I have started to call it “the Great Void”. It is the period between a chick’s first autumn and the point — at 2 to 4 years of age — when it has matured, molted into adult plumage, and returned to the breeding ground to look for a territory. Why “void”? Because we know almost nothing about loons during this period.
The Great Void used to be a nuisance. It was frustrating to think that our birds were passing through so many critical life stages without us knowing where they were or whether they were alive. But we have now pinpointed high mortality of young adult loons as the greatest threat to the loon population of Wisconsin and, more recently, Minnesota as well. “Nuisance” no longer captures the depth of our frustration. We now have to admit that we know least about our loons during the time when it matters most. So I think we need to begin to describe the Great Void as a grave concern.
Yet we are not completely in the dark. We get a glimpse into the Great Void now and then. Here is the story of one glimpse we got in March of 2024 from the wintering grounds.
As soon as he spotted it, Jim “Crater” Anderson could see the bird was in trouble. Seabirds in Panama City, Florida do not lounge on the beach in late afternoon sun like tourists from Ohio. And this one was looking especially out of sorts. It was well above the high tide point, sitting in dry sand. Crater did not think twice about interrupting his daily 10,000 steps to come to its aid.
“That is not how a duck should sit”, Crater thought, looking at the bird. Indeed, with legs splayed right and left of its body and belly in the sand, it was a curious sight. The animal skootched awkwardly across the beach and flapped frantically as he approached to within five yards, making him wonder if its legs were broken. At that moment, he felt strongly that he must capture the bird and take it to someone who could help. He removed his grey hoodie and, crouching low to the ground to appear less threatening, crept still closer. “It’s okay, I am going to get you to someone who can fix you up”, he murmurred reassuringly.
The bird was not mollified by Crater’s soothing words. Now that he was within six feet, it whipped its head around and eyed him suspiciously. He steeled himself and grabbed it, enduring its painful nipping at his arms and hands. As quickly as he could, he swaddled the bird in his hoodie to calm it and walked briskly to Rick and Sheila Harper’s house. “They have parrots”, he reasoned. “They’ll know what to do.”
The bird he was carrying was bigger and heavier than he had thought it would be – much larger than any duck he had handled. Its bill was thick and dagger-like. Its legs were not broken, just connected at the very end of its body. And – this was the biggest surprise of all — someone had placed four brightly‑colored bands on the bird’s legs. “What is that all about?” he thought.
When he arrived at Rick and Sheila’s, Kim Youngbeck was also there. The four friends placed the bird in a cat carrier that was snug but secure and set about trying to learn what kind of bird it was and how they could help it. Sheila’s parents are birdwatchers who live in Park Falls, Minnesota. She sent them some photos in hopes that they could help with the ID. “That’s a loon!”, they announced with equal parts excitement and concern.
The Florida Fish and Game contact they spoke to informed them that a loon would not do well in captivity and that they should return the bird quickly to where they had found it. Dutifully, the friends walked back to the beach. Night had fallen in the hour or so since Crater had first captured the loon. Knowing that coyotes and raccoons prowled the beach at night, they decided to place it higher in the dunes than it had been at first. That seemed safer.
Still, they worried about the loon sitting exposed in the darkness. The bird had not tried to get away from them after they placed it back on the sand. And when they went back to check an hour later, it had not budged. At that point, Kimberly volunteered to take the bird for the night.
Back at home, Kimberly wracked her brain to think what was wrong with the animal. Was it weak from hunger? Knowing that its diet was mainly fish, she offered it the only fish she could – some tilapia filets from the fridge — on a small plate. The loon showed no interest. She looked at the clock and realized that it was 10 p.m. Whatever they were going to do for this loon would have to wait until the next day. She turned the lights out, draped a sheet over the carrier, and hoped it would get some rest.
The next morning Crater and Kimberly strategized again about the bird. It looked pretty healthy and fiesty, they agreed. They could see no reason to hold onto it any longer. Together they decided to return it to the ocean.
