In search of Wisconsin Loons

It's no secret that Denisa loves loons. She's a fan of many different birds, but loons are one of her favorites. We've had some fun loon enounters on lakes in the far north. We remember with such fondness in New Hampshire watching a pair of parent loons feeding their youngster the minnows they caught.

We remember the curious loons that would dive down to fish, and then pop up close to our boat to check us out in Minnesota. We've taken some great loon photos over our years of full-timing.

So  

Since we were staying in northern Wisconsin in a county with 1,100 lakes, we were searching for loons.  We've heard their unique calls from our campground, but our search on our lake came up loon-less yesterday. We read that loons can be found at two clear lakes far away from any town, so that's where we headed. It's only twelve miles from our campground, but the winding forest service roads seem perilous if you're driving faster than 25 miles per hour. It's a lovely drive, but we were getting tired of the green tree tunnels and wanted to see some loons!

The two twin lakes are Luna and White Deer Lakes. Because of the name, we obviously checked out Luna first, but didn't see any loons.

So we drove the short distance to White Deer Lake and spotted three loons in the distance. It's time to launch the kayak in search of loons!

Because the kayak was already aired up, it only took us a few minutes to get on the water. But the three birds we had seen in the distance had disappeared. Bummer! But this is a pleasant lake in the middle of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, so we had a good paddle here anyway. We were half-way around the lake when we saw it--a single loon flew in and landed in the middle of the lake. It looks like we're going on a loon hunt after all!

While we have had some great encounters with curious loons, this guy was obviously not interested in us. He seemed to be on a mission to fish, and we didn't see that he was ever successful. We would just get him spotted and have time to zoom in for a picture--and he would dive again. Many of our pictures were of the splash as he went under. But we managed to catch him in the distance on top of the water a few times.

We got to know his cadence. He would be on top of the water for 10-15 seconds, then dive down under the water to fish. He would stay down until Denisa counted to 50, then pop up ten yards away from where we expected. When we paddled to the far end of the lake, it was protected from the wind and the water was glassy. That's the easiest time to spot a loon.

However, if that predominately black bird shows up in the middle of that calm water mirroring the dark trees, the camera has a hard time taking a picture of black-on-black.

By the time we could get him in the picture frame, he would dive again. We never could tell that he was catching any fish, because that might take him a few more seconds above water to eat it.

This continued all the way around the lake. Mark paddled us into position over and over, trying to guess where he might pop up again. Compared to our great pictures of the past, today's search didn't feel very successful. But at least we weren't skunked in our search for loons.

After paddling the entire perimeter of White Deer Lake, we opted for our hiking shoes. There's a nice 4-mile trail that encircles both lakes. We started around White Deer Lake first.

We thought that hiking near the water would give us more opportunities to keep our eyes open for any loon sightings.

The trail does a figure eight around both lakes, so the middle section is a pleasant walk in the woods. We saw the same number of loons in the forest as we did on the lake--zero.

We hiked all the way around Luna lake. Can you believe we walked four mile and never saw another loon? But we did see beautiful green forests . . . and lovely blue skies. After the smoky weather from the Canadian wild fires last week, we were so excited about the blue skies.

We can also report that the bugs weren't nearly as bad as we thought they might be. We sprayed on bug repellant a time or two, but we were able to sit outside and go for hikes without being bombarded by mosquitoes and biting flies. This day we were wearing the clothing that we pre-treated with permethrin. That's an insect deterrent that actually binds with the cloth fibers. The instructions said that it was effective for up to six washings. While we couldn't spray every garment, Denisa took a picture of her bug-repellent wardrobe so she would remember what was treated.

After staying on the water until dark last night, we got in earlier this day. We needed to fix a good meal, put up the kayak, and clean out the pick-up.  We also spent a little time working on blog posts. The "office" this day was from our view of the lake at our camp site.

We were trying to get some work done because we were going to have company tomorrow. We've been in search of loons today, but tomorrow we're in search of some of our favorite people.