CREEKSIDE AT THE CIBOLO
The first one I remember laying my eyes on was during an early morning venture to my then favorite National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) west of Bottineau, North Dakota, during my freshman year of college in 1978.
On a beautiful spring morning, the bird appeared apparition-like in the shafts of emerging sunlight on a prairie pothole of J. Clark Salyer NWR. Riding low in the water like a surfaced submarine, my life Common Loon came into view through my 7x35 binoculars.
I captured its image and, while the slide quality has diminished over the last 47 years, the memory burns bright as ever.
HE CIBOL
While I have encountered four of the five species of North American loons, it is the Common Loon which has been front and center. Recently, I was re-acquainted in a fashion I never could have imagined.
Recently, while walking along the woodland trail at Cibolo, I was stopped by two Center volunteers who let me know that a loon was in Cibolo Creek. Knowing something of the natural history of loons, I was not convinced. As it turns out, there really was a loon in Cibolo Creek.
The loon came to be creek-bound as a result of its release following the birds’ apparent misidentification of a wet street as water, no doubt creating quite the crash landing for the second-year bird.
While the creek provided a readily available diet of fish and crayfish, an escape route through the tree-shrouded creek was not available to this migratory bird.
You see, loons are excellent diving birds, having the ability to swim underwater for up to five minutes due to their feet and legs being positioned at the back end of their heavy body.
While this adaptation is an advantage underwater, it becomes a challenge when attempting to become airborne.
As a result, loons need anywhere from 30 yards to nearly a quarter mile to lift off the water, furiously beating its less-than-ideal wings (for a heavy bird) while its feet flail along the water’s surface in a feeble attempt to help break the waters’ hold. Because the creek lacked the necessary runway, this bird was likely doomed to ever again see its northern haunts.
Once the situation was assessed, Operation Loon Rescue was borne.
With help from Boerne Animal Control officer Coleman Sparks, Cibolo’s Nature Education Director Noah Lawrence and Buildings and Grounds Manager Lee Garteiser, Texas Master Naturalist Terry Lashley and three of my co-workers with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Wendy, Fernando and Michelle — and the OK from our local Kendall County TPWD Game Warden — a plan to relocate the loon to the more-suited Boerne City Lake was conjured up, though “plan” might be too strong a word.
It was more like a concept that could work if everything went well, and, of course, most of that depended upon the cooperation of a rather large, well-beaked wild bird capable of not only swimming away from us on the water’s surface, but diving and disappearing to the other end of our capture area.
Friday, May 9 dawned beautiful, sunny and cool, perfect weather for launching Operation Loon Rescue.
Almost immediately, the wellthought- out plan took a turn. First, the bird was not where it had been earlier that morning. Then there was my clumsy fall among bald cypress roots — more embarrassing than a setback, but still, not a confidence builder.
The bird, which had been primarily seen in a pool just north of Cooper’s Crossing, was now swimming in a much deeper and longer pool, making its ability to allude us better and capture more challenging.
Fortunately, Cibolo Nature Center Communications Director Brian Davenport was there with the purpose of documenting the rescue operation. We were able to corral the bird from the deeper pool back to Cooper’s Crossing where it swam up against the concrete path.
Standing within two feet of the I-am-sure panicked bird, the loon somehow struggled up onto the crossing, but was grounded with its feet dangling over the edge, unable to push itself forward.
Within seconds, a net secured the bird. Wrapped in a large towel to calm the bird and keep its wings close to the body, as well as avoid unwanted body piercings from the dagger-like beak, the bird was gently placed in a large box and transported to officer Sparks’ truck.
Twenty minutes later, standing at the boat launch of Boerne City Lake, preparations were made for its release into a body of water large enough for a loon to continue its northward migration.
Videos and photos aplenty were taken/recorded, and my supervisor Michelle Haggerty, a Michigan native with lots of loon memories, carefully set the loon free.
There are times when words are not needed and indeed. For what seemed like an eternity, almost no words were spoken as the loon tentatively swam 20 feet or so away from us, looked under water and then back at us, rose up to flap its wings — as if saying “Thank you” and “Good-bye.”
It was magical in every sense of the word. The utter joy etched on Michelle’s face was reward enough for me to know that Operation Loon Rescue was a success in more ways than one.
At this writing, two days later, the loon apparently left to wing its way to its summer home on some bog or other wetland in Canada, Minnesota, Wisconsin, to Michelle’s Michigan stomping grounds or, dare I say, a certain wildlife refuge in North Dakota.
This loon represents, to me, not only a connection to the beginning of a 45-year career with another long-ago loon, but also, as was pointed out to me, a sign that perhaps Minnesota is where my wife Terry and I will migrate to as we explore new adventures with friends both new and old post-retirement at months’ end.
Time will tell, of course, but culminating in a career with a loon encounter of this kind could not be better.
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