Squam Lakes Loon News—July 30, 2020

It has been a somewhat bumpy last 10 days or so for Squam’s loons, but the families are continuing to hold on. Sadly, we did lose a chick from one of our two-chick families shortly after my last e-newsletter. It is not clear what happened to it, but happily the remaining chick in that family is doing well. And we have also had two nest failures, disappointingly both failures happened when the nests were on the verge of hatching. But the good news is that the remaining chicks are growing fast! With the loss of the one chick, we now have 7 chicks on Squam Lake between 6 families and there are still 2 active nests on the lake. And the two chicks on Little Squam are thriving as well!

Thanks to all of you who participated in the annual Census on Squam! As many of you know, loon watchers across New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and New York fan out to provide a region-wide snapshot of the loon population on the third Saturday in July. This year, in addition to the chicks, volunteers tallied 43 adult loons on Squam. Squam had a number of visiting loons that day, so this number does not reflect Squam’s resident loon population, but it is an important contribution to this region-wide look at loon populations.

LPC has issued our annual Squam Lake Loon Initiative progress report to bring you up to date on both what’s been happening with Squam’s loon population, LPC’s contaminant research, and our activities to investigate the declines in Squam’s loon population and restore a healthy population of loons to the lake. Please click here to read it, and don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions!

As always, please let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or reports about Squam’s loons, and please report any sick, injured, or dead loons to Loon Preservation Committee at (603) 476-5666.