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The black and white colors in the center of the dry reeds indicate a loon sitting on a nest. This loon nest is directly below an eagle's nest. |
On Sunday, at the master naturalist conference, I took a class called "Loony for Loons." We went out on one of the pontoons owned by the resort around Gull Lake. Our pilot motored slowly in a counter clockwise fashion. We went by some big houses. At one large house we saw a mature bald eagle standing on the shore. We stopped to look. The eagle eventually brought up what it was holding in it's talons. I expected a fish. Instead we saw the white belly of a common merganser. The eagle got it on the steep grassy slope but somehow the merganser kept slipping down closer to the water. We watched as the eagle took a bite of the merganser's feathers and spit them out. White feathers were flying everywhere. After about five minutes of this we saw the merganser start flapping it's wings. The eagle and the merganser struggled. Much to our surprise, THE MERGANSER GOT AWAY! The merganser quickly swam and hid under the wooden dock. The eagle flew up to one nearby tree. Then it flew to another nearby tree. I suppose it figured the merganser is not going to come out while it was sitting so close so it flew off. I doubt a merganser can survive being held in the grasp of a bald eagle for that long of a time. What a moment. We were all impressed. Then we kept motoring. We went through a narrow strait and came upon the loon nest under an eagle nest. We were late for lunch so we hurried back to the resort. A young woman from the Loon Center in Cross Lake spoke to us the entire time about loons and about their center.
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