A three-hour tornado watch haunted us as we prepared to scout Middle Cullen Lake for capture at 9:10 p.m on July 24th. There was little wind, and conditions seemed oddly tranquil. But the crew — Richard, our 70-year-old captain, two young techs, Korben and Taylor, and myself – had agreed beforehand to watch the skies closely, check radar, and return immediately to the boat landing at the first sign of foul weather.
Distant lightning 50 minutes later put us on edge. By that time, though, we had confirmed that the Middle Cullen-Rushes pair still had their chick in tow but that two other Middle Cullen pairs, East and Central, were newly chickless.* These losses were a blow; in both cases, the chicks had reached at least four weeks of age and seemed out of the woods.
After pausing a few minutes to confirm that the lightning did not indicate harsh weather near at hand, we proceeded westwards. I was determined to use what little light remained to look for the two 8-week-old chicks cared for by a fourth pair on the lake, Middle Cullen-West. At length we found the West pair just east of the south-facing point by the huge resort. Yet no young were evident nearby. I groaned as Richard coasted us to a stop thirty yards from the relaxed duo. “These two have been snakebit”, I said, making no effort to hide my frustration. “They had chicks in 2022, and nothing since. But they are a sweet pair, and frankly, I refuse to accept that their two big youngsters could simply vanish. It is just too horrendous that three out of four pairs with chicks on Middle Cullen could lose them”. My comment contained a desperate plea to which no one knew how to respond. The team fell silent.
Several minutes passed, and still the West male and female sat contentedly near our boat, ignored us, and gave no sign that they had young in the vicinity. Taylor glanced over at me expectantly, waiting for me to render my official decision that the chicks were gone. “Let’s wait a few more minutes”, I said weakly, more out of denial than anything else.
A pall descended over the boat. What I wished to regard as expectant watchfulness began to feel more like a vigil. Hoping perhaps that I could will the chicks back into existence with intense effort, I stood in the bow and scanned the lake in all directions with my binoculars. Three 360-degree sweeps, though, revealed nothing more than the calm breeding pair just west of us. “I don’t see any chicks”, Korben announced, his tone intending to convey that he was looking hard and hoping for the best but that we were reaching the point at which no reasonable observer could conclude that the chicks were still alive.
Moments before I yielded to the inevitable and pronounced the West chicks gone, I spotted two dark forms in the water 150 yards east of us. They were close enough to an extensive patch of bulrushes that I was tempted to dismiss them as mallards, but the failing light and distance made it impossible to be sure. Korben followed my gaze with his binoculars. “Those might be loons…..I think they are adults!”, he said excitedly. As we watched the dim, ill-defined shapes, we realized that they were swimming slowly in our direction, and gradually their outlines were becoming more distinct. “Those are chicks!” I half shouted a minute later. Richard started the motor and removed us from our position between the approaching young and their parents. We paused for a moment to look back and enjoy the slow-motion family reunion then proceeded eastwards wearing broad grins. The dramatic, last-minute appearance of the West chicks meant that we could return later that night — if time permitted – to catch and mark them.
Five hours later, we faced a quandary. “There’s no way we’re making it through this channel,” Korben proclaimed, his tone conveying a sense of authority. Though just 22 years old, Korben is the driver of our 16-foot motorboat and the only one of us licensed to operate it in Minnesota. He is experienced and knowledgeable in piloting watercraft, easing them through weedy and shallow stretches, and extricating them from sandbars where they become stuck. Taylor, 21, another tech and our expert spotlighter, agreed with Korben. “Yeah”, she said, “it only gets shallower up ahead”. She illuminated the sandy spot off of our bow to emphasize her point.
We had already had an eventful night. Following our weather scare, the receiver for our trailer hitch had been stolen right out of the back of Richard’s truck at around midnight. Our return to the boat landing on account of worrisome lightning had spooked the thief, whose truck raced off with tires squealing just as we set foot on the dock. But that misadventure had cost us an hour and a call to Terri, who drove half an hour to reach us and bring a new receiver.
Curiously, our hair-raising night was also our most efficient evening of banding all year. After shifting to Lower Cullen boat landing – much more public than that at Middle Cullen – and leaving Richard in the truck to ward off the thief if he returned, the two techs and I had quite magically found, caught, and marked the only three territorial pair members on the Cullens that had remained unbanded — in three separate pairs. And we had bagged three big chicks to boot. We were on a huge roll.
At a few minutes past three, we sat at the northeastern corner of Lower Cullen, having just caught and banded the Lower Cullen-Northeast female. We were separated from the Middle Cullen-West chicks we had seen at dusk only by a three-minute boat ride and a trip through the short channel that connects Middle and Lower Cullen lakes. With only one hour of darkness left, moreover, passage through the shallow channel offered us our only opportunity to capture the West chicks before daylight.
I responded to Korben’s pessimism about the channel with a call to my techs’ adventurous spirit. “Let’s give it a shot!” I said cheerfully. Recalling the thrilling sight of the West chicks at dusk, I added, “We have a date with those two big chicks!”.
Korben humored me. He raised the motor as high as he could and eased slowly towards the narrow opening. We ground to a halt 15 yards short of the channel. “It’s six inches deep!” Taylor objected. “There is no way, Walter.” But her pessimism and Korben’s only strengthened my resolve. “Let’s hop out to lighten the load,” I suggested. I shed my shoes and slid in stocking feet into the warm, shin-deep water. The techs exchanged a look of disbelief but grudgingly followed suit.
With the entire loon capture team now in the lake, the boat floated much higher. The bow found the sandy bottom again as we entered the channel, but we discovered that the three of us could nudge it forward little by little to reach and then pass through the opening. Three minutes later the motorboat was afloat again, and we clambered back aboard. The motor pushed us out of the channel and into Middle Cullen Lake. For a moment, I imagined that we had achieved a feat that comparable to that of Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen”. But the comparison fails under close scrutiny; our lake water was clear, our passage short, and we took on no leeches.
I savored the victory quietly. I was delighted to think that — after all the adversity we had faced — we were now in a position to cap off our huge night of capture by placing colored bracelets on the monstrous Middle Cullen-West chicks. But my first task was to restore goodwill. “You guys were amazing!” I said, touting the lake crossing as a team victory rather than the near mutiny that it had in fact been. “I really appreciate you hanging in there!”. Korben and Taylor’s grouchiness gave way to elation soon after, although it was thanks to the loons, not me. The two West chicks we had discovered five hours earlier were not difficult to capture, and we all gawked at their size, adult-like plumage, and docility. “There you go!” Taylor said to the larger one as she placed it gently over the side of the boat after banding and watched its colorful legs pump alternately as it swam away. “Have a good life…..and come back to see us!”
* — The featured photo shows the capture team scouting territories for loons shortly before nightfall. Photo by Sharon Gibbons.
Below you can watch a video of Taylor releasing a chick almost as large as the one she let go on Middle Cullen-West. This one, though, was from Kimble-East.