The following is the 2014 Lake John Loon Report by Bruce Nystrom (Section 3) who is a loon watcher and “restorer” of the loon platforms.
From my point of view of Lake John on the northern shore, 2014 was filled with listening and watching a family of 4 Loons on a regular basis. Reportedly their nest was in the tall vegetation at Rocky Point, but they often fed along the North shore, diving for minnows and feeding/teaching their young. There was another family, I think of 3, that occupied another part of the lake. I think the Bald Eagles kept Finger Bay off limits for any Loons.
Over the summer, one could see the juveniles grow in size, feather quality, and color and then finally they started to fly some and it is at that time, the adults grew aloof. However, you could see that one of the juveniles was either injured or unable to fly and sadly,, froze into the ice in November and was eventually devoured by “Nature”.
The Loon Watch Committee collected our two nesting platforms in late Summer. They had broken loose of previous anchors and floated up to shore. They had deteriorated somewhat over the years since being built and needed repair and maintenance. We obtained new parts donated by Association Members and replaced the anchors, cables, clamps, reflectors, chicken wire, access ramps, etc. In Fall, we loaded the platforms onto a pontoon and returned them to two likely successful locations. Experts say that lakes with successful Loon nesting history might not need platforms, but we have them and hope to see them utilized. It’s not that hard to keep them up and offer them to the Loon population.
Thanks to Marv Johnson, Hank Wrobleski, Bob Fleskes, Jeff Gavin, Alan & Aleta Isaacson, Bruce Nystrom and Mike Jaskowiak for contributing in 2014.
