Courtesy of Kittie Wilson
Menu

When Can Nest Rafts Help?

Nest rafts have proven to be a great tool for loon conservation in specific circumstances, but not all loon pairs will benefit from a raft. Nest failures are natural, and if a loon pair hatches chicks at least once every three years, they are considered successful and do not need a raft. A raft placed where it is not needed does not help loons. In recent decades, less than half of the nest rafts floated in New Hampshire have been used in a given year. This inherent inefficiency—that loons frequently ignore nest rafts—means that good criteria to select and prioritize candidate sites are all the more important, to make sure that new raft sites are really worth a try. Rafts are most likely to be helpful on loon territories that meet the criteria listed below. 

Raft Criteria

In order to qualify for a nest raft, a loon territory should meet the following criteria:

1) A territorial loon pair must be present. Nest rafts do not attract loons to water bodies that are currently unoccupied. In order to qualify for a nest raft, a lake must have a resident territorial pair (a pair that is observed consistently on the lake for at least a 4 week period from mid-May through mid-August).

2) The resident pair must have a demonstrated need for a raft. We don’t want to make loons dependent on human intervention for nesting if they don’t need to be. If there is suitable natural habitat available on the lake, we want to give the loons the opportunity to nest naturally. Occasional nest failures are normal and natural, so our protocol is to only float rafts at sites where the loons have experienced repeated nest failures and have proven that they are unlikely to be able to nest successfully at natural sites. Nest rafts will only be helpful if the natural nest is failing due to a problem that a raft can solve, such as water level fluctuations, predation, or lack of high quality natural nest sites. If nests are failing for other reasons, different management strategies, such as floating nest signs, might be more appropriate.

3) There should be a team of local volunteers willing to help maintain, float, and retrieve the raft each year. Please click here to learn more about raft floating teams.

LPC works closely with interested volunteers to select sites that meet the criteria avoce and provide rafts for them. Sites are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If you would like to discuss a particular lake or loon pair that might benefit from a raft, please email field@loon.org or call us at (603)476-5666.

We would much prefer loons to nest at natural sites when a suitable site (like the well-hidden site in this photo) are available. Rafts are a last resort, reserved for loon pairs that experience nest failures for several years in a row due to a problem that a raft can solve.

We want to see loons nesting at natural nest sites whenever possible. Loon conservation organizations across North America (including LPC) agree that loons are considered successful if they hatch chicks once every three years. Loons that can achieve that level of nesting success at natural sites do not need a nest raft. Photo courtesy of Brian Reilly.

Nest flooding or stranding due to water level fluctuations are problems that can be solved by a raft. If a loon pair fails for three consecutive years due to these problems, or to other raft-solvable problems such as predation or lack of high-quality natural habitat, they meet the criteria for a nest raft.

Loon Preservation Committee