I was on pins and needles. Gabby had moved steadily northward and westward in her censusing of our study lakes. She started in Rhinelander. This from her datasheet Thursday:
Mildred:
- O/Ts, W/S (O & left leg double confirmed)
- Unb, Unb (both legs double confirmed)
Maud:
- P/S, G/G (P & left leg double confirmed)
- Unb, Unb (both legs double confirmed)
Coon:
- Ronly, Bs/S (both legs double confirmed)
- Unb, Unb (almost positive it’s unbanded – never saw its legs out of water, but had many chances to see bands in good light underwater if there were any present)
- Intruder = Y/Y, Bs/S (both legs double confirmed). Interacted with pair for 10 minutes.
Ole:
No loons
Soo:
- M/S, W/B (both legs double confirmed)
- Bs/M, Mb/S (right leg and Mb double confirmed)
At the rate she was covering lakes, I gauged that Gabby would get to Upper Kaubashine on the 3rd, 4th, or 5th. I almost asked her to jump ahead to Upper Kaubashine, but I did not want to kill her momentum. But it was hard to wait and see whether the oldest known loon in Wisconsin, thirty-three-year-old “Red-Green”, had returned to her breeding territory.
When Gabby’s report came, it was not what I had expected:
Upper Kaubashine
Sooo the good news is I found the male (Cc&S, G/G – all confirmed) and that old female (S/Y, R/G – all confirmed). The bad news is the old female may have met the end of her tenure and potentially her demise at the hands (wings??) of an Unb, Unb (confirmed) intruder who was on the lake interacting with the pair when I arrived. I witnessed a VICIOUS 12 minute battle between the female and the UNB where they were latched onto each other’s throats and beating each other with their wings (both were covered in blood) for about 8 minutes, until the old female started fleeing underwater. But the UNB was relentless and pursued her, beating her the whole way. Then the old female finally made it to little islet and looked like she was trying to find a place to go on shore, but ended up being trapped against the islet while the UNB continued to stab her with her beak and beat her. The old female finally gave out a two note wail and then the UNB finally stopped and left to go preen elsewhere. I thought the old female could be dead already, but when I left her at the shoreline she was still turning her head. I hope she can hide long enough to recover to get off the lake, but the way she was being attacked, it did not look good.
Although we have studied them for decades and know their behavior well, we find it freshly shocking to watch loons battle. The brawl that Gabby describes was more violent than any of the few dozen or so that I have seen over the years. Despite the whipping of wings and jabbing of bills that these fights entail, one almost never sees blood. However, what began as a stereotypical head-grasping and wing-beating contest, she reports, quickly morphed into an all-out struggle for survival — once resident Red-Green recognized that she was overmatched and her goal changed to self-preservation.
Physical features of a lake can play a role in territorial battles. In fact, a lake’s shape, size, clarity, and peninsulas and islands often determine whether a fleeing bird eludes its victorious opponent and flies off to a nearby lake to lick its wounds or fails to do so, suffers repeated pummeling, and ultimately dies on the lake it used to own. After the Upper Kaubashine battle, the clarity of the lake water made it simpler for Red-Green’s pursuer to track her underwater, complicating her efforts to reach safety. Thoroughly defeated but unable to elude her opponent, Red-Green was ultimately pinned against the long peninsula near the southern end of the lake, as Gabby describes.
We have no idea how Red-Green managed to escape the unbanded female’s grasp. What we do know, thanks to Linda’s visit to Upper Kaubashine today, is that, despite her dire circumstances two days ago, Red-Green is still alive. Linda was relieved to find her hugging the shoreline — as her photo shows — and skulking about under piers at the north end, while the male and his new mate cavorted far to the southwest in the protected nesting bay. Though clearly beaten up, Red-Green seems safe for the time being. Indeed, maybe she will emulate thirty-one year-old White-Yellow, a long-time breeder on West Horsehead. Evicted in 2019 after breeding on one lake for a quarter century, White-Yellow resurfaced this spring as the new breeding female on productive Little Bearskin Lake. In their tireless efforts to cope with defeat, bounce back, and resume productive lives, Red-Green and White-Yellow exemplify the dogged tenacity of female loons.