Loons in the Upper Midwest have just survived a worse-than-average year for black flies. “Worse-than-average” might not be the way to put it. In a reverse Lake Wobegon scenario, worse-than-average black fly years are the new normal in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Nowadays, we know black flies will be awful; we only wonder how awful.
Researchers who venture close to a loon nest abandoned to flies get a small taste of the agony these insects inflict. As if moved by a sweeping dipteran consensus, a cloud of flies buzzing about a nest — drawn by warmth, movement, and carbon dioxide— suddenly shifts its attention to approaching humans. The flies alight on your head and neck, crawl underneath your jacket, and fly errantly into your nose, ears, and mouth. The experience is unpleasant and alarming. It is difficult not to scream.
Yet the tactile and chemical cues humans produce are not satisfying to black flies. They crawl and buzz and annoy. But they do not bite us. So we cannot say that we truly know how loons feel when they are besieged by black flies — when the mouthparts of hundreds of females are inserted into their head and neck at once and departing flies are quickly replaced by new ones that have been waiting their turn to feed. And when it lasts for hours. That helpless miserable sensation is one that humans can only imagine.
Black flies swarm about the nesting platform and Ethan McKone on Blue Lake-West in the Wisconsin Study Area. May 22, 2023.
Despite the misery they cause, black flies have one great virtue. They plague incubating loons for only a few short weeks.
In the past seven to ten days, black fly numbers at loon nests have dropped substantially. You do not need me to tell you this; the loons have weighed in. Two weeks ago our marked loons in Minnesota and Wisconsin rested and foraged near their nests, gazed longingly at their nests, circled around their nests, and — on a few occasions when we ventured too close — defended their nests from us. This past week has been different; loons are ON their nests. Thus, after a stuttering start, the breeding season has begun.
The saying “success breeds success” was not coined with loons in mind. But we humans know from experience that an initial success can increase the likelihood of a second one. Indeed, I relearn the value of accumulated experience each spring during the period when I train field observers. With no background in the technique, new observers are utterly astounded when we locate the first nest of the year. After five more nest discoveries, though, they begin to develop a “search image” for nests. It is a thrill to see them learn quickly over a period of a few days to the point where they begin to point out loon nests to me!
Loons are not complete strangers to the benefits of learning. Males often place nests in poor locations when they first attempt to nest on new territories. After a bit of blundering about and some poor decisions, males typically find a nesting spot that results in a successful hatch. Afterwards, they reuse that good spot again and again, enjoying much greater success than during their first attempts. Thus, nesting success following an initial period of failure leads to further nesting success.
The impact of a loon pair’s nesting success on territory defense is another matter. The loon territorial system differs in a crucial respect from those described in other species. In many birds, most notably colonial seabirds, young adults prospect for good breeding sites by looking to see where other adults have produced chicks. When these young seabirds settle to breed, their settlement has little or no negative impact on adults already breeding at the huge colony. Not so in loons. Young adult loons prospecting for territories use chicks they spot on a specific territory as a badge indicating quality of that territory alone. Young prospectors must battle the current residents for ownership of such high-quality territories. That is, chicks seen in one year induce prospectors to return the next seeking to evict the owner of their sex and claim the territory for themselves. So adults that produce chicks experience the joy of parenthood…..but have also placed their future territory ownership in jeopardy.
The mixed blessing brought about by successful chick-rearing is nowhere more obvious than on the Pelican Lake-Mousseau Bay territory in the Minnesota Study Area. Online observers watching via the live nest cam were treated to a lengthy battle between two adult loons a few days ago. While the battle was shocking in its brutality, it was not surprising. We have long known that the successful rearing of chicks leads to a surge in interest in the territory and, hence, the likelihood of territory loss by one or both breeders. After raising two strapping chicks last summer, the male and female of Mousseau Bay must have braced themselves for a litany of territorial intruders and challenges. Indeed, the banded 2022 male apparently lost his position this spring; last year’s marked female is now paired with an unmarked male.
And yet there is hope. Yesterday, the old female laid an egg. She and her new mate both seem anxious to sit on it. If they can weather the blitz of black flies currently dogging their incubation efforts, they stand a good chance of repeating last year’s success.
Although it was June and Saturday, Upper Whitefish had a post-Memorial Day hangover. June 4th, 2022 was one of those rare, almost unnaturally calm days on the huge lake. It was the kind of day when canoes, kayaks, and paddleboats — which pass most of their days overturned and collecting spiders in sheds — set out across the big water with sudden purpose.
