I must apologize for the scarcity of my posts in recent months. I am writing a book about loons. I am not sure if it is sound reasoning or not, but I have formed the opinion that each of us has only so many words to share in a given period of time. So I have guarded my words jealously of late.
I have never written a book before, so I am no expert. But I believe also that it is important to take some time away from writing. Countless hours spent staring at a blinking cursor wear me down. And I have been at it for over six months now.
It happened a few weeks back that I took the morning off to go birding in a park near my office. I take breaks to venture to nearby birding hotspots when I need them, not when the weather is most suitable. And it showed on this day. Unseasonably warm and gusty winds met me as I sauntered up the well-worn Horseshoe Loop Trail through Irvine Regional Park. “Geez, it’s hot!” I groused, stripping off my buttoned-down shirt, tying its arms around my waist, and looking enviously at a 30-something-year-old man in shorts and t-shirt who smiled as he hiked by in the opposite direction. The strong winds, I knew, would limit bird activity and, by stirring up leaves and branches, make birds more difficult to find. At this low moment, I considered pulling the plug on my ill-timed birding adventure and skulking back to the office.
But one bird changed everything. Glancing skywards from the trail, which is cut into the face of steep Puma Ridge — I spotted a falcon cruising eastward along the crest. The raptor was travelling at a good clip with minimal flapping by riding air currents deflected upwards by the hillside. “Whoa!” I shouted, and then, a few seconds later, “Dang!”, because the bird passed so quickly out of my view and in such poor light that I could not be sure whether I had seen a merlin or the larger peregrine falcon.1
I felt the sting of a missed opportunity. Could it happen that I would see only one unusual species on the entire outing and that my inattention at the moment of its passage would prevent me from identifying it? I put this dark thought aside and considered the situation. It was not yet 8 a.m. Normally, conditions would not be optimal for soaring birds until the ground had warmed and rising thermals allowed them to sail about economically. But today was obviously an exception. I ceased my efforts to find sparrows and vireos in the trees of the hillside and turned my attention to the sky.
My change in strategy worked, at least to a degree. As if it had sensed my frustration, the falcon made a second run down Puma Ridge. This time the bird sailed briskly over the lip of the ridge in full view. And since I was looking westward in anticipation, the sun illuminated the bird’s uniformly barred underparts – orangeish in the early morning light — and the diagnostic broad earpatch of a peregrine falcon.2
Relieved at having made the ID, I stopped to savor the moment. As I gawked through binoculars, the falcon abruptly folded its wings and began an astonishing dive towards the huge grove of sycamores that lie at the base of the ridge and constitute the southwestern border of the park. After a few seconds, the peregrine had reached an unconscionable speed, and yet it ducked and dodged among the tree tops in a manner that seemed almost playful. I was utterly spellbound by the carefree audacity of the bird. It was one of those thrilling moments when a natural spectacle so overcomes you that you feel compelled to reach out and connect with another person nearby. But no one else had seen the falcon plummet heedlessly into the trees. And so, as my eyes welled up and my jaw trembled at the beauty of the event, I settled for a shaky “Oh my god!”. It took several minutes for me to recover myself sufficiently to continue down the path.3
Since I am a loon biologist, I suppose there was a second reason why I was stunned by the peregrine’s magnificent plunge into the valley. Loons are the anti-peregrine, you see. Powerfully built for underwater propulsion, they have limited maneuverability when aloft. They do not bob and weave and make death-defying dives; they fly in straight lines or broad circles, descend at a judicious pace and angle, and coast to a stop safely and sedately. There is dignity, perhaps, in their aerial movements, but no dazzle.
I spent another half hour birding in Irvine Regional Park and saw a bald eagle (a rare sighting there), a merlin, and several other raptors that had exploited the weird, blustery weather to take to the skies. But in a peculiar twist of the brain, my stirring moment with the peregrine falcon caused my thoughts to turn back to my study animal and my book. You will not catch a loon diving at high speed into trees, dodging and ducking its way through underbrush, or even scuttling about on the wet sand of a beach inches ahead of a breaking wave. The movements of loons are glacial in comparison to most other birds. But I have made a career out of watching these haunting, ponderous creatures. And I am anxious to share what I have learned.4
1 In my own defense, female merlins approach male peregrine falcons in size. (In most birds of prey, females are larger than males, as in these two species.)
2 This cool photo was taken by David Chamberlin.
3 Shortly after watching the falcon’s heedless plunge, I thought of a cinematic scene that had depicted a moment of this kind. It was between Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, as they beheld the vast flocks of flamingos, mammal herds, and skies of Kenya in Out of Africa.
4 I suppose the book project has caused me to take my eye off of the ball with regard to field work. In any event, I have not had as much time this off-season to raise funds for the Loon Project. In the painful triage that must occur at such times, I have decided to use Minnesota as my base of operations this year and to hire only a single field team that will cover the Minnesota Study Area. We will make trips early and late to cover our Wisconsin Study Area, but we will have no regular presence there as in years past. This difficult decision is based on: 1) about 80% of my funds this year coming from Minnesota, and 2) the need to continue to collect data in Minnesota to improve our knowledge of its less-well-known loon population. It breaks my heart not to cover our Wisconsin loons closely, as we have for the past 33 years. I have known many of these loons for decades — since the time we first banded them as chicks. Please understand that I hope and intend to return to full-time field study of our Wisconsin loons in 2027 and from then on. I just cannot afford to do so in 2026. Thanks, everyone, for your donations this year. If we raise another $5,000 to $10,000, we will be able to mount a full field effort in Minnesota and collect enough data on our Wisconsin loons that we can ease back into full time study of them in 2027.