A Sad Case of Bullying
At the end of last week’s column, I wrote, “Just as I was about to send this week’s column off to Esther, our intrepid editor, we received this text from a volunteer and lower Long Pond resident, ‘My sister just kayaked over and saw the 2 loon chicks and the adult loon, so all is well.’”
Well, as it has turned out, there is so much more to this story! Just yesterday (8/4/25), we got a call from a resident directly across from this particular nesting territory about the larger of the two chicks constantly pecking the head of his smaller sibling. Another neighbor reported that they saw the same thing sometime earlier and the smaller chick was temporarily floating head down, but did regain consciousness (or was it faking death) and ultimately swam off.
Local loon legend, Craig Killingbeck and I went down to lower Long Pond to discover that the larger of the two chicks with both parents but the smaller chick had left by itself along the shore heading North about 30 minutes before we got there. We searched the shoreline for a good 500 yds. to no avail, but did observe the adult male yodeling in that direction but further out in the lake. (Only the male loon yodels.)
We continued monitoring with the larger of the two being fed primarily by the banded female. The male was obviously distressed with the absence of his chick and did ultimately join the rest of the family and both initiated multiple distress calls looking in the direction that the little chick had left.
After two hours with things apparently at a stalemate, Craig and I left to let things settle down and to survey the neighboring territories. Upon returning to the dock, we received this text from Lynne, our newest loon volunteer:
Just an update on our little friend. He is living by himself in the next cove over. The parents and other chick are in my cove. He’s just swimming around and maybe by some miracle he can catch his food and survive. I watched the mom, dad and other chick push him away repeatedly yesterday afternoon. I think he got the message.
Observations like this are so difficult to experience, but sibling rivalry is a part of normal life for loons. Unfortunately, we need to let it play out as nature intended. But photo documentation is necessary for us to better understand Mother Nature in general.
We want to thank all of our loon volunteers. Without whom, we would not have this all-important project and would not be able to properly record, document, and assess the health and well-being of our loon population.
If you have a particular question regarding our Belgrade loons, please email your inquiry to info@blamaine.org, and we will try to answer your question either in this column or via email.
Dick Greenan is chairman of the Belgrade Lakes Association’s Loon Preservation Project.
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