{"id":23409,"date":"2018-05-06T17:33:05","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T00:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=23409"},"modified":"2018-05-06T17:37:32","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T00:37:32","slug":"loon-friend-or-foe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=23409","title":{"rendered":"Loon, friend or foe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Common Loons spend the winter along the Pacific Coast. In spring they arrive at interior lakes to breed. Upon arrival they are at once friendly to partners, and highly aggressive to rivals.<\/p>\n

The problem loons seem to have is: Which is which? To human eyes, both sexes look alike, and if last week’s observations are a guide, the loons, themselves, often seem unsure of who’s who.<\/p>\n

This is a tale of three or four Common Loons coursing about on one of the lakelets of the West Arm of Kootenay Lake.<\/p>\n

These two Common Loons had been swimming together for a while, and one occasionally displayed for the other. They seemed to be friends.
\n \"\"<\/p>\n

Farther out on the water, a lone loon had been swimming when another spotted it and landed nearby. They approached gingerly, apparently unsure of the identity of the other.
\n \"\"<\/p>\n

Abruptly the decision was made: foe. How each determined this was unclear to me.
\n \"\"<\/p>\n

Each backed away and reared up aggressively.
\n \"\"<\/p>\n

Each thought it could win, so the fight for supremacy began.
\n \"\"<\/p>\n

And continued.
\n \"\"<\/p>\n

One loon was losing and broke away.
\n \"\"<\/p>\n

The victor would not leave well enough alone and chased the loser back and forth across the water for another five minutes or so. Each bird\u00a0planed<\/a>. There was a great deal of energy put into the exercise before the vanquished loon ended it by flying off.
\n \"\"<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on the lakelet, these two were seen. I rather suspect that they were friends.
\n \"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Common Loons spend the winter along the Pacific Coast. In spring they arrive at interior lakes to breed. Upon arrival they are at once friendly to partners, and highly aggressive to rivals. The problem loons seem to have is: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23409"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23432,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23409\/revisions\/23432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}