COMMON LOON

During the time I lived out of state, I was bitten by the birdwatching bug, seriously infected by it. After hearing a Common Loon on one of our vacation trips to Maine, I longed to live where I could hear their hauntingly beautiful sounds more often. My thoughts were of moving to Maine or Michigan or even Canada. I didn’t know that such a place was really right in my parents backyard, or that events would unfold so that I would be back in that area one day. So I feel especially blessed when I am walking near the “Que”, or high on a hill above it, and hear my favorite bird call out to me at dusk. I don’t remember this happening in my younger days, perhaps I was not there at the time of the evening when they sounded off their eerie call.

The Common Loon breeds on quiet, remote lakes in northern United States and in Canada, where you may hear their eerie communications of yodels, wails, hoots and  tremolos to each other at dusk.  Their boldly patterned plumage, highlighted by a green sheen in certain light, and their red jeweled eye, make them a stunning sight!

The best way to hear the awe-inspiring sounds of the loon for yourself is outdoors in their habitat, but until you can do that, check them out at this website from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which is associated with Cornell University in Ithaca, NY:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Loon/sounds

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has several extensive resources for birdwatchers, or birders, including All About Birds, Ebird, The Bird Academy, and the Macaulay Library, which is the world’s largest archive of wildlife sounds and videos. Here is a link to all the features I mentioned and more:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Page.aspx?pid=1478