I was supposed to be training students for field data collection. Kate, a recent arrival to Minnesota, was in the midst of learning how to spot loons, ID them from their colored leg bands, find their nests, and record data related to breeding ecology and behavior. When Kate announced that she was uncomfortable paddling a canoe on Whitefish and wished to skip the training session, I initially glanced out at the flat lake in puzzlement. But we had hit windy and wavy conditions on Whitefish two days before, so I quickly deduced that she was uneasy about venturing out on the same body of water again so soon. “Okay”, I said, “maybe you can find a put-in for the Upper Whitefish-Steamboat loon pair.” We looked at a road map, planned Kate’s route, and went our separate ways.
The loss of my paddling partner — and most of a day of training — was a disappointment. On the other hand, I love my occasional moments of solitude on Northwoods lakes. Setting out alone from the huge boat landing on Lower Hay Lake (which is attached to Whitefish), I visited the four loon territories on Lower Hay, untroubled by wind. Two and half hours later, I pushed through the channel that leads to Upper Whitefish. Shortly thereafter I spotted the Upper Whitefish-Steamboat pair and their platform nest. Kate was smiling and waving from a dock not far from the platform. She had met a friendly loon-lover who invited us to launch our canoes from his dock whenever needed. A jovial soul, he added wryly, “You’re lucky; you came out on one of the three calm days we get each year on this lake!”
Leaving Kate ashore again, I set out to check more loon pairs on the main lake. At the Little Island territory, I ran across a nest with two eggs in a patch of cattails. It was attended by an unmarked loon pair.
Next I decided to circumnavigate Big Island. I found myself increasingly enchanted by the tranquility of the scene, which was undiminished by the vast expanse of water before me. I became so giddy at the spectacle that I almost stuck out my hand to high-five two complete strangers in a passing canoe. Loonwise, however, Big Island was unimpressive; I found only the usual tame pair at the southeastern end (one marked) near a recently failed nest. But I stumbled upon a real treat as I finished circling the island: three Bonaparte’s Gulls jostling for position on a narrow sandy spit.
I smiled to see that, like me, these three diminutive migrants were taking advantage of the conditions. In their case, a few invertebrates provided snacks in the shallow, gently lapping water. Apparently it is widely known that when you venture out onto the Whitefish Chain on one of the three calm days of the year, you must make the most of it.
Linda began to worry on April 18th when “Lucy” — the female from Muskellunge Lake whom we banded last year — showed up in a patch of open water with two other loons from the neighborhood. Male loons usually arrive a few days before females. Clune, the most famous loon in our study area, resident on Muskellunge since 2008, and Lucy’s mate, should have been back. Linda’s careful records show that Clune has appeared on Muskellunge before his mate in every year during the past 10 years except 2020, when his mate showed up two days before him.
It’s funny how, even as a scientist, I became attached to Clune. I remember encountering him back on Manson Lake in 1998. As his parents fished together in one cove near the boat landing, 4-week-old Clune and his sister dove together in a nearby cove. I tried to stay in contact with adults and chicks without approaching either pair too closely, but the chicks kept surfacing near my canoe and on the opposite side from their parents. On each such occasion, I paddled rapidly away and towards the lake’s center to restore the parent-offspring sightline. But neither parents nor chicks panicked, as I did, when my canoe split them. My canoe and I inspired the same degree of alarm as boulders, piers, and patches of vegetation.
Clune was precocious. He first appeared back in the study area as a two-year-old intruder on Hancock Lake. He wandered around for the next few years, as nonterritorial adults do. In 2003, he settled on Deer Lake, only 3 miles from Manson, where he had been raised. He and his mate produced chicks in 2003, 2004, and 2005 on Deer. Two of his sons from this period have followed in his illustrious webbed footsteps: one is the long-time breeder on tiny Virgin Lake; the other has cranked out offspring since 2014 as the territorial male on Squash Lake-Southeast.
Although we did not know it at the time, Clune’s breeding success on Deer was merely a prelude. Indeed, Clune and his second mate hit a slump on Deer from 2006 to 2008, failing to hatch a single egg. And so, as loons often do in the prime of life, Clune turned his attention to nearby alternatives. Muskellunge Lake was a chick-producer during the three years of Clune’s slump. Thus, in mid-June of 2008, Clune intruded into Muskellunge, battled the male territory owner, drove him off the lake, and settled on Muskellunge with the resident female.
Yet Clune seemed ambivalent about leaving Deer, where he had produced several chicks, and occupying his valuable new territory on Muskellunge. He faced an embarrassment of riches, it seemed. For three years, Clune and his mate bounced between Deer and Muskellunge. And Clune’s breeding slump stretched to five years.
