Winnipesaukee Forum - Loon Behavior

On Monday morning (early), I sailed off into The Broads. :cool: Behind me, I heard a loon calling its only loud call—while in flight.

Quote:

"Woo-hoo-hoo, Woo-hoo-hoo, Woo-hoo-hoo, Woo-hoo-hoo".

Glancing over my shoulder, two loons split up to divide their single course, and to give my boat "150' of safe passage"—but overhead! :emb: It may have been the same two Loons I saw on my early-Tuesday sail yesterday:

Not far off Tuftonboro's Middle Ground Shoals, I happened to sail towards two Loons together, "working" while diving a particularly small patch of the lake.

Intersecting the Loons (and my course) came a "work boat" from the direction of Center Harbor. This outboard boat was painted battleship-gray and had an American flag flying, centered on the top plywood roof-deck. It suddenly turned (towards me :eek: ) as though to single-out one Loon to run over! :eek::eek:

Panicked, that Loon rapidly paddled in the direction of the other Loon, and was just missed by the boat! :eek2:

The boat's occupants turned in their seats and seemed genuinely concerned at what had just occurred. (Not so much about the sailboat :rolleye1:). What happened next is something that I'd never seen before, after over four decades of watching Loon behaviors. :look:

The two Loons repeatedly approached one another—paddling slowly past each other—while slowly bowing their heads low to the water. This went on for a good five minutes. This was followed by the larger Loon doing two "threat-displays".

They once appeared to gently touch their bills together!

One other endearing Loon behavior is the soft call between Loons (hoo!) known as the "I'm-OK—are-you-OK" call. Towards evening, it's a fairly common vocalization—mostly a soft call, but can vary in volume.

:confused: I've never seen this before...so...I'm just adding one more particular behavior evolved after millions of years by Earth's oldest living bird species. :)