The Red-throated Loon
By Ellen Kalish
February 13, 2008
Rebecca, a Ravensbeard rehabber called and said she had a marsh bird that someone found in their driveway. The bird was sitting in a puddle during the snowstorm that eventually changed over to rain; it was easily approached and clearly seemed out of place in the open.
Rebecca and her husband Chad had trouble identifying it and said it resembled an Arctic Loon from their Internet search. I said she should call Tri-State Bird Rescue to help her find out what it was and how to feed it until I could take it the next day.
It was a Red-throated Loon lost in the storm and thought the puddle was a large open body of water – a safe harbor from the storm. Loons spend 95% of their time in the water so their body is designed for swimming not walking on land. They have short legs splayed to the sides with large webbed feet. Also, their legs are much farther back than common ducks and they literally can’t stand upright - they’re too top-heavy. Looking at their wings it appears as though they’re too fine and small compared to the size of their body; it simply seems they shouldn’t be able to fly at all. Loons cannot take off from the ground; they need a long runway of water and resemble an army cargo plane as they lumber to gain the first few feet of altitude.
Well, after I received this interesting phenomenon of nature the only obvious place to rehabilitate him/her was my bathtub. So, after the first few dazzling minutes I realized that water was not enough, she needed to be fed. Out came the frozen krill and shiners.
She happily bathed and dove in the icy cold water as she found the fish three by three lined up in her beak and tossed them to the back of her throat, quite Puffin-like.
I was very satisfied to see the requirements for her comfort level were fulfilled. For a shy and secretive species I was surprised that she was not at all intimidated by my presence. I grabbed the camera and began shooting the magical moments of this magnificent animal and all the while feeling such an honor to be in her company relatively unnoticed. So, I proceeded to shoot away.
Most people think of a Loon’s willowy call as a distantly calming sunset memory and quite unique – I never heard that sound (not here anyway). The noise I heard was a loud quivering scream and then a rusty short honk because she’d scooted out of the tub and was sitting on the bathroom floor….
for how long I don’t know. Obviously way too long! I didn’t know they could make that sound – certainly Thoreau would have mentioned it.
The day of the release was equally memorable. I couldn’t release her in a small pond or stream and with the frozen snow and I couldn’t get to the river on foot so, I drove to the local Sea Tow Station down the road to get her to open water. I guess Sea Tow had moved and there were only residential homes left along the river. I knocked on the door of a sweet little house that had an appropriate riverside backyard. The man answered, I introduced myself and said I had an odd request…I needed to release a Loon and could I do it in his backyard? His name was Ron Sleight; he lit up and immediately invited me in to see the portrait of a Loon over his fireplace and told me it was his favorite bird. I asked him if he had a camera because I dropped mine on the garage floor just minutes before - he didn’t and cursed himself. He proceeded to tell me he had tapes of Loons that he frequently listened to and when he fished up near Canada he would go to sleep and wake to the wonderful calls of the Loons.
I led him to the car where he first gazed into her eyes; he stood frozen in awe… we then walked carefully on the surface of the snow sometimes sinking down below the crust with the Loon in tow. We lowered the crate into the water and out she swam. Not quite realizing she was free she lingered watching us floating backwards for a few moments, she turned and the tide started to take her down river as she began to dip and sit up tall to stretch her wings. This lasted for about 8 or 9 minutes until she became a speck in the water. Just when we couldn’t see her anymore Ron asked me to point her out, as I started to point to her location she flew back directly towards us, turned right, crossed the river and then went to the south.
Silently we watched the entire movie, only after she had vanished did I say “what was that…a thank you?” And Ron said, “I think so”.
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