Common Loon - Up Close

Sometimes I am almost embarrassed by the avian richness around my home. For example, as posts earlier this year have shown, I have Evening Grosbeaks as a regular occurrence in my yard - so many people would travel hundreds of miles and consider themselves lucky to see one.

Saturday morning, I saw another of those special birds that many birders long to see. A few minutes from my home is a small lake that hosts  breeding Common Loons for the second year in a row. About mid-morning we put our kayaks on the lake; I went in search of the loons at the west end. I approached very slowly, pausing often. The parent was alert, but soon took my presence as benign, and went about fishing and feeding the young, and drifting to within about thirty feet of where I drifted. Using my 100-400mm, sometimes at less than full zoom, I took over 150 photos, over a period of about an hour and a half. Following are a few. The first is uncropped; others are cropped 25-50%.

Just one more clue to why I find Vermont such a special place. Hope you have a great Fourth of July, and when the picnics and fireworks are over, that you find Good Birding in abundance!