Loons Trapped by Ice on Vermont’s Lake Eligo in Greensboro

The thermometer had dropped steadily over the weekend and Eligo Lake was nearly frozen over last Monday, December 12^th , when Dan Goodrich, who lives on the lake, noticed two loons swimming in the only open water left, an opening perhaps 20 feet across in the middle of the lake. They occasionally stood up in the water and stretched their wings, called, and swam in the small circle of open water. Goodrich knew loons need 300 feet or more of open water to be able to get airborne, and realized the birds were trapped. He set up a video camera in order to observe the birds and called Eric Hanson, the state’s loon biologist who lives in nearby Craftsbury.

Hanson has relocated loons similarly stranded by going onto the ice with skis or snowshoes and netting them, then releasing them where there’s enough open water for them to take off. When he arrived at Eligo on Tuesday, he knew the ice was too thin to attempt that sort of rescue, so he decided to wait a day or so for the lake to freeze over completely and then perhaps enlist the aid of the Craftsbury fire department to ask for volunteers to perhaps hold a winter rescue drill. He thought the loons would be able to come up onto the ice, and because they don’t move well out of the water, they would be comparatively easy to catch. He was afraid if he tried to rescue them when there was still the open patch of water they might dive and be unable to find the hole again when they needed to come up for air.

Then, on Tuesday, one of the loons managed a surprising feat. Using the 20 feet of open water, the loon started its takeoff, gained enough momentum to lift over the edge of the ice and somehow managed to flap and bounce along the snow-covered ice, finally rising three or four feet above the surface. Once in the air, the bird banked around and headed south. Goodrich captured the spectacular takeoff on videotape. Hanson said he wouldn’t have believed what had happened if he hadn’t actually seen it.

The second loon had not followed the first one by the time the Gazette went to press, but there may be a report on that in next week’s issue, in which case we’ll pass the information on to you here.

Hanson said loons normally leave in late fall and fly south to Martha’s Vineyard Sound, the eastern shore of Maryland or North Carolina for the winter.

As far as we know, the loons that visited Joe’s Pond this year all left without incident. We have often worried that they might not be able to leave when they are still around in December, but perhaps they aren’t as vulnerable as we have thought.

The above information was taken from an article by Ross Connolly in the December 14^th, 2005 issue of The Hardwick Gazette.