The two friends took the carrier to the beach and removed the loon. This time, though, they let it go at the water’s edge, where the waves were breaking on shore. With furrowed brows and hands on hips, Crater and Kimberly watched as the bird bravely faced the waves and began to crawl towards the ocean. It was not pretty. On five occasions, a wave caught the loon and hurled it backwards several yards towards the beach. Kimberly was reminded of videos she had seen of tiny sea turtles heroicly battling the surf to reach the sea after hatching. The bird did not give up, however. Eventually it was able to take advantage of a lull between waves, reach water deep enough for a dive, and plunge beneath the crashing surf. Kimberly and Crater cheered to see its head pop up thirty yards from shore, well beyond the surf zone.
After a late March sojourn with beach-going humans, the loon, which we had banded the previous summer on West Twin Lake in north-central Minnesota, was back where it belonged — and looking none the worse for wear. We have no idea what brought this nine-month-old to shore.
We got a second, more sobering glimpse into the Great Void in late August 2025.
Battered by stiff winds and high waves from Hurricane Erin, the loon sat within the surf zone on Rockaway Beach in Queens, New York, twelve miles southeast of the Statue of Liberty. Waves crashed over it — even submerging it entirely on occasion. Susan Garman and her ten-year-old son Justin had made a quick trip to the shore to gawk at the surging whitecaps. But when they spotted a large bird that was being pummeled by waves and seemed unable to help itself, their light-hearted jaunt to marvel at nature’s fury took a serious turn.
They hurriedly shed their shoes, waded into the surf, and approached the bird. It looked as bad as Susan had feared it would: dazed, bedraggled, and water-logged. Worse still, the bird showed little fear of Susan and her son when they approached it. “You’re hurt, aren’t you?” she said to the animal, a comforting, motherly tone in her voice. “We are going to help you”.
Yet after she had gathered the bird up, Susan’s concern deepened. She had hoped to feel a smooth, reassuring mass of pectoral muscle when her fingers reached around its chest and belly, but instead, she encountered the sharp protruding keel of its sternum. So it was also emaciated. “Oh, buddy, I am so sorry!”, she whispered. It lifted Susan’s spirits slightly to see that the bird had four bright color bands on its legs. Her mind now racing, she reasoned that the person who had marked this bird would surely wish to help them save it.
She and Justin carried the bird to their home to do what they could. They nestled it in some blankets in the kitchen; it made no objection. Susan Googled “injured bird”, and found some local rehabbers and veterinarians, but no one that she reached could or would help. Justin submitted a photo of the bird to Google Lens to try and identify it. Lens came back with: “The bird in the image is a Common Loon.” “A loon!”, Susan repeated, trying to square her recollection of that glamorous northern species with the unsightly mass of soaked, tousled feathers on her kitchen floor. She and Justin were cheered by their ability to identify the bird they had rescued. They finally seemed to be getting somewhere.
But the loon was very weak and slipping away. “We are here with you”, was all she could muster, her voice softer and breaking from sadness and frustration. Finally, the loon stretched its head forward for a moment, pulled it back again to rest on its chest, and let out its last breath. Crushed by the loss herself, Susan looked for a positive to share with her distraught son. “At least it did not die alone”, she offered.1
We will have to record many more encounters of our young marked loons before we can shed much light on the alarmingly high mortality of loons during their first few years of life. Meanwhile, I am keeping my fingers crossed that other loons of ours who are in need of aid find such generous, compassionate people as these two youngsters did.
1 – We had banded the loon that Susan and Justin found as a chick on Upper Hay Lake, near Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, in July of 2024. So it was just over a year old when it perished. From the work of Kevin Kenow and his team, we know that loons from the Upper Midwest that winter off of Florida make their way up the Atlantic coast to spend the summers of their first and second years of life as far north as the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Thus, this young bird was probably on its way back to the wintering grounds in Florida.
Our paper on the Silver Spoon effect in loons has just been published online. You can read it at:
The top photo is of the loon from Panama City Beach, Florida. Photo by Jim Anderson.
