What color are your lake’s loons now? Are they still around?

Long years ago a friend and I took our first autumn fishing trip, to a Northwoods lake we usually visited in June. As we set up on our fishing spot on a chilly mid-October morning, a bird popped up near our rowboat. It had a shape like a loon – the graceful neck, the long, pointed bill – but its colors were different, the sleek black of the head replaced by brownish gray, the spots now sparser and on a gray background.

Something told me even than that is was a loon, in its winter plumage. I’m not sure how I knew; perhaps because no other bird (in these parts anyway) has that distinctive shape, and I knew loons haunted the lake where we were fishing.

Have your lake’s loons changed their plumage? In all likelihood they have. I saw a loon in winter dress as far back as September 6, on a small wilderness lake in Wisconsin’s Northern Highland-American Legion Forest. There was a loon on our Birch Lake (near Harshaw, Wisconsin) as late as last Saturday, Oct. 5. I never got close enough in the fishing boat to see its markings; it was more skittish than loons on our lake usually are (and anyway, as ethics require, I didn’t pursue, only hoped our paths would cross close enough to allow a good look).

I’ve wondered: How exactly do loons change their plumage? It seems to happen pretty quickly. I’d seen September loons on our lake in summer attire, then that specimen on the backwoods lake decked out for winter. Well, it turns out the color changes through molting: Summer feathers fall out to reveal winter ones grown or growing in. At the same time, the loons' eyes lose their bright red and fade to brown. They also pretty much quit calling.

Neighbors here on Birch Lake have expressed concern for the remaining loon, which they say should have left by now. I suspect there is still plenty of time; there is no risk yet of the bird getting iced in, and won’t be so long as enough water remains open for a long runway. As it keeps getting colder, this loon and others will head south toward the ocean for open water and a ready food supply. Loons gather in groups during migration – as many as a hundred, or even more. That would be a sight worth seeing.

Keep an eye out for your lake’s loons – if not gone already, they soon will be. They won’t start their journey back until February or March, and they’ll time their arrival here for just after ice-out. They’ll be dressed for summer – wedding attire.