The Pacific loons on Connors Lake that bird lovers have watched via a live-stream cam got visitors Thursday morning when two biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey arrived with plans to capture and band them.
Joel Schmutz and Brian Uher-Koch laid out a net on the lake's surface near the loons' nesting island with a decoy. The female bird with a 2-day-old chick stayed in the middle of the lake, according to Connors Lake Look Cam Project director Jean Tam, while the male squawked and displayed nearby.
The scientists and onlookers hid for more than a half-hour. Eventually, one bird swam over to check out the decoy and got tangled in the net.
Schmutz and Uher-Koch paddled out, untangled the loon and brought it to shore so they could put a metal band on its right leg and a plastic band with a geolocator on its left. After measurements and blood samples, the bird was released.
"This afternoon, the loon pair with their chick has been staying in the lily pads near the island between feedings of the chick," Tam wrote in a press release. "It appears that they have given up on the other egg, which is past due hatching. We will probably collect it next week and turn it over to Joel for inspection."
A ramp on the south side of the nesting island has been the birds' preferred way on and off the island, perhaps because the chick was having trouble getting up the north side even with the cutout in the log. In past years, chicks have struggled there but were always able to get up onto the nest. The nest cam cannot see both ends of the island in one view.
"This is the first year we have seen both adults on the island at the same time but on opposite sides," Tam wrote. "They will continue using the island for about a week before abandoning it."
Every year for more than a decade, a female Pacific loon has descended on Connors Lake, near Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in west Anchorage. There, for all but one of the last 12 years, a loon has laid eggs on a nesting platform constructed specially for her.
In recent years, the Audubon Society has sponsored a live-streaming camera mounted on the platform, allowing viewers from around the world to observe the loon on the nest as well as the hatching of chicks. The loon was first banded in 2003, enabling confirmation that the same loon has been returning year after year.
In 2013, despite going through the necessary motions, the female failed to lay eggs, the first time that had happened since Audubon Society volunteer Jean Tam had been observing the loon from her home on the lake. Tam believes that may have had something to do with the age of the loon, which she estimates to be up to 20 years.
Keep an eye on the loons at Alaska Dispatch News.