Loon Pair

Predators come in all sizes on a lake. Today we had an osprey visit and a pair of loons. I was able to get fairly close to the loon in the kayak. I wondered why and then I remembered. They are predators, not much scares them. 

 I did research on these creatures and WOW! Loon are not ducks, they are more akin to penguins and cormorants. They have denser bones, which allows them to sink and dive more efficiently. They are mostly monogamous, they stick with the same mate for about 5 years. Unless one vanishes or gets chased away by another mate. They are territorial birds and defend their area fiercely, chasing and killing other birds or even large fish. They also leave their kids and visit other lakes, most likely to distract other predators from knowing where the loon babies are. They can have two broods a year with two hatchlings per brood. If one pair doesn't survive, they work on the second pair. The babies are self sufficient fairly soon after hatching, but rely on the parents for nurturing and rides. One instance I read about (see link), shared a loon adopting a golden eye baby. Which made me wonder. After loon visit, the golden eye population on this lake has diminished!
At any rate, I was incredibly fortunate to follow these two around in the kayak and capture them on camera. (because I had to use the telephoto feature and was shooting floating birds from a floating object, sometimes things are not entirely all in the frame!)

 I searched all over the lake for babies. There were a few out, but most of them were in the lily pads. You can't really tell, but there are at least 3 families of several ducklings floating out there in the pads. I don't go in this area until the babies are larger. It is the lake nursery and I don't want to rile up anyone. I'll let the dog, osprey, raven, and eagles do that!

These are just random fun photos I took not on the lake-