51 degrees F Cloudy Wind 3mph W
Sunrise 5:31 am CDT Sunset 8:51 pm CDT
First of all, Happy Memorial Day to all the Americans who are watching the LoonCam.
On this day we honor our servicemen and women who have given so much to keep us free. We especially honor those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. And their friends and families are in our thoughts and prayers on a day like this.
Our loons have just completed a very smooth transfer of nesting duties. The male came swimming in. The female got off the nest. Gave a couple wails. And the male loon got on the nest, rolled the eggs and settled down. All of it in under a minute.
The weather has taken a decidedly cooler turn and today's highs are expected to only be 60 degrees with spotty rain showers of and on today with the wind picking up this afternoon.
The cooler temperatures and spotty rain will keep activity on the lake down a little bit.
Yesterday morning was one of those mornings when you wonder if some people have any common sense.
Within a 10 minute period, two boats of fishermen did some pretty unbelievable stuff.
In the morning as we were getting ready for a family picnic and get together, I came around the house and saw a kayak with an electric motor and two fishermen coming directly through the buoyed area that marks out the loon nest and is intended to keep boats away from the loons.
Although you can't see all of them, you can make out a couple of those buoys that are meant to warn people to keep away.
There are a total of 15 buoys, a large swimming raft that the neighbors put out and numerous reflective stakes that mark where the tv and power cables run under the water up to shore.
These two fishermen seemed to be oblivious to anyone or anything as they blithely motored through the area.
By the time I saw them, they were most of the way through and never saw me waving as I came down toward the lake. The loon was in full, flat on the nest hangover and as they passed, the loon left the nest.
I normally do not yell at people since I don't want to stress the loons even more with a lot of yelling and noise.
I held my breath as they passed over the tv cables fearing that the motor was going to cut right through the cable! If that happened, it would be the end of the LoonCam for the year.
I stood watching them to hope that one of them turned around to see what they had done. But they went right through all the buoys and the reflective stakes as if they weren't even there.
One has to wonder about some people sometimes!
There was another large fishing boat that was approaching from the other direction that observed all of this happening.
I immediately went into the house to check the video feed and was so thankful that everything seemed to be intact and that you still had a picture and sound. Since all of this took place "behind the camera", all you would have been aware of was that the loon was in hangover and ultimately left the nest.
I had no sooner checked to make sure that the kayak had not cut the cables with his electric motor than I looked to the lake to see the large fishing boat with five fishermen right up against the buoys on the lake side of the nesting area.
They were also looking at the loon nest and were well aware of it.
Then two of the buoys started to 'mysteriously' FOLLOW the boat!
He had hooked the buoy anchor lines in his motor and they were all tangled up! He raised the motor as he frantically tried to unwind the lines that were now wound all around his prop. And the other four fishermen in the boat watched me as I stood motioning to them and shaking my head.
It wasn't very nice thoughts I was having about any of the seven fishermen at that moment. But I would have liked to ask them all, "Did your mother have ANY kids that were not idiots?!" But that would be an insult to idiots.
After they got the buoys untangled from the motor, he threw them back although those two buoys are now very much 'out of place' and tangled together. And the five fishermen quickly left the area, going back the same way they had come.
It was only later that I learned even more had happened that I did not see!
Before anyone arrived and I was shutting down the computer, I checked the chat and was surprised to see that a kayak had apparently come right up to the nest!
The comment was that "they were so close they could have reached out and taken the eggs"! And that it was obvious that they knew what they were doing and had purposely come right up to the nest.
I had completely missed that part of it. It had to be the same kayak that I saw later come back through the area. I have not had a chance to go back and look at the video of it to see exactly what happened.
One viewer says that they reported it to the local Conservation Officer, which I appreciate very much. It is against Federal Law to disturb nesting loons.
Fortunately those kinds of incidents are few and far between.
Most people are very respectful of the loons and the nest.
But when you see that kind of ignorance, you remember it.
We are now down to the "home stretch" in the countdown to the arrival of our new loon chicks!
I would expect that later this week or next weekend would be my best guess of when the eggs will hatch.
That is when things get really exciting.
And you don't want to miss a minute of it.
Copyright 2017 Larry R Backlund