At long last in 2011, Clune and a new female (“Honey”, as Linda came to call her) reared two chicks on Muskellunge. It was no fluke. The chicks of 2011 began one of the most impressive runs of breeding success we have ever seen in northern Wisconsin. Between 2011 and 2021, Clune and Honey hatched chicks in every single year and raised 13 chicks to adulthood. (Clune added a 14th chick in 2022 with a new mate, Lucy.)
What set Clune and Honey apart from other pairs was their dogged determination as incubators. 2011, 2014, 2017, 2019, and 2020 were years during which 27% to 90% of all loon pairs in northern Wisconsin abandoned their May nests owing to severe black fly infestations. Clune and Honey sat tight throughout these dreadful years, tolerating hours of motionless incubation while flies sucked their blood at will. They did not abandon a single nest. Consider this feat for a moment. Both pair members must be committed to warm the eggs for several hours at a stretch in order for a nesting attempt to succeed. While loon pairs throughout the study area abandoned their nests and hatched few chicks for a decade, Clune and Honey thrived.
Despite his sterling breeding record, it is Clune’s affability that I will miss the most. He seemed to sense that humans in canoes and kayaks meant him no harm. Perhaps he even got to know Linda and me, since he had seen us so often throughout his life. It certainly seemed so at night when he hardly budged as we gently threw a net beneath him each year, lifted him out of the water, weighed him, and replaced his worn bands.
There is a new male on Muskellunge this year. (See Linda’s featured photo of him yodeling, above.) He is “Yellow over Copper, Red-stripe over Silver”, a 12-year-old hatched on Prairie Lake who has lived and attempted to breed on nearby Halfmoon and Clear Lakes for the past three years. Like all males on new territories, he will probably struggle on Muskellunge to find a nest site where he and his new mate can hatch eggs. Maybe Yellow over Copper will beat the odds, take advantage of the plentiful breeding habitat on the lake, and raise a chick or two in his first year. I am keeping my fingers crossed for him. He is a fairly tame loon and a vigorous defender of his new territory. I knew his parents for many years on Prairie and have a good feeling about him. But he is not Clune.
It is easy to forget that research on the loons of Crow Wing County, Minnesota has been underway for over a decade. To be sure, this work has been spotty. From 2011 to 2014, Kevin Kenow and his USGS team placed geotags on a few dozen adults on four medium-sized lakes in the county. From 2015 through 2017, he shifted his efforts to the Whitefish Chain, where he captured 68 individuals, including 36 territorial adults.
Kevin’s goal was to determine migration and wintering routes of Minnesota loons, which he did after recovering many of the geotags placed on loons’ legs. Although his study was short-term, Kevin’s loons lived on. Each summer and fall they nested and reared young, foraged to build up their reserves for migration, staged on the Great Lakes, and made long overland flights to the Gulf of Mexico. Each spring they molted their feathers and made return trips back to the Whitefish Chain to restart the cycle.
When our Minnesota Loon Project began in 2021, we relocated many of the loons Kevin had banded 4 to 6 years before. We were quite thorough — obsessive, even — in our efforts to do so. At the time I regarded the USGS banding effort as fortunate for us, since it gave us a head start in our efforts to mark all territorial pairs on the Chain.
But Kevin’s marked loons have not merely reduced our loon marking workload. Kevin’s birds are charter members of the Minnesota Loon Project. The survival of these inaugural adults since the years Kevin’s team marked them provides our first multi-year snapshot of adult loon survival in Crow Wing County.
The data provide an unconventional snapshot. When one conducts a mark-recapture study, one normally searches diligently for all marked individuals during the years immediately after marking. This strategy produces data on annual return rate, which provides an estimate of annual survival. But we lack data on return rates from 2018, 2019, and 2020. So we must do the best we can to extract information from Kevin’s birds despite multiple years with missing data.
Fortunately, this is not rocket science. If “r” is the annual rate of return, then r2 is the probability of being on territory two years after banding, r3 is the probability of still being present three years later, and so on. Recognizing this, we can easily project how many of the 36 territorial adults that Kevin banded in 2015, 2016, and 2017 should have still been on territory in 2021. If annual rate of return were 90%, we would have expected to see 20.5 of Kevin’s loons in 2021. At 85%, the expectation is 15.1. If the annual rate of return were 80%, then we should have seen 11.0 loons. In fact, our exhaustive search turned up 13 of Kevin’s loons. So this places our rough estimate of annual loon survival for the Whitefish Chain at 82.5%.
