A Novice Attempts to Help a Loon in Distress

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“You’ll want to use a fishing net.”
“A fishing net, like a butterfly net?”
“Not quite. Let’s see you could use a towel. You’ll want to grab gently yet securely.”
Apparently the bird rehabilitator on the other end of the phone presumed, quite correctly, that if I didn’t know what a fishing net was, then I didn’t own one.
“Won’t he bite?”
“Yes, he’ll definitely try to bite you which is why you’ll need to be careful.”

Here I was thinking I was being environmentally responsible by calling a local bird rehabilitator after spotting a loon in distress. I suppose that deep down I was hoping to hand off the problem to someone else, as in “I did my part, now it’s someone else’s problem.” Sometimes it’s good not to be let off the hook, or out of the net as it were. My husband and I decided to give it a try. By ‘it’ I mean canoe up to a large loon in distress, reach overboard while keeping the canoe balanced, grabbed the loon quickly and firmly without getting bitten and then, then do what? I needed to call the rehabilitator back.

“Okay, so supposing we are able to grab the loon, then what do we do?”
“Hold on to him, I should be able to get there in 20 or 30 minutes.”
“Hold him for 30 minutes? Won’t that be difficult?”
“Well you can put him in a crate like for a dog.”
“Oh okay,”

I hung up before I realized that we didn’t own a dog and didn’t have a dog crate on hand either. A recycling bin would have to do. I grabbed the recycling bin from the garage and contemplated its size. Would a loon fit in it? Seemed like maybe, although his head would surely stick out. And what in the world would we use for a cover? Maybe my husband could hold a towel over the top. I suggested as much to him.

“You want me to do what? “
“Grab a loon after I paddle up next to it, put it in this recycling bin and hold a towel over it while I paddle back to the dock.”

I have no idea why he agreed to this endeavor, but he did. We decided he should wear work gloves and long sleeves. He donned a plaid flannel shirt and we both put on life jackets. I know how precarious moving around in a canoe can be let alone leaning out over the side of a canoe to grab a loon. It was likely that more than the loon would be swimming in the lake before we were through.

I swiftly paddled quite close to the loon. We could see that he looked oddly asymmetrical. Too much of the white of his breast was showing on one side. Yet we couldn’t quite tell whether his wing was broken, or caught by fishing line or something else. I moved in closer. Even in distress, the loon was going to do his best to stay clear of the canoe bearing down on him with the large plaid human in the bow. I paddled harder. We were within several feet of him—clearly he was ailing as he didn’t dive. My husband reached out. The loon disappeared. Distress or no, taking his chances by submerging was better than being grabbed by whatever that was leaning over the gunwale toward him.

We peered around and found where he had resurfaced.

“We should try again, don’t you think?”

Perhaps more to convince ourselves that we had given it our best try than because we had confidence in our success, I paddled toward the loon again. This time he didn’t wait so long. He dove and resurfaced a good 50 feet away.

“I don’t think it’s going to work.”
“Agreed, let’s head back.”

Maybe it was best for all involved as I’m not sure what me, my husband or the loon would have done were we all in the canoe together. More likely than not, we would all be in the lake together. Capturing a loon for rehabilitation is probably best learned with an expert in person, rather than over the phone.