I don't really have a bucket list, but if I did...it would have included seeing baby Loons riding on their parents back. After a Loon chick hatches, it swims some of the time with mom and dad and it rides on one of their backs some of the time. This only occurs for two weeks after hatching. Then they swim all the time.
Monday morning I went kayaking and came across a Loon pair in our bay. I noticed that they were swimming very close together, which is unusual unless there is a chick. Yes, there was a chick swimming between them. I became so excited because there hasn't been a Loon chick on our lake in many years let alone our bay. When I got inside, I emailed the local Loon Ranger who lives on the neighboring connecting lake that has loons every year. I was the first to report the Steamboat Bay chick. Later in the day I went out with binoculars to see if all was well. Now there were two chicks! A neighbor had reported to the Loon Ranger that indeed there was one chick in the morning with one egg still in the nest. The nest is on their property. The second egg hatched and was out swimming with the family by afternoon.
Warning: this blog will, for all practical purposes, become a loon watch.
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