To my knowledge, ours is is the first long-term estimate of adult loon survival from Minnesota based on a marked population. This is rather shocking; loons are well studied in the U.S., have been marked in at least ten states….and are the state bird, for goodness sake! In any event, this preliminary estimate gives us a ballpark figure for adult survival that we can compare with more robust estimates from other states.
The data from Minnesota so far only provide a glimmer about the loon population in Crow Wing County. However, these low survival estimates do bring to mind a worrisome downward trend in loon numbers for the region that can be seen in the 2021 Minnesota Loon Monitoring Report. But, really, it is early days. We need more data. Furthermore, the status of a loon population is not dependent upon adult survival alone. Low adult survival can be offset by a high reproductive rate. So we will have to spend at least two more years tracking return rates of marked loons and measuring breeding success before we can pull them together into a model that will tell us (preliminarily) how Crow Wing loons are doing. Still, if I am being honest, I wish the survival numbers were a bit higher.
Thanks to Katy Dahl, who photographed the Cross Lake-Arrowhead Point loon pair after we banded them in 2021. The male in the foreground with his bands out of water was spotted a few days ago just north of Minneapolis.
If, like us, you are concerned about the persistence of loons in Minnesota, consider a donation to support our field efforts. We run a lean program. Funds donated to the Loon Project do not pay overhead, administrative costs, or salaries for staff or senior personnel. They pay only field costs like: 1) stipends to keep student field workers alive, 2) travel costs to, from, and within our study areas, and 3) supply costs such as for colored leg bands and canoe paddles. Thanks!
A week or so ago I gave a talk to the Northeast Loon Study Working Group. Inauspiciously-named and -initialled, NELSWG comprises loon conservationists from New England, the Upper Midwest, and a smattering of other regions within the loon’s breeding range. At present, NELSWG is the only group that attempts to pull together data on loon populations and brainstorm strategies for protecting the species. During my talk I shared our data showing that masses of adult loons and chicks decline as water clarity declines. I then updated the group on my analysis of male and female traits that lead to breeding success of pairs.
Impact of male (blue) or female (red) pair member on a pair’s hatching success. Both males and females are a drag on hatching success in their initial year on a territory. Females have a slight positive impact thereafter. Male experience on a territory continues to improve hatching success even after 10 years.
To remind you, a male’s knowledge of the territory makes a huge impact on the breeding success of a pair. Since males choose the nest location, males are a drag on nesting success in their first few years on a territory because they place the nest in lots of dangerous places. (Note the low blue bars for years 0 to 3 above.) On the other hand, males that have been on a territory for seven or more years are a boon to pair nesting success, because they have learned the safest spots to place nests. (Note the blue bars from 8 to 20 years on territory.) Females have an impact too. In their first year on a territory, females cause low hatching success for their pair. In later years, female territory experience boosts hatching success slightly.
It is almost more interesting to see the factors that do not affect breeding success. A male’s age does not affect his pair’s ability to fledge chicks at all. At first glance, this seems confusing. How can the male’s age have no positive impact on breeding success of a pair, when a male’s breeding experience on a territory is hugely important? The answer relates to cause. It is true that old males tend to have very high breeding success, but this is not because of their age but because, in most cases, they have been on a territory for many years. We know that age itself is not causing high breeding success because old males that nest on new territories have no greater breeding success than young males on new territories. It is familiarity with the territory and not age that is the salient factor.
Female age has only a weak negative impact on breeding success. In other words, older females lose chicks at a slightly higher rate than young females. This pattern is a bit difficult to make sense of, because the effect is so steady and gradual. Why would a 15-year-old female lose chicks at a higher rate than a 10-year-old female parent? Both females are in the prime of life, in the loon sense.
Effect of female age on a pair’s fledging success. Females cause a gradual decline in fledging success as they grow older.
To the listeners at NELSWG, though, the pattern that was most remarkable was the lack of a strong effect of mate familiarity. While pairs that know each other nest a few days earlier than pairs that are in their first year together, the pattern is weak (see below). Furthermore, the slightly earlier hatch date among pairs that know each other does not translate into a detectable advantage in overall breeding success. In short, pairs benefit only slightly from knowing their mate well.
Effect of pair-bond duration on hatching date. Pairs in their first year together nest later, on average, than pairs that have been together for at least one year.
