The Common Loon's wail drifting across a still northern lake is the sound of wild Michigan — once heard at dusk from a canoe, never forgotten. Breeding adults are sharply patterned: black head with a green sheen, checkerboard back, white necklace, and blood-red eyes. Their bodies are built for underwater pursuit, with solid bones and legs set so far astern they can barely walk on land.
Loons breed on clear, quiet lakes across northern Michigan, needing long open-water "runways" to get airborne and shorelines free of heavy disturbance. Chicks ride on their parents' backs for the first weeks. In fall, Michigan loons head for the Atlantic coast and Gulf, trading their tuxedos for plain gray winter dress.
Fish chased down in underwater dives that can last a minute and reach considerable depths — perch and minnows mostly — plus crayfish and aquatic insects. Chicks are fed small fish from the first day.
The long wail keeps pairs in contact; the laughing tremolo signals alarm; the yodel is a male's territorial claim, unique to each bird. Calm-evening choruses can involve several lakes answering each other.
Their legs are set far back for diving, so they can't take off from land and need a long water runway — sometimes hundreds of yards of flapping and running — to get airborne. Clear water for sight-hunting matters too.
Give shoreline nests and chick-tending pairs wide berth, obey no-wake zones (wakes swamp nests), and use lead-free tackle — lead sinker ingestion is a leading cause of adult loon death.
First arrivals show up in March, numbers peak from April through October, and the last birds clear out during November. Outside that window Michigan has none.
Yes. Loon chicks climb onto a parent's back within their first days, which keeps them warm and out of reach of snapping turtles and large fish. They are sooty black at first, turning gray-brown, and young loons stay on the ocean for two to three years before returning north to breed.
Yes, though not on their nesting lakes, where a pair defends the whole water body. In fall, loons stage in rafts on the Great Lakes before moving to the coast — a good time to see numbers rather than the usual single bird.
Other birds you might be looking at instead.
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