Is Red Lake the loon capital of the world?

This awesome photo of a loon on its nest was taken last spring by John Andrews, one of our guests.
If there was a world competition for best photographers of loons, our fishermen would fill all the top spots.
Red Lake has pairs of loons literally at every turn. It is hard to fathom of any lake having more.
The loon is a beautiful subject, a study in black and white with riveting red eyes that apparently help it see in dark water.
Loons are the oldest birds in the world. Did you ever wonder why loons are the first birds in any bird book? It is because the birds are ordered chronologically, the oldest species first and the newest species at the end.
This photo shows the entire extent to which a loon ever goes on land. It builds its nest of water vegetation in a shallow cove, on a hump in the water or even just on a flat rock at the lake's edge.
When the chicks, usually two, hatch they immediately push themselves into the water and from that point on they are strictly aquatic, not touching land again until they too get old enough to build a nest.
Loons have a number of calls and behaviours that make them especially fascinating for humans.
I've learned what two of their calls mean. When they put their necks low in the water and make a long, repeating yodel, it is always in response to seeing another loon flying. When a loon makes the short call "kuk," it sees another loon on the water and wants it to come closer.
Loons with nests are fierce defenders of their territory, which is all the lake they can see. They will drive away other loons and will kill ducks, mergansers in particular, which either haven't gotten their flight feathers yet or are just more inclined to swim than fly. I've also seen a loon in a death battle with another loon, presumably an invader. This behaviour is probably an instinct to preserve food resources for the chicks. Merganser ducks, for instance, are fish eaters just like the loons are.
Loon nests are almost always in protected bays, at the entrances to marshy creeks and in sheltered coves on islands.
Loons out on the wide open water do not fight. They are probably unmated individuals who have no nesting territories. These "bachelors" form groups that can number a dozen or more and just party the summer away. They chase each other but don't fight, bounce up and down, hoot and holler and generally act irresponsibly, not unlike human adolescents.
The most dramatic loon event I have witnessed was a loon and a bald eagle fighting. The eagle would swoop down at the loon, I think to get its chick which I couldn't see but was probably hiding next to the adult. The loon would rear up out of water and strike at the eagle, trying to drive its dagger-like beak right into the big raptor. The eagle would flare away but would then wheel right around and attack again. They were still going at it when I drove out of sight on the Lickety Split.
Two of our guests witnessed something similar a few years later. Only this time the eagle ended up in the lake and a pair of loons tried to drown it by piling their bodies on top. Eventually the eagle was able to get out of the water enough, perhaps by using the loons as leverage, to get its immense wings clear of the lake and take off. It did not have any loon chicks in its talons.
Loons haven't survived for 65 million years by being milquetoasts.


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