Where have all the loons gone?
Larry and Loretta, the formerly chatty loon pair on a lake in the Madawaska, go missing
There is nothing like the conversation of two loons calling to each other over a northern lake on an inky summer night to produce a heart stab of joy in my soul.
The loons’ plaintive wails elicit a magic package of memories wrapped in the scent of wood smoke and pine needles, and adorned with a bow — the Milky Way lit up like a smear of diamonds against the ebony vault of the heavens.
Who could not feel blessed to hear the private conversations of loons as they meet, mate and attempt to raise a family? How lucky are we to hear the wail that says, “I’m here, where are you?” And the responding wail from the loon’s partner that says, “I’m over here.” Or the yodel, the loon’s territorial call that says, “This is my lake and I’m ready and willing to defend it.” Or the wavering tremolo, the crazy laugh that says, “I’m alarmed.” Or the hoot, the much quieter contact call that says to family members, “You’re OK. I’m right here.”
What would our northern summers be without these evocative sounds of the wild?
After returning from travels that took our family to Temagami, Algonquin Park and the Madawaska Valley over the past months, I can answer that question: It sounds like motors. Big ones.
With the exception of Algonquin Park, where most of the lakes have motor restrictions, the normal sounds of summer up north — the daytime chittering of red squirrels arguing over a pine cone; the mechanical trill of chipping sparrows bouncing about in the underbrush; the ker-plop of a fish jumping in the lake — all these beloved signifiers of summer were drowned out by powerboats and personal watercraft, like Jet Skis and Sea-Doos, zooming up and down the cottage country waterways we visited.
It was impossible to avoid the noise and disturbance of the personal watercraft. There were armadas of them executing tight circles at high volume in front of our little dock, their testosterone-fuelled riders making more doughnuts than a Krispy Kreme factory.
The data bears out our perception: boat manufacturers in both the United States and Canada report a boom in motorboat sales they attribute to the pandemic.
Sara Anghel, president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association Canada, told Global News in January: “We just saw powerboats go through the roof in 2020.”
That trend was expected to continue this year.
Something else we noticed on our travels: we saw fewer loons than ever and heard even fewer calling. On the Madawaska River system, where we spent most of our time, loons were in short supply. The mated pair that in the past always serenaded us to sleep at night were absent. My husband, Peter, who in a previous summer had named our loon pair Larry and Loretta, determined that they were MIA.
Could there be a connection between the increased powerboat traffic, the exploding noise levels and our perception that something is amiss with our loons?
Data from the Canadian Lakes Loon Survey, managed by Birds Canada, shows that while the total population of Ontario’s loons is stable, the number of chicks each pair is raising is decreasing. Kristin Bianchini, a scientist at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., has been studying the factors causing a decline in the number of chicks raised per loon pair. Her work points to the lingering problems of acid rain and mercury emissions as factors in the decline of loon reproductive success; she says climate change is adding to the loons’ problems, too.
Bianchini acknowledges that other human activities besides pollution threaten what she calls “this cherished symbol of northern summers.” The Cornell Lab of Ornithology agrees. On its website it says: “Human activity, particularly motorboats, can disturb loons on breeding lakes.” And Birds Canada, in an online power point presentation called “Loons Need Your Help,” says motorized watercraft need to slow down near wetlands and shorelines and keep wakes to a minimum. “Wakes can wash out nests or separate young loons from their parents, which makes them easy pickings for predators.”
The flooding of nests is not the only problem big wakes cause. Such wakes can disturb shorelines that provide shelter and food for fish: the loons’ prey. As well, big motors and wakes cause turbidity that may hamper the big birds’ foraging; loons require clear water to hunt successfully underwater.
The high level of noise created by big motorboats and personal watercraft may also harm waterfowl. Even sudden noises like fireworks can frighten birds and cause nesting birds to panic, “fly from their nests, scattering the chicks and exposing them to danger until their parents return,” according to a recent Audubon article.
More research remains to be done regarding noise and loon disturbance but, in the meantime, who really wants fireworks on the shore night after night anyway?
I talked to my pal Gerry about this on a steamy night last week when we got together for a glass of wine on her deck for a convivial catch-up. Gerry and her family spent two weeks in a rented cabin on a lake in the Kawarthas that was too small for decent motorboating.
Every night, her family was serenaded to sleep by the wails, yodels and tremolos of loons conversing in the summer dark.
Gerry’s and my observations are anecdotal and don’t prove a connection between the cacophony of the power boaters and our quiet — or missing — loons. But that can’t stop me from wishing for a time machine that could whisk me back to when every trip to the lake meant a visit with these beloved birds. Days of seeing loons riding low in the water then diving, silently, vanishing under the waves.
And nights of antiphonal singing, the loons’ wails echoing around the green-clad hills, creating indelible memories to bring out and burnish when the snow flies.
M.L. Bream is a former Star editor and Wild in the City columnist working on a book, “Swan Songs,” about the