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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.

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My mom died ten nights ago. She was 94 and had struggled with Alzheimer’s for the past several years. So her passing was not a surprise. Still, her death came with jolting finality. As we sat at her bedside helplessly watching her draw her last breaths, I wondered desperately and a bit selfishly, “Is this what’s left?”. “Is this all of Mom we can take with us?”

But in the hours after Mom left us, warm memories of her returned from decades past. Most of these had to do with our common interest in birds. You see, Mom and I did not merely share an engaging hobby. We shared a love of the outdoors and many passionate and quirky friends we had met during our birding adventures over a half century. We shared the excitement of finding a rare bird and the exquisite joy of watching a beautiful one. We shared a culture.

Mom spotted my nascent interest in birds very early on. When I was six years old and we were living in Cleveland Heights, the local Audubon Society sponsored an outing to Shaker Lakes in May. Mom signed us up for a 7am trip. Initially I hung back with her watching diffidently as enthusiastic adults received help in ID’ing the colorful and active migrants that were foraging in the trees that lined the lakeshore. At one point, my attention was captured by a bird that others in the group had not yet spotted. Mom saw me struggling to identify this small, active bird. She said, “Now, Watty, you go ask the nice man what bird that is you are seeing!” I cannot recall what species I had spotted or whether I got the leader’s attention in time to identify it, but I learned from Mom that I needn’t be afraid to ask for help from an experienced birder. And I learned that some people could teach me a great deal about birds.

Two years later my family was vacationing on massive Lake Temagami in central Ontario. As my brother Henry and I lay beneath our thick woolen blankets after nightfall, we heard tremolos and wails echo across the great expanse of water that — during storms — lapped at the base of our primitive cabin. “Do you hear the cries of the loons, Watty?”, Mom asked. “Aren’t they wonderful?”. I had difficulty connecting the eerie, maniacal calls I was hearing with the large, mysterious black and white diving birds I saw from afar the next morning, but I never forgot them. In fact, loons became the treasured avian spectacle that I looked forward to each time we ventured north to Temagami.

When I was ten, my family moved to Houston. Hoping to sustain my interest in birds in this new part of the world, Mom offered to drive me to the monthly meeting of the Houston Audubon Society. The highlight of the event was a few bird slides that an Audubon member would show after the club’s business was conducted. Mom asked me several times after our first few meetings whether I thought our attendance was worthwhile. I was really a field person and had little interest in what seemed pointless blather about the club’s finances and installation of new officers. Even the slide show seemed too brief and removed from nature to provide much entertainment. Yet I always insisted on going. I soon realized, sheepishly, that what I cherished about this event was not the meeting itself, but those few hours spent with Mom during the meeting and driving to and from it. Like the birding trips we took together, those hours were my special time alone with her — time when she was not distracted by Dad or my three siblings. I became dimly aware then that my love of birds was intertwined with my love for my fiercely devoted Mom.

One of Mom’s and my favorite field trips in Houston was the Freeport Christmas Count, which took place south of Houston. In most years, we birded with Margaret Anderson’s party of eight or so. Mom was well known in the group for bringing along and sharing a delicious sweet milky tea. Her concoction was especially refreshing after we had spent a long chilly morning counting yellow-rumped warblers, ruby-crowned kinglets, and Carolina wrens.

Despite our annual participation in the Freeport Count, my interest in birds waned after a few years in Houston. Looking for a means to rekindle my passion, Mom found me a mentor. Fred Collins had done graduate work in ornithology at Texas A&M. He is a great birder who taught me an immense amount about bird identification. But he is also a bird bander. One April when I was fifteen, Fred took me along when he set up mist nets to capture and band trans-Gulf migrants on the Galveston coast. The experience was transformative. Once I had held a male painted bunting in my hand, I was utterly hooked. I could no longer see myself pursuing a career that did not involve extensive observation of wild birds.

I have many more recollections of birding trips taken with Mom — trips that Mom arranged so that I could learn things about birds from Fred and other experts or trips where she drove me all over the Upper Texas Coast to join other birders. I am not sure how she found the energy to supervise my ornithological education and also be a responsive, loving mother to her other three children. But I know one thing with absolute certainty: Mom’s tireless efforts to nurture my interest in birds made me an ornithologist.

Mom’s passing has left me in shock. As the school semester draws to a close, I sleepwalk from office to classroom and back. I try to find solace in everyday activities. But I feel a vast emptiness. The academic routine and the passage of time are inadequate to fill the void left by Mom’s passing. My only hope now is to find peace and acceptance in her most precious gift.