How can this be? How can a male and female remain together year after year, raise young cooperatively — and still not benefit from this lengthy association? That was the question asked by Lee Attix at the NELSWG meeting. I don’t have a good answer for Lee. As a male in a 38-year relationship who has raised young cooperatively, I am well aware of the benefits that a long-term partnership can bring in the human species. But loons are different.
I should have known all along. I should have known last May, when the ancient outboard motor we had just bought to cover the Whitefish Chain spewed a foul rainbow sheen onto the water’s surface and belched a caustic purple cloud that momentarily blinded us. I should have known as I filled huge tanks of gasoline at the Holiday convenience store in Crosslake, hefted them down to the dock, and hooked them up to the belching motor. I should have balked at the absurdity of using a filthy, fossil-fuel-guzzling outboard to study an animal that requires clean air and water.
Instead, I shrugged. “This is how people get around in the Northwoods”, I thought. “This is inevitable. This is the environmental cost of studying loons on big lakes.”
In my own defense, my understanding of proper boating practices became ingrained during my childhood. Back then, when we needed to provision our cottage on an island on 40-mile-long Lake Temagami in central Ontario, we took our little 2-stroke outboard over to the Ojibway Store on Devil’s Island. I still recall taking in the pleasing aroma of balsam fir mingled with mixed gasoline as we listened to the soft lapping of waves against the store’s dock. At the time, my major concern was whether Mom would treat us to Burnt Almond bars when she had finished ordering our groceries. Gasoline was just an innocuous part of the landscape we inhabited.
Indeed, to folks of my generation and generations adjacent, the angry whine of an outboard motor, the slap of a stiff wind in our faces, and the sight of parting, churning waters behind us seem inextricably linked to the pungent smell of gasoline.
But it need not be so. There is a growing market for electric outboards (and inboards) that can replace gasoline motors smoothly and are far cleaner (of course), quieter, and — according to what experts say — very reliable and low-maintenance. I have been researching this.
Why have I experienced this sudden desire to go electric on the water? Two reasons. First, the last two Wisconsin field teams and I faced an absolute nightmare every time we tried to start up our vintage 9-horsepower Evinrude. I did not collect data on our efforts, but I believe we averaged 43 almost-shoulder-dislocating tugs of the starter cord per lake to get that dirty old 2-stroke started. I have had it! (I believe Sarah ’22, Molly, Claudia, Chris, Tia, Bailee, and Sarah ’21 will applaud this move.)
Second, I can no longer deny the obvious. The relentless march of climate change has begun to hurt loons in the Upper Midwest. We can see it in the increase in the May black fly population, which forces loon pairs to suffer horribly as they to incubate their eggs, often to the point of abandonment. And it is even more evident in the sharp decline in July water clarity during the past quarter century (see below) — a decline that impairs loon parents’ ability to find food to feed their chicks. Both increased black flies and decreased water clarity, we now know, come about in large part because today’s warmer, rainier summers produce more flowing water that: 1) supports increased black fly reproduction and 2) washes more matter into lakes that reduces clarity.
So I have finally figured something out that I should have guessed before. Climate change is hurting loon populations in the Upper Midwest in multiple, measurable ways. Cutting back on fossil fuel usage where I can will help slow this damaging pattern. And that is a step in the right direction.
The past month and a half have been a roller coaster ride, though mostly downwards. Six weeks ago I learned that major funding for my field work in Minnesota had dried up. I cursed my luck. I scratched my head. A thousand “what ifs” passed through my brain.
But looking back was pointless. In time, my mind began to turn to one cheerful and unassailable fact. Loon Project field teams in 2021 and 2022 had given their all to expand our database into a new state where, initially, we knew almost no one. As we began to meet the warm, supportive, loon-loving folks of Minnesota, we gained momentum. The National Loon Center provided tons of support, financial and logistical. New friends shared boats, gave us access to private lakes, towed our capture boat from lake to lake in the middle of the night, or simply drove us around in their own boats during capture to help us find and mark breeding loon pairs. Kevin Kenow and his USGS colleagues spent six long nights in 2022 capturing loons to swell our study population. When the dust settled in early August of last year, we were well over halfway to our goal of establishing a Minnesota Study Area on par with our traditional study area in Wisconsin.
That we have not been diverted from that path is a tribute to our great pool of friends and supporters in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and across the U.S. One day a few weeks ago was a first turning point. An anonymous friend from Wisconsin pledged $7,000 “to support the Minnesota part of the Loon Project”. I was touched that someone in Wisconsin trusted me with this gift, and moreover, dedicated it not to the loons of their own state but to those of an adjacent one. *
Just yesterday, another group of donors from Minnesota helped us reach another turning point. Roger and Phyllis Sherman, Don Salisbury, and Gwen Myers have together contributed $21,000 to the Minnesota Loon Project to establish the Judith W. McIntyre Fund to support our work in the state.
