22/07/2024
WORLD’S MOST PRODUCTIVE LOON BREEDS AGAIN
From Damon McCormick of Common Coast Research & Conservation…
Fe, the oldest documented Common Loon, hatched two chicks last week with her unbanded I Pool mate; the young were, at minimum, Fe’s 41st and 42nd offspring, extending her record for the species. Most of her prior chicks were begot with her long-term consort, ABJ, during their quarter-century partnership, but since their split in spring 2022, Fe has produced young in two of three breeding seasons. Prior to first coupling with ABJ in 1997, she hatched at least seven chicks with a color-marked male known as Dewlap. The qualifiers attending Fe’s age and lifetime productivity are necessitated by her initial banding in 1990 as a successful mother, when she was at least four years old, the threshold for Common Loon reproduction. As her earlier life history in the 1980s is a mystery, Fe could well be older than 38, and with more than 42 progeny to her credit.
One of Fe’s 2024 young perished, from an unknown cause, within days of hatching. Although Refuge loon chicks collectively fare far better in terms of survivorship than their cygnet, gosling and duckling counterparts, of the roughly one in five who do not live to fledge from Seney in the fall, most disappear early, when as downy buoyant corks they are most vulnerable to predators and other antagonists. While not quite the endlessly doting parent that ABJ was, across 35 years of monitoring Fe has – assuming her second chick makes it to autumn – fledged 86% of her offspring.
ABJ’s parenting is referenced in the past tense owing to a lack of reproduction since 2020. After a failed nesting attempt on E West last summer with a female two decades his junior, ABJ was evicted from that territory this spring, and again found himself on H Pool, which has served as his bachelor pad of sorts in both recent and distant years. Although this season he did attract a female known as Aye-Aye, there was no evidence of nest initiation by the pair. Historically H Pool has provided poor habitat for Common Loons, with only four fledged chicks since 1987, and if ABJ is to successfully breed again at Seney, it is likely that he will do so on a different Refuge territory.
Thanks to Dani Fegan, Teresa McGill and Jen Wycoff for their ongoing observations of the Seney loon population.
PHOTO: The world’s oldest and most productive Common Loon, Fe, executing a wing flap on July 12 alongside her 41st and 42nd documented chicks and her I Pool mate. Picture courtesy of Dani Fegan.
Damon McCormick
Common Coast Research & Conservation
[email protected]
