The Nesting Pair of Loon Cam 2
In 2016, intruding loons interfered on this territory enough to cause a nest failure. Without a nest or chicks to defend, the bond deteriorated between the pair, which had been together on the territory since 2013. The rest of the 2016 season was chaos with no clear resident pair.
In 2017, the current male and female emerged as the new resident pair and immediately began nesting. They successfully hatched and raised a chick, which suggests that both of these loons probably had previous nesting experience on other territories. We know that the male did because he was banded in 2006 on a nearby territory on the same lake. We banded the female this same year (2017), so we don’t know her previous history.
The loons can be identified by its leg bands. The male’ left band is red over white, the right band is silver over red dot. The female’s left band is a white stripe over blue and the right bands are silver over yellow stripe.
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Camera Information for Loon Cam 2
The live video image on this page comes from a high-definition Axis video camera with pan-tilt-zoom features, a microphone and night-time infrared illumination. The camera is mounted on a post, about 30 feet from the nesting area. An Ethernet cable runs across the bottom of the pond to an island. The camera and associated equipment on the island is battery powered, recharged by solar panels. From the island, the video stream is sent 1/4 mile to shore by WiFi, and into an internet connection. The camera sends a video stream to YouTube, which supports hundreds of simultaneous viewers. A video stream archive lets us replay choice moments and publish them on the LPC YouTube Channel. The webcam is funded through donations to the Loon Preservation Committee’s LoonCam fund. Please click here to contribute to the operational costs.
Acknowledgements
Funding for the loon cam project is made possible by LPC’s Loon Recovery Plan and your donations. Technical design and loon cam operation is provided by LPC volunteer, Bill Gassman (www.linkedin.com/in/billgassman). Streaming and archiving services are provided by YouTube, Charter/Spectrum Communications, CamStreamer and AngelCam. The camera installation would not have been possible without the generous permission of several property owners.
Loon Cam FAQ Loon Cam 2
When will the eggs hatch?
The first egg was laid about 430PM Thursday, June 11’th. ‘The second egg arrived at 7:30AM on Sunday, June 14’th. Since incubation takes 28 days (give or take a few), the hatch is expected sometime around July 8-11’th.
How does the loon cam work?
The camera about 30 feet from the nest, on a wooden pole mounted in the water. An Ethernet cable supplies power and an internet connection to the camera, on shore. Sound comes from a microphone, mounted close to the nest. It is muffled to avoid picking up people talking and there may be occasions where it is set low or muted to protect the privacy of the neighbors. The video stream runs 24×7, over a business class internet service to YouTube Live. With this design, hundreds can view the video feed at the same time, and the stream is converted to match the viewer’s device and internet connection speed. We also employ a 7 day streaming archive service and can make a video clip of interesting events.
Can I see the archived videos?
The YouTube player is configured so that you can replay the most recent twelve hours of the video stream. This is useful if you missed watching a nest switch or egg turning. Edited video clips from the archive are occasionally published on the Loon Preservation Committee’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/LoonCenter. Let us know if you see something interesting that we’ve missed. The archive goes back a week.
Is there a Twitter hash tag to alert people to special events?
Yes. Our blogger, Biff, will continuing using Twitter again this year. To participate, follow the #LoonCam hashtag. We encourage viewers to send out a Tweet with #looncam in the text when something special happens. That will help us go back through the archives and publish a video clip of the events. Our Twitter name is @lpc_nh.
Where is the loon cam located?
It is in the lakes region of New Hampshire, home of LPC’s Moultonboro based Loon Center. For the privacy of the loons and the gracious people that allow placement of the loon cam, the exact location is unidentified.
Can I donate to the operation of the loon cam?
Yes! Please use the donation button here or on the loon cam page and choose the “Loon Cam” option to direct your donation. Donations over the past few years have funded two cameras, infrared lights, a solar power array and associated equipment to make the camera reliable. The primary cost remains the high-speed internet connection. This year, we estimate it will cost about $1000 to operate both loon cams 1 and 2. The stream starts around May 1 and runs into mid July. Your donations help make it possible.
Can I control the view?
