Patience All

Good morning. It's 6:45 am in South Portland, Maine. I've just returned from a few days out in the field, training an intern that is helping with an ongoing loon study on Mount Desert Island, Maine. We had a glorious day on the water, yesterday, and were fortunate to find a few banded loons, including a banded juvenile that we banded as a chick back in 2005. Very exciting!

In catching up on all your blogs, I'm still reading that some of you are having troubles viewing the video. I can't really be of further help on this, as most are seeing it fine, so it must be something involving individual computers.

Some of your comments express anxiousness that the loons haven't nested, yet. Please remember that, last year, the loons didn't nest until June 6. The timing does fluctuate from year to year, and we still have plenty of time for them to nest. There were several blogs about the loons visiting the nest over the last few days, and if you look at the times, late afternoon continues to be a pattern. Tune in if you're near your computer at that hour.

One blogger astutely pointed out that they had read information about loons on our website that says loons don't nest every year. This is true, and it is possible that they will take a year off, but it's too early to determine that. I think we have at least another three weeks to wait and see - patience...............

Lastly, on the black screen, after two minutes. We provide the streaming video as a free service, and the cost of streaming is charged by the amount we use. When we can get this service donated or when we can raise enough funds from the public to cover the costs, we can allow people to view the live video as long as they like. If everyone can rally the viewers to donate, we can make this happen!

Thank you so much, for all of your ongoing blogs, your endless enthusiasm for loons, and for all the donations we've received, so far. Let's all hope for more frequent loon sightings in the days ahead. That would be a sure sign that they are intending to nest.

Lee

Limping To The Starting Line:<(

As many of you have surmised, we've had many technical issues with the loon cam system, this year. Do to the remote nature of the location, this system is much more complex than the eagle cam system.

I was on site for a third time, this week, trying to correct problems with the second camera. I initially thought that we had successfully gotten video (no audio), but new issues have developed that may well mean we won't have a second camera, this year.

The good news is, we did go live, this week, and viewers have already recorded seeing both adults at the nest!! Activity does seem to be minimal, at this point, but we should see the frequency of their visits increase in the days, ahead.

I have received many blogs from viewers that mention they are still being linked to the eagle cam when they try to view the live stream. It's possible that this is being caused by your computer saving the original link on the loon cam page. Try refreshing the page on your computer. We are also checking some settings on our end.

By the way, the loons greeted me when I was on site on Tuesday afternoon. They were very vocal the minute I arrived, and when I checked the camera, they were both at the nest. It was around 3 pm EST. This marks several days that they have been seen visiting the nest in the mid/late afternoon. It's probably a good time to check in.

Happy Memorial Day to all. More next week.

Lee

Loon Sighting & Another Techinical Hiccup

Good morning, all, from sunny Maine. It's the first we've seen the sun in quite a few days. Our solar system that powers the equipment on the island will be mighty grateful, as will the loons that count on the foliage of the surrounding shrubs to camouflage the nest, and protect them from too much heat on warm, sunny days.

Speaking of loons, note the two blogs that were submitted at approximately 4 pm on Saturday. Two different bloggers reported seeing a loon around the nest!!! This is a great sign for the likelihood of nesting, as is the blog from another viewer, that the pair our staying close together. The pair bond is critical to successful nesting, and defense against other adult loons that attempt to steal a territory from an existing pair.

On another note, I spent half the day on site, on Friday, trying to fix technical issues. While I was successful fixing the initial problem we had, another problem has cropped up. For some reason (unknown), we've lost the image on camera 2. Ugh!! We're going to be doing what we can, this week, to rectify this new problem, all the while being mindful that we have now seen a loon at the nest, and we may not be able to go to the island without disturbing them. That decision will be made as the circumstances dictate.

Thanks for your continued patience waiting for the live video to begin!! I can promise that unless there is some unforeseen calamity, we will go live, this week. I'll likely post another blog in the next few days.

Lee

Quick Update

Just a quick update, to let everyone know that we are still having a few lingering technical issues with the looncam equipment. The latest development is that I may need to travel back up to the site in the next couple of days to get the problem resolved.

If all goes well, we hope to go live next Monday. I will post another blog on Monday to confirm this, or post an alternative date.

So far, I haven't seen any blogs confirming any nest activity. Has anyone seen anything?

Lee

Answers & More

Happy Friday, all. This note comes from my desk at BRI HQ in Gorham, ME. Although there has yet to be any reported or viewed loon activity at the nest, I'm really enthused to see all you bloggers fired up for another year of looncam watching.

This is BRI's 5th year for the looncam, and based on prior years, the loons typically nest in late May (3rd/4th week). If that timing plays out again, this year, we should see some activity perhaps as early as next week. We're still ironing out a few bugs with the system, but we still hope to have the live video up by then. In the meantime, the refreshing still image is working, and thanks to Pam, an avid loon blogger, we now have some archived loon images from last year.

For those of you that may be new, take note of the bands you see on the loon's legs. Banding loons so that we can identify each individual, and test them for mercury levels, is a key component of our environmental contaminant research. This work by BRI has helped to confirm that mercury levels in wildlife in the northeastern US are high, and do impact a variety of species. To answer one blogger, the mercury pollution does come from industrial sources for the most part, including power plants, incinerators, etc. While many of these sources are outside our region, we also have to be mindful that they also exist right in our own back yard.

As one blogger urged, all of you can take action by supporting regional and national legislation initiatives, and by insisting that your elected state and federal officials do the same. BRI is extremely active in this regard. David Evers, our Executive Director, is considered to be one of the leading authorities on mercury contamination in the nation. In the past few years, he has spent a fair amount of time in Washington, DC, testifying about what BRI has learned about mercury in our environment. We have high hopes that major national news about this will be announced later, this year.

Also, if you want to help the fight against mercury pollution in another way, support BRI. We count on public donations to support all the work we are doing. Thanks!

To the bloggers that have commented on seeing a "flooded" nest. What you are actually seeing is the view from camera 2, which views the shoreline immediately in front of the nest. Thanks to donations from last year, we were able to add a second camera to the looncam, and from time to time, when circumstances dictate, we will switch to that view. We had hoped to have both cameras run simultaneously, but the system can't do that. That's on our wish list for next year.

One person asked about a good book for basic loon information, and we've got the perfect choice - Call Of The Loon. It was published, last year, by Willow Creek Press, and authored by Dave Evers & Kate Taylor. It's loaded with answers to many basic loon questions, and stunning pictures. BRI will send you a copy FREE with your donation of $100 or more, or you can simply order it through us. All the information is on our website.

I'm sure I haven't answered all the questions that came in. I'll try to keep up with them as time allows, and you'll also find that fellow bloggers are good at answering questions about past BRI looncam history. This is a huge help to me!

I'm certainly revved up for another year, and anxiously await the first sighting of our loons at the nest. Now - who will be the first blogger to write in with that sighting????

Lee

Update

Good morning, all. It's 8:30 am here in Maine, on another glorious sunny day. It now seems like months since the Patriot's Day storm that ravaged the state, and claimed the vulnerable eagle chicks in the eaglecam nest. From what I've heard, many eagle nests fell victim to that storm.

As Wing reported, late last week, we installed the looncam system on Thursday. Interested observers will be able to see a refreshing still image, for now, with live video to follow sometime in the next week or so. If you do happen to click on the live video, you will be sent to the eaglecam video. We chose to do this, temporarily, instead of having a dead link.

Check back frequently thoughout the week, as I hope to post a date when we'll go live with the looncam.

Lee