Signs of Spring Update: May 9, 2003
Today's Report Includes:
- Welcome Back, Loons!
- Look Out for Loons: Video Clip
- Baby on Board!
- Keeping Loon Babies Safe
- Loon + Lead = Sick or Dead
- Worms Worming Their Way into Spring
- Current Happenings: Spring Migration Peaking!
- New Guy on the Block: Discussion of Challenge Question #22
- Year-end Evaluation: Please Share Your Thoughts
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Loons are back, fresh from their ocean wintering habitat along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. In northern Minnesota, ice is still piled up on the western end of Lake Superior, but many northern lakes are open now, and Common Loons are back on many of their breeding lakes. Notice how the bulk of their early migration flows along the Great Lakes, and spreads inland. Do you live in a place where you get to see loons? We wish them a safe, successful nesting!
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| Dr.
Walter Piper's Video Clip of Loon Family |
Loon researcher Dr. Walter Piper knows that many people never get to see a loon close up, so he shares this video clip for a special treat. The chicks in the video are about 7 weeks old. They provide close to half of their own food at this age. Notice how the family group stays close together. The babies are still refining their fishing skills. What else are they learning from the parents?
IMPORTANT: Please read the Tips for viewing video clips. We've got you covered with any instructions you need so you don't miss this big-as-life experience! We have a library full of new video clips. Our video clips can be played only with Windows Media Player. This software is available free. You'll be able to use it with all clips, so it should be worth the trouble to install. Mac users and some Netscape users cannot view the video file directly from the web with a simple mouse click on the URL. This is only possible with Internet Explorer and Windows. So be sure to read the "tips" page carefully.
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What does the world look
like to a baby loon? How committed will people be to helping these
little loons grow up safe and healthy? |
One of the most delightful sights in the world is a baby loon riding on its mother's or father’s back. Our human eyes see this as endearing and interesting. How do you think the baby loon’s eyes see the world from there?
When loon chicks are in the egg, their mother keeps them warm from above. The nest is thick, but the parents don’t line it with anything especially warm. It’s possible that the rotting vegetation they use heats up a little, the way a compost heap heats up, but we don’t know of anyone who has tested that to be certain. When either parent incubates, their hot abdominal area and feet are in contact with the egg. (Loons, unlike many birds, do not have an incubation patch (“brood patch” of bare skin on the tummy).
Loon chicks are semiprecocial. That means they are fluffy like ducklings and poultry chicks, and can leave the nest within a day of hatching, but still depend on their parents for feeding at first. They can swim, but it takes at least a week before they are good at regulating their body temperature. So to help hold heat in, the baby rides on a parent’s back, often under the folded wing. This is where the parent bird has thin feathering, so its heat is easily transferred to the baby.
Most birds lay their eggs in nests, and the nestlings remain in the nest for days or weeks. Not loons! It would be incorrect to call loon chicks "nestlings" for more than a few hours. Once they leave the nest, they're out of there for good! What things do the chicks know instinctively? How do they cope when their parents leave them, around the time they're 11 weeks old and they can't fly yet? Find the answers and some fun activities here:
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This loon parent appears
to be making the alarm call. What do you think is disturbing it? |
Each pair of loons only lays two eggs, and they're lucky if both babies reach adulthood. Baby loons face all kind of dangers--coyotes, raccoons, foxes, even gulls and Bald Eagles eat baby loons! But the biggest danger they face is from humans and human actions. Sometimes people harass loons on purpose, but that happens less now because more people have become aware of loons' needs. More often people hurt loons without even knowing it. Three of the most deadly ways are:
- Going fishing with sinkers made from lead, which can poison and kill loons.
- Throwing things in the garbage that include mercury. When old fluorescent light tubes and bulbs or old mercury thermometers are incinerated or break down in a landfill, mercury can be added to the atmosphere, eventually to return to earth in rainfall, or seep directly into the groundwater. When this mercury makes its way into lakes, it contributes to one of the top ways loons die—mercury poisoning. Items that contain mercury should be brought to a hazardous waste facility, where the mercury can be removed and dealt with in an environmentally safe way.
- Helping predators find baby loons. Sometimes people in canoes, jet-skis, or boats get too close to a pair of loons and their babies. The loons give the tremolo call when stressed or scared. That means "Back off!" If the danger is still present after the parents have called a few times, the will sink into the water and swim away. They'll pop up far away and call to their babies to follow them, but it may be too late. Eagles and gulls that heard the tremolo often fly over in hopes of finding an unprotected baby loon. During the time the little loons are scrambling to find their parents again, they can get eaten.