It is a great honor to feel that I am building upon Dr. McIntyre’s seminal work on loons, which took place in Minnesota, Saskatchewan, and Upstate New York. Judy had a gift. She did robust, impactful science that taught us a great deal about loons. At the same time, she was able to convey her passion for loons and loon conservation in a charming, down-to-earth manner that reached the public. I have a dog-eared copy of her classic book, “The Common Loon: Spirit of Northern Lakes” on my shelf to which I often refer. When I think back to my interactions with Judy, though, what I remember most vividly is the warmth and humility with which she welcomed me to the fellowship of loon biologists back in the mid-1990s. She viewed the study of loons as a calling to which all could aspire — even the young whippersnapper that I then was.
The new Judith W. McIntyre Fund is a timely and exciting development. This gift adds to the dozens from other supporters of the Loon Project from Alaska to Colorado to Maine who have stepped up to donate during our time of greatest need. And I cannot forget other folks who have provided the Loon Project team with lodging in Wisconsin (especially Skip and Ruby, Mary, and Linda and Kevin) and Minnesota. Friends and supporters have truly kept the Loon Project afloat in recent years. Gifts earmarked for Minnesota have now brought us right back to where we were before the loss of funding six weeks ago. In other words, thanks to all of you, our goal of producing a robust population model for loons in north-central Minnesota is back on the horizon.
Since I view many events in my life through the prism of my study animal, I cannot help but recall at this moment the plight of the former male loon on Jersey City Flowage, near Tomahawk, Wisconsin. (See Linda Grenzer’s photo of him, above.) Banded as a chick on Swamp Lake (9 miles away) in 1995, “Red/Red, Red/Silver” had easy-to-read bands and a relaxed disposition to match. During each spring for over a decade, I looked forward to seeing his bright color bands under the surface as he permitted us to approach him closely for identification. But he was suddenly at death’s door in June of 2014 after swallowing two lead sinkers attached to a fishing line. If not for the quick and professional work of the Raptor Education Group, he would have been doomed to a slow and painful demise. The REGI folks removed the sinkers, patched up his lacerated tongue, fed him all of the suckers he could swallow, and quickly got him back in the water. Defying the odds, R/R,R/S recovered his lost body mass, migrated southwards in the fall of 2014, and returned to breed the following April, as laidback as ever. He must have felt then as I do now.
I know what you are thinking: another feel-good story of overcoming adversity that features loon/human parallels! Now that we are back in business in Minnesota, perhaps I will plague you less often with such tedious anecdotes. But things have been going pretty well lately. So I can’t make any promises.
* As I noted in an earlier post, research in our traditional Wisconsin Study Area will proceed as before. That is, we will continue to build the Minnesota Study Area without compromising our productive long-term study of loons in Wisconsin.
After losing our primary source of funding for Minnesota, we are facing a money crunch. The news came rather suddenly. It has left me pondering this sea change in our circumstances and wondering where it leaves us.
It is ironic to lose our funding at this particular moment. After intensive field efforts in 2021 and 2022, the Chapman/Loon Project database now contains two full years of field data from Minnesota. We have made scores of friends and lake contacts — mostly through the tireless efforts of students on the LP field team in Minnesota. Having marked one or both adults on 57 of 105 territories we cover in and around Crosslake, we are more than halfway to our goal of building out the Minnesota Study Area. Completion of our marking efforts in 2023 and 2024 would bring Minnesota up to par with our long-term study population in Wisconsin. Most important, we have roughly half of the necessary data to construct the first-ever true population model in the state using marked loons. So it is only a slight exaggeration to say that we have accomplished in two years in Minnesota what it took us 10 to 15 years to achieve in Wisconsin.
In short, our 2021 and 2022 field teams in Minnesota have built a great LP database that has all of the promise we thought it would. I would be remiss if I did not thank Kevin and the USGS loon capture team that contributed mightily to our banding efforts in 2022. A bunch of other folks helped out with capture and tracking of the Minnesota population in 2021 and 2022, including Mike and Natasha of the NLC, Richard and Terri, Dawn and Keith, Mary, and Kris. Jon, Melanie, and Mike from Boyd Lodge housed the field team during our work. Mike and John loaned us their boats. (Apologies if I have forgotten someone.)
