the frailty of newly-hatched chicks. In the past two weeks, four pairs with tiny chicks have lost them — a higher than average rate of loss. Linda first reported that the chick on her lake suddenly disappeared; her observations suggest that a snapping turtle might be the culprit. Yesterday, the chick on Crystal Lake (Lincoln County) fell victim to the attack of an intruding loon, as reported by a lake resident. And two northerly pairs — on Blue-Southeast and Carrol — also completed four weeks of incubation only to lose their chicks in the first few days after hatching. The causes of chick loss are unknown in these two cases.

Loss of chicks in the first two weeks of life is not terribly surprising. Young chicks must confront a great many challenges, including simply keeping themselves warm and avoiding physical injury as they learn to swim and move about. But the greatest hazards to hatchlings, we have learned, are strictly biological. Being tiny, having limited mobility, and with only a vague sense of the dangers posed by much larger organisms in their habitat, young chicks can be attacked and killed by a wide variety of animals — intruding loons, snapping turtles, muskies, and eagles, to name a few. In contrast, adult loons are wary, agile, and large enough that the list of potential attackers is short. Adults have simply outgrown much of the danger from other living things in their environment.

As discouraging as it is, I am convinced that this recent spate of chick deaths is a statistical blip. There has been no sudden change in the loons’ habitat, or explosion in the population of any predator, that could signal the beginning of a worrisome trend. Rather, this is just an unfortunate negative swing that will be washed out by later swings, negative and positive, and ultimately forgotten. Perhaps we can hurry the process along by focusing on Linda’s recent photo of the female (“Honey”) and chick on Muskellunge Lake.