In the following clip, the loon is making the alarm call. Can you tell what the loon is alarmed about? The beak moves with each call the loon makes. One part of the video shows the throat wiggle and neck rise just a little as the sound is produced. Can you see that? Notice how the bird holds its neck in a curve, with the weight balanced for this slow-speed swimming. You can also see how far back on its body the loon's webbed feet are.
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| Video
Clip of a Loon Making the Alarm Call |
Loon + Lead = Sick or Dead
The water quality of lakes where loons nest has improved in many ways since the 1970s, when the United States passed the Clean Water Act. But one poison continues to be dropped into lakes, often by the very people who love those lakes and want to protect them! It comes from people who love to fish and use sinkers made of lead. One researcher found that loons seem to eat sinkers attached to fish jigs, which flutter in the water like fish. Although this is a serious problem, it probably doesn’t affect as many loons as mercury, another dangerous poison found in lakes. How do these two metals get into loons, and how do they harm these lovely birds? What can you and others do to protect the loons from suffering these dangers? Find out here:
Challenge Question #23:
"Use the Internet and information from your state or province’s agencies to find out if your state or province has laws requiring people to use non-lead sinkers and other fishing tackle. If not, make a list of ways you and your class could help get a law passed to protect loons from lead tackle. Then write your government officials to tell them!"
(To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.)
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During spring, when many birds, caribou, manatees and monarchs are traveling long distances, another migrant is moving, too, but its whole journey can be measured in feet, and sometimes in inches! Earthworms spend the winter in the soil, often below the frostline. As warm spring rains and melted snow seep down, the soil at the top defrosts, and soon worms wiggle to the top. This isn’t a north-south migration, or even an east-west migration. It’s called a vertical migration.
This year, the Upper Midwest is suffering from a serious drought. In many places, very little snow fell this winter. Without a blanket of snow to insulate the ground from sub-zero air temperatures, the frost line went deeper than usual. Now, as the drought continues, without the normal spring moisture that worms love, it’s taking longer for them to emerge.
But in other places, there has been plenty of rain, and worms are making their annual vertical migration right on schedule. Have you seen your first earthworm yet?
What’s it like to be an earthworm? How do they sense the world around them? How do they eat? Learn more about these fascinating little guys here:
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This American Woodcock
has a very long beak to probe for worms a few inches deep in the
soil. |
Many birds are starting to show nesting behaviors now in southern areas, even as tropical migrants continue to pour through. Meanwhile, in the north, new signs of spring are appearing every day. Northerners are listening to woodcock now, performing their evening skydance. These chunky birds with their long, long beaks have been clocked as the slowest forward flying birds of all (in their skydance they fly only 6 miles per hour—not much faster than we walk!) This year when Journey North science writer Laura Erickson went out to enjoy her annual woodcock walk, her favorite spot in northern Wisconsin was drier than ever. The woodcock were easier to hear than ever, but that was because thanks to the dryness, not a single spring peeper or chorus frog was calling.
Fortunately, in other places there was plenty of rain. Pat Hogan reported from Gulliver, Michigan, “Well, tonight the Peepers are finally peeping and the Bazeepers are bazeeping. That would be Spring peepers and Woodcocks. Quite a chorus going on out there tonight. Great to hear them at long last. Couldn't see the woodcocks doing their mating ritual (too many trees) but I could hear them."
Do you get to hear spring peepers or woodcock where you live? You can hear what they sound like here:
- Calls of Spring Peepers and Other Common Frogs
- Timberdoodling: Spring Skydance sound of the American Woodcock
New Guy on the Block: Discussion of Challenge Question #22
Last time we asked, "Why do we usually find warblers associating with chickadees, titmice and nuthatches?" During migration, warblers must pass through hundreds or thousands of miles of unfamiliar territory, often in strange, new habitats. Chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches aren’t very migratory, and often spend months or years in a small area. During this time, they become familiar with all the best places for feeding, drinking, hiding from predators, and taking shelter from bad weather. And these species aren’t very aggressive toward strangers. So when warblers pay attention to their activities and associate with them, the warblers will have an easier time finding all the things they need, plus have the benefit of membership in a flock, with many more eyes to spot predators and other dangers.
Year-end Evaluation: Please Share Your Thoughts
Please take a few minutes to share your suggestions and comments in our Year-End Evaluation Form below. The information you provide at the end of each year is the single most important tool used to guide our planning.
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Journey
North |
How to Respond to Today's Challenge Questions:
IMPORTANT: Answer only ONE question in each e-mail message.
1. Address an e-mail message to: jn-challenge-loon@learner.org
2. In the Subject Line of your message write: Challenge
Question #
3. In the body of EACH message, give your answer to ONE of the questions
above.
The FINAL Signs of Spring Update Will Be Posted on May
16, 2003
Copyright 2003 Journey
North. All Rights Reserved.
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