WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Loons and chicks

I love little lakes like this in Lamoille County. There's not a lot going on around here, except a quiet paddle through the lily pads, with the loons calling in the distance. Fairbanks Museum naturalist Charlie Browne and I went out for a kayak and found a pair of loons with their chick.

"Good loon etiquette at this time of year is to stay clear of families with chicks and never to approach loons closely in a boat, particularly a motorized boat."

"trill....trill...."

"Well, when we hear loons, there are several messages, they have all kinds of calls. One is called the wail, which is simply a very loud, echoing, harrowing call that really is calling the family together. Then there's the tremolo, which is a rapidly vibrating song, sound, which is an anxiety call. The yodel is also something of an anxiety call, and we heard both of those. And there's also a little bit of a 'toot' that they make, it's called a hoot. And we did hear one or two of those, and that's a close, family contact call. When they surface, they were probably calling the chick close by with the hoot."

"hoot"..."trill."

"This baby looks kind of young."

"I would say that the baby that is here on the pond today, is probably about 3 weeks old. And it is late. These should have hatched in probably mid June, and this one, if it's three weeks old, hatched after the 4th of July. They have a about a 12 week period between hatching and when they can fly and begin to feed really independently, so that's a full three months. This bird, if it reaches maturity will be on the pond here until probably well into the fall."