Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE LOONS AND GREBES

Loon  Species

Unlike their relatives the Auks, they are not at all gregarious or sociable, being usually found singly or in pairs, though occasionally in winter they are forced to crowd together when there is a limited surface of open water in which they can feed. They are found during the nesting season throughout the cooler parts of the northern hemisphere, even well within the Arctic circle, but during the winter they are widely spread throughout temperate regions, and especially along the adjacent oceans. Knowing that man is its mortal enemy, it is constantly on the watch.

When it meets a passing boat it widens the distance by immediately sheering off, and prefers to escape pursuit by diving rather than flying, remaining under water so long and coming to the surface at so great a distance from its would-be captor, and in such unexpected places, that its pursuit is rendered tedious and often unavailing.

In spring they repair to the more secluded lakes and ponds for the purpose of rearing their young. The nest is a rude affair of grass, moss, and often a little mud, placed on the ground at the edge of a marsh or lake, often on an abandoned muskrat”house,”a bog, or other slight elevation in shallow water. There is no attempt at concealment, but the nest is usually so placed as to permit of uninterrupted vision in all directions, so that the moment danger threatens the parent slips silently into the water and is gone.

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