The camera view is programmed to periodically rotate through a sequence of preset scenes. At times, the LPC staff may take control of the camera and change the scene or follow interesting events. If you want a specific view, send an email to looncam@loon.org or mention your request in the YouTube chat room. If a loon cam operator is on-duty, your request may be granted.
Can I make the picture bigger?
Yes, use the YouTube full-screen icon, which shows up when you touch or mouse-over the bottom of the picture. Be sure to select a high resolution, using the settings gear. We broadcast with a resolution of 1080p. You can also open up the stream on the YouTube web site, smart TV, or mobile application.
How can I participate in the chat room?
On the YouTube page or mobile app (but not on the LPC’s web page), there is a chat feature, where you can have a discussion with other Loon Cam Viewers. The LPC staff will chime in when they have a chance and not in the field. The direct access URL to chat is https://www.youtube.com/live_chat?v=UlA3pmsoNoI&is_popout=1
Can you turn the sound up? I can barely hear it.
The camera’s microphone is very sensitive and is set as low as possible. This provides some natural sounds while protecting people’s privacy. It is common to hear the loons quietly conversing. At times, the microphone will be muted.
Why is the picture jerky or fuzzy?
First, try setting the resolution to 1080p on your YouTube page, using the gear in the lower right under the picture. If you are on a slow or congested internet connection, YouTube reduces the resolution and the picture will be less sharp. The slow-down may also be on our end. When there is a lot of movement, like wind on the water, we can run out of upload bandwidth. We broadcast in 1080p resolution and strive for 15-20 frames/second.
Who do I contact if I have a problem or question?
For technical questions or problems with the looncam, send email to looncam@loon.org For other questions or concerns, contact volunteers@loon.org
One More Healthy Chick
It’s been an “interesting” three days since we first saw the pip on what we assume was egg #1. The chick hatched in the dark, early hours of Thursday morning but we didn’t get a look at it until daylight. The loons continued incubating the second egg and we hoped to see another hatch soon. The following night, loon cam watchers reported hearing peeps and tapping coming from the egg (it’s so great to have a microphone on the raft!) and our expectations were high.
Meanwhile, the hatched chick was getting rambunctious and the parents had their hands (wings?) full, trying to incubate an egg while taking care of a precocious chick. By the time daylight arrived on Friday, both parents were spending more time with the chick than incubating the egg. Viewers reported and discussed interesting features on the surface of the egg but we never saw a classic pip (the beginnings of a chick emerging from the shell. By nightfall, it was apparent that the loons were more concerned with the chick and ignoring the egg.
Today it’s safe to say that the second egg will not hatch and possibly never would have hatched. The loons haven’t been back to the nest and they are busy feeding and guarding the chick. Soon they will start moving toward the brooding area, which is in another cove. The loon cam was shut down shortly after noon.
Losing an egg is a disappointment but the loons have to protect their investment, which is now a healthy chick in the water. When we look at the big picture, our two Loon Cam pairs have hatched three healthy chicks this year. If they all survive to the end of the season, then that is a roaring success; three times the statewide average. Here’s wishing a long life to the chicks and their parents, who we hope to see back here next year, contributing again to a sustainable loon population.
Do We Have a Pip?
Sure looks like it!
Correcting Some Misconceptions
Comments in the YouTube chat show some misconceptions about loon anatomy, particularly about anatomical structures lacking in loons. Here are some features found in a wide range of birds but not found in loons:
The Crop – A crop is an enlargement of the esophagus that allows storage of food prior to continuing to the stomach (more properly known as gizzard or ventriculus). It allows birds to gorge on food where it is plentiful and then digest the food when they’ve moved to a safer location. It also does some predigestion preparation and may be useful in combating harmful bacteria. Omnivorous and herbivorous birds are most likely to have a crop, and to have a well developed, complex, lobed crop. Loons are nearly exclusive fish eaters (piscivores) and that may have something to do with why they don’t have crops. Penguins are another piscivorous bird without a crop. Cormorants have a rudimentary crop, which is nothing more than an extra wide section in the esophagus.
