Kids Build Loon Nests

The haunting call of the Common Loon has become a symbol of wild northern lakes. But as homes, marinas, and resorts are built on these lakes, the loons are losing the places where they like to nest. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports, some people are hoping artificial nests might help:

Transcript

The haunting call of the Common Loon has become a symbol of wild
northern lakes. But as homes, marinas, and resorts are built on these
lakes, the loons are losing the places where they like to nest. As the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports, some people are
hoping artificial nests might help:


The Common Loon doesn’t move around well on land, so they like to nest as
close to the water as possible. But this makes them vulnerable to being pushed
out by development and washed out by boat wakes and floods.


Dan Truscott of Ducks Unlimited recently helped a group of elementary school kids build
floating nest platforms out of PVC pipes and Styrofoam for loons in northern Michigan. Truscott
got started making artificial nesting platforms after he saw what happened to a pair of loons on a
lake near his home.


“They had nested and we had a large rainfall and the dam couldn’t keep up with the water so the
nests got washed out, and so I went home and built one and put it out and it
worked.”


Loon protection groups in the Northeast and the Great Lakes regions
promote the use of these platforms as one tool to help improve the breeding success
of the birds.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.