SPRING2017
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BIO
PHILIAC
There aremany sounds
in the forests of central Ontario, and not just a few
of them are distinctly Canadian—the howl of a wolf, the tock-tock-tock of
woodpeckers. But there’s one that’s more iconic thanmost, and one night
camped inAlgonquin Park withmy daughter Myles it was this creature—
the common loon, doormen of each lake, black-tie emissaries that cavort
with canoeists like dolphins—that put on a veritable vocal Olympics.
It began when a lonely cry rose from one end of the lake, and a
laughing, maniacal answer emanated from the other; while these echoed
around the water more joined in and soon the sounds were bouncing
off all sides, colliding in the middle like waves in a bathtub. It’s odd
that something this eerie can also seem comforting, and even draw you
in. “The loon here is laughing again,” wrote John McPhee in
Survival of
the Bark Canoe
, “so I laugh back. He laughs. I laugh. He laughs. I laugh.
He will keep it up until I am hoarse. He likes conversation. He talks this
way with other loons. I am endeavoring to tell him that he is a hopeless
degenerate killer of trout. He laughs.”
Despite the ease of association with the word “lunatic,” loons are
actually named after their strange walk, moving on land like a bent-over
penguin about to tip over, beak first. But their discomfort with terra firma,
on which they spend perilously little time—and then only during nesting
season—is the flipside of an exquisite adaptation to lake living.
Gavia
immer
can be just shy of ametre in size and weigh five kilos. With legs set
far back andmolded into powerful paddles, it can rocket like a torpedo
underwater, twisting and turning after fish and invertebrate prey, and
diving to 60metres. In turn young loons are eaten by large fish and, when
nesting, devious raccoons, weasels and skunks. First Nations hunters have
a small loon quota in some parts of Algonquin, but the population remains
very stable; it’s difficult to go an hour without seeing one.
LAUGH LIKE
ALOON
UNMISTAKEABLEFOR ITSCRY (AND ITS LAUGH)
GAVIA IMMER
ISBOTHFAMILIARANDELUSIVE
words :: Leslie Anthony
Common loonwith young. SIMONPIERREBARRETTE,VIAWIKIMEDIACOMMONS