Brood Patch – A brood patch is a featherless area on the underside of an incubating bird. It usually has a number of blood vessels near the skin and it aids in heat transfer to the egg. Brood patches typically are only present during breeding season. Loons seem to manage well without a brood patch. Exactly why loons don’t have a brood patch is unknown but it might have something to do with waterproofing. A loon’s feathers form a watertight envelope and they can control buoyancy by expanding and contracting their feathers. Perhaps a brood patch could compromise the watertight seal.
Egg Tooth – An egg tooth is a protuberance used by the offspring of egg-laying animals to break through the eggshell. On birds, it is normally found on the top of the upper mandible and falls off within a few days after hatching. Loon chicks can do well without an egg tooth. Their bill is well formed at hatch time, and although it isn’t as sharp and dagger-like as an adults, it’s still more than adequate for punching a hole in the eggshell. Loon chicks are precocial, meaning that they are fully developed and ready to jump in the water and swim with their parents the same day that they hatch. They are well past the stage where they would need an egg tooth.
Hatch Time Draws Near
Our Loon Cam 2 pair has so far had an uneventful incubation process. These two loons just don’t seem to present the non-stop drama of the Loon Cam 1 pair. But that’s good for us; we don’t need the stress of anxiety. And it’s good for the loons; they can concentrate on taking care of the eggs.
Now that the eggs are barely more than a week away from hatching, let’s see if we can nail down the hatch times. We only have two years of to-the-minute data that we can use but they are in close agreement. If the loons hold true to form, we should be able to accurately predict hatch times within a few hours. Incubation periods for egg 1 average 27 days and 13.5 hours. That would put this year’s first egg hatch at 5:30 AM on Thursday, July 9. Egg 2 is a little tougher to predict because only one egg hatched and the timing suggested it was egg 1. So, going by the one known incubation period for egg 2, we would expect the second egg to hatch around midnight (12:00 AM, July 10).
Taken together, these two loon pairs have a very similar and consistent egg-laying-incubation-hatch record. The two eggs are laid about 60 hours apart, on average. Incubation is very sporadic until the second egg is laid. The time from laying to hatch is about 27.5 days +/-10 hours for the first egg and a little over 25.5 days for the second egg. The result is that the eggs hatch about 1 day apart. Because this year the first egg was laid late in the day (June 11) and the second was laid early in the day (June 14), there’s a slight chance they will both hatch on July 9, one predawn and one well after dark.
Loon Cam 2 Pair and Territory
Now that the Loon Cam 2 pair is almost half-way through its incubation period, it’s time to clear up some confusion about the history of the pair and reading the bands on the loons’ legs.
In 2016, intruding loons interfered on this territory enough to cause a nest failure. Without a nest or chicks to defend, the bond deteriorated between the pair, which had been together on the territory since 2013. The rest of the 2016 season was chaos with no clear resident pair.
In 2017, the current male and female emerged as the new resident pair and immediately began nesting. They successfully hatched and raised a chick, which suggests that both of these loons probably had previous nesting experience on other territories. We know that the male did because he was banded in 2006 on a nearby territory on the same lake. We banded the female this same year (2017), so we don’t know her previous history.
Both loons have two bands on each leg.
Female left: A white stripe band (white band with a dark stripe through the middle) over a blue band
Female right: A silver band (the aluminum USFWS band with a unique number) over a yellow stripe band (yellow band with dark stripe in middle)
Male left: A red band over a white band
Male right: A silver (aluminum) band over a red dot band (a red band with a white dot in the middle)
And by one band being over the other, it means it’s the closer one to the location the leg is attached to the body. It’s easy for people to mess that up when the loon is sitting on the nest. Closer to its rear end might be a better way of putting it. The standard practice is to put the silver band on the right leg when the loon is banded as an adult and on the left leg when the loon is banded in its hatch year.
This territory has been monitored since the mid 1980s. The nest site was originally on an island but new development in the 70s and 80s caused a deterioration of the nesting habitat that resulted in increased terrestrial egg predation. The raft was added in 1992. Since then, the average annual chicks surviving rate has been 0.643, which is higher than the statewide average. This pair has fledged 2 surviving chicks in the three years it has been on territory (0.667).