SPECIAL REPORT: 2 loons succumb to predatory eagle on frozen Long Pond

Juvenile loons on Long Pond on Dec. 19 in photo by Billy Helprin

SOMESVILLE, Feb. - On the night of Jan. 29, the temperature plummeted to 7 degrees and stayed in the single digit the next night as well. Billy Helprin feared for the loons who hadn’t migrated southward.

The island naturalist and director of the Somes Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary worried that loons would be trapped in the sudden freeze on Long Pond, which at 900 acres is the largest of MDI’s lakes and takes longest time to freeze.

Quick freezes may leave small patches of water which can trap loons - heavy birds that require a long runway of open water to take off.

On Jan. 31 at 11 a.m., Helprin spotted an eagle on the ice two miles down the lake with his binoculars and immediately knew what that meant.

“I could see the eagle jumping back and forth across the small hole, probably only about 10 feet in diameter, and I could occasionally see a loon come to the surface, then dive again,” he wrote in an mail.

“I was surprised that the eagle actually jumped completely in the water trying to grab the loon. This happened several times and it was eventually successful at pulling the loon out of the water and onto the ice. With some large northeastern adult loons that may have been more difficult to do as they can outweigh eagles. There was still some struggling but once out of the water the loon didn't have much of a chance.”

Helprin surmised that a second loon several hundred feet away suffered the same fate as he could not spot it the next day.

“I am also guessing that these two were probably the juveniles that have been out there since early winter, mostly together.

“Assuming the juveniles were this past summer's chicks, this was their first winter so they had not experienced ice before and perhaps were more naive about appropriate winter migration movements.

“I know that some of the other recent rescue attempts in the Northeast were with juveniles. The late season juveniles on Long Pond were not resident chicks from this past summer, as there were no eggs that hatched on the three territories.”

The common loon is a beloved symbol of Maine. Even though the official state animal is the moose and the state bird is the chickadee, more Mainers have a loon on their license plates. Few animals have the multiple qualities of loons which, as adults, can dive 200 feet deep, are beautiful in appearance and evince haunting sounds. Double click the video for a concert on Long Pond I recorded.

“Loons and eagles have struggled with each other for many thousands of years in our area, so their attacks and defenses have been part of their species co-existence and predator-prey relationship,” Helprin wrote.

“While not an easy way to go, the eagle has to make its living the way it is adapted to with specialized tools of talons and sharp, curved beak. I'd rather that they found fish for their diet, but they are opportunists.

“I think it is sadder, a worse outcome for loons, to have them die or have trouble reproducing successfully from (mostly) unintentional human causes like lead poisoning from fishing gear (usually near the top of the list for mortality cause), boat strikes, intense shoreline development, boat wakes washing over nests, and shooting (intentional obviously, and if it doesn't kill immediately, can result in lead poisoning from lead shot).

“Focusing our efforts on promoting best human behavior in loon territory, educating about ways to minimize these factors, is a good target to help this species overall.”

From reading Helprin’s reports, I stopped fishing with a rod and reel and have gone to fly fishing exclusively using barbless hooks. I have never lost fly hook in a fish.

Helprin reported in December that MDI saw seven of the 10 chicks that hatched last spring survive to fledge in autumn - “a very good year overall, despite quite a bit of nest/egg predation by eagles, mink, or otters.”

Since 1998, the common loon has been rated as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. This is because it has a large range – more than 7,700 square miles – and because it has a stable population trend that does not warrant a vulnerable rating.

It also has a large population size of 612,000 to 640,000 individuals, according to reports.

On MDI, Helprin reported in December, “We had 12 territorial pairs on 9 lakes, including one on a new lake.”

Lakes historically freeze slowly. Many factors affect that - temperature, wind, size of lake and depth. Most lakes like Long Pond freeze from the shoreline to the middle, allowing enough open water for loons to take off.

But the sudden and extreme drop in temperature create conditions which trap loons in smaller ponds of water.

Then there are new threats wrought by climate change.

“Unlike our recent past summers, we were more concerned with nests getting flooded by our frequent large rain events rather than being stranded with lots of dry ground between the nest and water’s edge - where loons and their eggs are more vulnerable to attack from eagles and mammalian predators,” Helprin stated.

A cohort of volunteers on the island help keep the loon population thriving, in the face of these changes.

“Sanctuary Field Assistant Rusty Taylor, Summer Assistant James Zordan, and Sanctuary Volunteer and photographer Ray Yeager helped a great deal with keeping track of what was going on in the MDI loon world this season, as did our usual and ever-expanding corps of loon observers of each lake across the island,” Helprin wrote.