Late one afternoon while making my rounds to the islands, I had a camper ask me a question. “That howling sound, is that a bird?” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing a bit at the Loon’s call being called a ‘howl’. I explained to him that while the sound can be pretty unnerving when you don’t know what it is, it’s a very welcome sound to us, as we try to do everything we can to help the loon population on Squam.
On Monday the 5th, myself and a handful of other service members and community members took off from the docks at 8pm for a ling night of loon banding. I’m no stranger to banding birds, I’ve handled warblers and other local songbirds, but I don’t think anything could have quite prepared me for how different it would be handling loons. The first one we caught was an adult female. After scanning little squam for quite some time, our spotlight landed on her and we tracked her until she was close enough to net. Handling a loon is less of a matter of being careful and delicate, and more of a matter of holding on tight and watching out for the beak. She landed a couple bites on me, which was only fair for what we were going to have to do with her. Holding her in the boat was bittersweet. It could feel her breathing and fighting against us, but I knew that the work we were doing was ultimately in the benefit of the loons that call Squam Lake home.
Shortly after her, we caught the male, and the chick. Samples of blood and feathers were taken from the adults, and they were all weighed. In addition, the male had yet to be banded, so he was given some stylish ankle bracelets. The night was considered a massive win for the Loon Preservation Committee. We had caught and taken measurements from all 3 birds we were looking for, and it only took us to midnight, as opposed to the 3am late nights they told us about. The experience was so much fun, and it was just that much better knowing that we had helped do our part to help the loon population on Squam.
Dawe is a Lakes Region Conservation Corps members serving at the Squam Lakes Association. You can read more about Dawe here.