Naturally, now that we have established a robust study population from which we will soon be able to extract reliable population data, I am acutely concerned about the sudden funding shortfall. But should you share my concern? If you live in Wisconsin or Maine or Ontario, why should you care about Minnesota loons? After all, we have excellent long-term data on the northern Wisconsin loon population that provides a sensitive gauge of the population trend in one part of the Upper Midwest. Why can’t we generalize the results from Wisconsin to Minnesota? In other words, if the Wisconsin loon population is thriving or tanking, isn’t it safe to presume that the Minnesota population is doing the same?
Minnesota and Wisconsin loon populations certainly seem similar. The states share a lengthy border across which loons fly freely. We have learned from recoveries of our banded birds in other seasons that the migration and wintering grounds of Wisconsin and Minnesota loons overlap almost completely. Adult loons in Wisconsin and Minnesota are of very similar size — and both populations contain adults much smaller than the loons of New England. Loons consume the same species of fish, are plagued by the same species of black fly, and must dive, duck, and dodge boats and fishing lures in both states. Importantly, lead fishing tackle — banned in New England — kills many adults and chicks in Wisconsin and Minnesota both. And, of course, loons are also loved and fiercely protected by most lake residents and visitors in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Doesn’t all of this mean that the population trend we detect in Wisconsin loons is likely to hold also in Minnesota?
Perhaps. But there are also differences. In general, loons appear to be packed more densely in Minnesota than in Wisconsin. Weather patterns, while broadly overlapping, differ between the states. Minnesota loons are more northerly, on average, than loons in Wisconsin. To presume that the two states’ loon populations fluctuate in harmony is risky. And, of course, if the Minnesota loon population echoes the Wisconsin loon population, our Minnesota measurements are even more important to make. Remember, the northern Wisconsin loon population is in serious decline. Minnesota loons could be declining in concert with Wisconsin loons, could be stable, or could be declining more rapidly than Wisconsin’s loons. Without running the numbers, we just don’t know.
The condition of Minnesota loons matters for another reason. Since loons in the Upper Midwest experience many of the same hazards as loons across the breeding range (e.g. water clarity, black flies, human angling, lead toxicity, and recreational pressure), our detailed and rigorous observations in Wisconsin and Minnesota have implications far beyond the Upper Midwest. By studying two populations 200 miles apart, we can compare factors that impinge on loons across populations. Any common patterns that we see across the two study populations are likely to indicate factors of broad impact — factors probably important in New Hampshire, Quebec, and Montana.
My discussion of the Minnesota loon population exposes a second irony. Minnesota provides a summer home for more loons — by a 3 to 1 margin — than any state in the lower 48, and Minnesotans love their state bird. Yet Minnesota arguably knows less about its loons than any other state in the contiguous U.S. (As I pointed out some months ago, what data we do have on Minnesota loons create cause for concern.) The LP database in Minnesota — once we finish building it and can build a model to learn about population dynamics — would permit us to remedy this unfortunate irony regarding Minnesota’s loons. Our work would alert us to any decline in the state, and our accompanying study of causes of reproductive failure could help us design and put in place a conservation plan that (with luck) could reverse any decline. Yet with this crucial milestone in sight, we suddenly lack the funding we need to reach it.
In truth, we have always faced challenges in Minnesota. Our most important lake there is Whitefish, which contains about a third of our territories, and where we are sometimes driven off of the lake by brutal winds and whitecaps. Even our “small lakes” in Minnesota are, on average, 50% larger than those in Wisconsin, which forces us to spend longer periods finding study animals by canoe. When compared with Wisconsin, everything is expensive around Crosslake and often in short supply — that goes for lodging, storage space, equipment, and most everything else. And tacking a Minnesota Study Area onto the Wisconsin Study Area has doubled my annual workload. Despite my determined efforts, I have not spent enough time in Minnesota nor have I been able to adequately support the field team there. Considering the 1,329 obstacles we confront in Minnesota — to which we can now add lack of funding — maybe we should throw up our hands and throw in the towel.
But then, loons could say the same. Territorial pairs face enormous obstacles each summer in trying to raise chicks. They must find safe nesting sites, defend them from predators, and incubate their eggs for four long weeks regardless of weather conditions. Hatching, which would appear worthy of a celebration, is, in reality, not even a halfway point for the pair. Instead, hatching merely introduces a new suite of hazards for parents, including new predators, the threat of infanticide by intruding loons, and the difficulty of finding enough food for their chicks — especially if they are on a small lake and it has been a rainy summer. And, of course, both parents are in constant danger of being evicted from their territory by young upstart loons that are always on the prowl for breeding territories. In short, the task of raising two healthy chicks, or even one, is incredibly daunting. If loons had the ability to ponder the vast array of obstacles to successful reproduction, they might never attempt it.
