What Makes a Loon Project Volunteer?
Our volunteers are the very heart of the Belgrade Lakes Association’s Loon Preservation Project. Seven years ago, in our inaugural year of the project, Great Pond resident Dennis Stevens called with a welcomed siting of Great Pond’s only surviving chick after we thought we had lost all three to various maladies. And that particular chick fledged and successfully flew the coop that October. Dennis’ observation (or was it his wife Claire’s?) saved the day! Thank you once again, Dennis and Claire!
The astute stakeholder/volunteer will email or text a photo of a new chick in a particular territory or note one of the many fights due to territorial intrusions from another adult in an attempt to steal a territory as well as a new mate. Where’s the romance in that??!!! In addition:
- Volunteers will report loons that appear in distress, beached, entangled in fishing line, etc. As I write this week’s column (7/30/25), in the past two weeks alone, we’ve had reports of two chicks in distress, one beached adult with apparent lead poisoning and one deceased adult. Some weeks are more challenging than others!
- We want to extend our thanks and appreciation to those volunteers this year that have kindly shared their kayaks and canoes with our two Colby College Loon Project interns so that they may more effectively survey a territory for nests, assess nest integrity, egg abandonment, chick survival in addition to just monitoring their behavior for a better understanding of our loon population.
So you ask, “How can I be a loon volunteer?” or “Does it require training in advance?” It’s real easy and takes just a phone call (207) 512‑5150) or email (info@blamaine.org) with your observation at a particular date, time and location. If you would like to assist in weekly surveys of a particular territory then please share your location, availability whether it be weekly during the summer, for the month of July, August, etc. For training in the interim, we highly recommend Loon Lessons by Jim Paruk, available at your preferred book seller.
My better half would not let me forget her contribution to our loon project and when I inquired at what that might be, I was reprimanded and told in so many words that her cooking for our expert loon consultant Lee Attix, who stays with us during his overnights in Belgrade, “providing fresh flowers in his room each night and don’t forget the chocolate covered almonds that Lee loves and don’t forget all of those meals!”
OK! I get it!! Thank you Sue, our #1 Loon Volunteer!!
Hot off the Press: Just as I was about to send this week’s column off to Esther, our intrepid editor, we received this text from a volunteer and lower Long Pond resident, “My sister just kayaked over and saw the 2 loon chicks and the adult loon, so all is well.” Updates like this are so important as we had an earlier report that the chicks were gone.
We thank all of our loon volunteers, without whom we would not have this all-important project and be able to properly record, document and assess the health and well-being of our loon population.
If you have a particular question regarding our Belgrade loon population, please email your inquiry to info@blamaine.org, and we will try to answer your question either in this column or via email.
Dick Greenan is chairman of the Belgrade Lakes Association’s Loon Preservation Project.
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