The Common Loon is my annual target when I take vacation in Maine, where I stay in a house near a pond. They call it a pond, but it's a lake where I grew up.
I went out most mornings as the sun was just starting to shine strongly. Usually there was mist over the water. I used a kayak to paddle around the pond to find them. Last year, I was able to observe as many as five adults clustered together, and there were two juveniles, one of which was quite small. I was hoping for similar numbers this year. I wasn't disappointed.
Almost immediately, I found five together.
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| Five Loons Gathering |
I quickly discovered how hard it is to get all of them in focus. I had trouble sometimes even with just two of them together.
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| Loons |
I should have paid more attention to the aperture. I was so concerned about sharpness (shooting with a telephoto lens from a kayak) that I used 1/1000. Next time I'll boost the ISO. Nevertheless, I used what I learned last year to get between the sun and the birds and I tried my best not to spook or chase them, with a lot of success. Sometimes they popped up from a dive near my kayak and lingered nearby.
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| Loon with Dripping Beak |
Sometimes I was able to get shots showing the beads of water on their heads.
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| Loon |
Their webbed feet are pretty large.
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| Loon Shows its Webbed Foot |
There was a lot of looking into the water for fish.
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| Loons Looking for Fish |
There was frequent "standing up" to shake their feathers out.
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| Shake it Out |
Sometimes they splashed around a lot.
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| Splish Splash |
I had remarked to my mother-in-law that I had never seen any loons flying in 20+ years of going to Maine. That's probably because I just never paid attention. I saw it happen several times this trip, but was only able to capture one event.
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| Loon Taking Flight |
I was disappointed to see no juveniles for several days and I feared there weren't any this year. Boy was I wrong.
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| Juvenile Loon with Feathers Replacing Fur |
Even Junior shakes the wings out every now and then.
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| I have Wings Too! |
I had never seen loons stray into the shallows with the grasses and lilly pads before, until this trip.
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| Not Sure What's for Breakfast |
And the largest group I saw had eight adults.
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| Eight Loons Together |
So, including the juvenile, there were at least nine individuals there during this trip, up from at least seven last year. I'm pleased with the results this year, but I'll have to work at better depth of field next time I see a group. Because we usually visit late in the breeding season, we usually don't get to observe juveniles riding on a parent, and this year was typical: the juvenile was too big for riding.
