It was a quiet morning, calm and peaceful, until suddenly it wasn’t.
I was watching 14 common loons as they wandered the north end of Pushaw Lake. Make that 13.
Loons have their own complex language, falling into four main categories. The “wail” is long-distance communication, typically reminding everybody of their whereabouts or communicating a concern about something distant. The “yodel” is a territorial call made only by male loons, to warn rivals to keep their distance in nesting season. They stop yodeling soon after the fledglings can feed themselves.
The “hoot” is just a friendly conversation between loons traveling in a group. After turf wars end in mid-summer and loons begin to congregate and forage together, hoots become more common. It’s cute.
The “tremolo” is the agitated call of a loon that feels disturbed or threatened. I’ve been hearing it a lot lately. It appears to have been a good breeding season for loons. And eagles. At least three loon chicks fledged on my side of the lake in July, and a pair of juvenile eagles left the nest about the same time in the same area. More eagles have moved in since then.
The loons are becoming alarmed regularly. Usually, when I hear the tremolo, I can spot an eagle or two in the air nearby. The eagles also continue to call to each other often.
This dance between predatory eagles and protective loons is normal. They are accustomed to each other. I have been watching this performance all summer. Eagles fly over regularly, but if they appear disinterested in the loons, the loons notice the lack of aggression and don’t bother to vocalize. But if the eagle approaches or circles, the loons complain loudly. All this commotion in front of my house is just a daily aspect of summer life on a Maine lake.
A local osprey pair also had a successful nesting season. The adults and their two offspring have been circling this end of the lake for several weeks, calling and diving on prey with near-reckless abandon. There’s nothing an eagle likes to do more than steal a fish from an osprey, so their chases have added to the chaos.
With all this commotion going on, I might not have noticed the chorus of tremolos that erupted two mornings ago. Slowly, it became clear that the entire flock of loons was absolutely frantic. Even with the naked eye, I could see the reason. An adult bald eagle had caught a large bird and was swimming it to shore.
Yes, eagles can swim, in an awkward butterfly style. They can’t lift out of the water with anything heavy, and once they get water-logged, they can’t even lift themselves out of the water. But they are powerful swimmers.
It doesn’t happen often. I’ve twice seen eagles swimming full-grown geese to shore. I’ve never seen it happen before with a loon. I’m still not certain I saw a loon this time. The unfortunate prey was underwater, beneath the eagle, and a quarter-mile away.
I grabbed my binoculars. The swimming eagle was clearly an adult, with its white head bobbing above the dark wing strokes. That makes sense. Young eagles are unskilled hunters, lacking the experience to sneak up on a wary bird. There are cormorants, geese and gulls hanging around the same area. I suppose one of them could have been the victim. But the panicked loons were practically screeching into the eagle’s ear, suggesting otherwise.
The eagle had a long swim ahead, perhaps a tenth of a mile to reach a small island. The island is about four-tenths of a mile from my dock, so I pulled my spotting scope out of the closet for a better chance to see what the eagle would drag out of the water.
I thought the eagle might be tired after such a long swim, but it briskly hopped out on land and pulled its submerged prey into deeper grass without hesitation. That was probably a wise decision, because other eagles noticed the commotion. They circled the island in hopes of getting a bite of a meal they couldn’t see.
Oddly, the moment the eagle dragged its prey ashore, everything promptly went back to normal. The loons became silent and wandered off, resuming their own predatory hunts. The ospreys paid no notice, probably relieved that the eagle was annoying somebody else for a change. For all the birds out on the lake, it was just another day at the office.