The desperate struggle of loons to raise young despite a host of challenges was illustrated vividly by the loon pair on the Little Pine-Dream Island territory this year. Little Pine is a pleasant, rather quiet lake on the Whitefish Chain. We marked the Dream Island pair in 2021, during which they raised a chick. Both pair members returned this year, so we knew they were veterans with a track record of chick production. But their experience in earlier years did not prepare them for the buzzsaw they encountered this past summer. When we found the Dream Island pair on May 27th, they were off the nest and spending a great deal of time under water. We quickly learned why. Black flies were tormenting them mercilessly. The relentless flies were present in huge numbers on the nest and on vegetation near the nest. They frolicked in great clouds in the air above the nest. And the pair members’ heads were blanketed by flies, each probing the skin for a spot to make an incision. Even constant diving by both male and female failed to dislodge these blood-sucking pests. During our visit, the male (pictured below in the water near the nest) made a pitiful attempt to mount the nest and resume incubation, but he could not bear to do so.
After surveying the nightmare scenario at Dream Island, I gave them a low probability of resuming their incubation duties in time to rescue the eggs and hatch their chicks. It did not seem possible that a male and female whose heads and necks were thickly encrusted with welts from hundreds upon hundreds of fly bites would see this nesting attempt through to hatching. But by some miracle, the pair hatched both eggs successfully three weeks later. I was flabbergasted. Despite 30 years spent watching nesting behavior of loons, this one successful attempt against all odds remains seared into my brain. It is impossible to know how many female black flies participated in the blood-letting of the Dream Island pair. But I suspect, like us, they had at least 1,329 reasons to quit.
I find myself drawing inspiration from the Dream Island pair. No one could have anticipated that they would hatch their eggs after facing such an unexpected and disheartening challenge. Yet offered the temptation of bowing to adversity, they stuck it out and triumphed.
Field ecologists are often told that they come to resemble their study animal. I am not dismayed by this comparison. In fact, if I can bring half as much determination and stick-to-it-iveness to my research program as the Dream Island pair bring to their nesting efforts, I will consider myself an unalloyed success.
This seems a good time for me to emulate the Dream Island loons and resist the temptation to give up the Minnesota work. The stakes are enormous. Minnesotans would be devastated to lose loons from the state or even from part of the state. And based on my work in neighboring Wisconsin, Minnesota loons are likely in trouble. Do I turn away from these good people — and a new set of loons with which I have begun to bond — when I meet some adversity?
So I am asking for your help. If we are able to raise $3,500, that will permit us to go to Crosslake and complete the late May census of the 105 or so loon territories that comprise our study area there. The census is a vital part of the year’s field effort, because sightings (or non-sightings) of adults we marked in 2021 and 2022 permit us to calculate the rate of return to the territory from the previous year, an indication of adult survival. If we are even more fortunate and receive $7,000 in donations for the 2023 Minnesota field effort, that will allow us to complete the all-important May census and also visit the territories again once or twice in July to determine rate of reproductive success. Reproductive success is a second important piece of demographic data that will help us refine the population model we build in two years. Finally, if by some miracle we are able to pull together $17,000 for Minnesota, that will permit us to do the census, measure reproductive success late in the year, and band enough new loons to bring our Minnesota Study Area up from two-thirds finished to fully marked. The 2023 banding effort would increase our sample of banded birds and strengthen the population assessment we will carry out in the near future.
If you have already donated to our study, thank you so much! If you have not yet contributed financially to our work and are now able to assist with our Minnesota field effort, we would appreciate it! As I have explained, your donation will be spent in an effort to learn about and conserve Minnesota loons. (If you wish to donate funds, but would like your donation to go to helping loons in our traditional Wisconsin population instead of the new Minnesota population, please specify that when you donate, and we will honor your request.)
Feel free to e-mail me at wpiper@chapman.edu if you have questions about our fundraising effort and how you can help. For example, if you can offer us housing in the Crosslake area for a week in May and/or for ten days to two weeks in late July, that would reduce our funding needs greatly and bring us closer to our goals.
Thanks for any help you can give us. I am anxious to complete the promising work that we began two years ago and will move heaven and earth to keep the Minnesota Study Area afloat. Things look grim at the moment, but I am hopeful that, like the Dream Island pair, I can weather adversity and emerge stronger on the far side of it.
