The loon pair and mallard duckling remain a close-knit family, if a non-traditional one. This fact became clear on Linda’s recent visit to Long Lake, as the pair remained fiercely protective of their charge (as her photo shows), and the male permitted it to preen while standing on his back. But Linda’s observations also suggested that the duckling is not helping its foster parents’ in their efforts to safeguard their territory ownership.

Let me provide some context. During July and August, loons that do not have territories  look hard for them. Why? Well, because (with apologies to Jane Austen), “….it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single loon in good physical condition, must be in want of a territory.” Indeed, single loons search ceaselessly, and at times desperately, for territories and mates. They do not search blindly but instead heed a signal. The presence of chicks with a breeding loon pair is a shining beacon to unpaired loons that announces, “This is a good breeding territory; remember this lake, return to it next year, and claim it for your own!”

In order to counter the prying eyes and evil intentions of such nonbreeders, loon pairs play hide-and-seek with their chicks. This is not the kind of light-hearted hide-and-seek that we humans play with our offspring. Instead, loon pairs with chicks play a high‑stakes hide-and-seek game to keep nonbreeding loons from spotting their young.  And if pairs (or their young) play the game poorly, they place their future territory ownership at risk.

Hiding of loon chicks by parents often seems a difficult task. Loon chicks are chocolate brown in color and can hide near shore among rocks and logs — if they wish to do so. Nonbreeders, for their part, do not call ahead to warn of their visits. Instead, nonbreeders appear suddenly over a lake, flying at 70 miles an hour, and scan the lake’s surface for loon chicks. Often they land in the lake as well. Under these circumstances, it is a daunting task to keep chicks out of sight. Yet, if pairs with chicks are fortunate enough to spot flying intruders early and to be in a part of a lake from which their chicks can easily swim to shore, they sometimes hide their chicks successfully by means of an odd “dive and scatter” strategy.

Hiding of a fostered duckling from snooping intruders has turned out to be an even greater challenge, Linda reports. While keeping a fostered duckling well fed is easy, preventing intruders from spotting the duckling is comically difficult. Picture the scene from a few days ago. An intruder suddenly appeared overhead, emerging out of the early morning fog while the loon pair and duckling were resting. Both adults immediately dove and swam underwater towards the center of the lake to engage the intruder. Instead of diving itself and racing underwater to hide near shore, as a loon chick would have, the duckling freaked. When it spotted its foster parents far away and next to nonbreeders that had landed, the duckling raced towards middle of the lake, while peeping loudly, making itself very obvious. Needless to say, efforts by the loon parents to hide their youngster were at an end.

I know what you are thinking — the loon pair lost nothing from the conspicuous behavior of the duckling. The intruder might have been confused by the duckling’s presence, but it probably would not have confused the duckling with a loon chick, taken it as a sign of breeding success, and planned to challenge the pair for territory ownership next year. That is probably true, unless, of course, nonbreeders cue in not only on loon chicks themselves but also on protective and aggressive behavior exhibited by loon parents. Let’s hope the duckling’s misbehavior had no long-term impacts. It would be a shame if the loon pair suffered doubly — by rearing a youngster of the wrong species and losing their territory the following year.