Every year during our stay at Mi-Te-Jo Campground, we hear the somewhat mournful cry of the loons that live on the lake. If we’re lucky, we can look out on the water and watch, at a distance, a lonesome loon calling and fishing for dinner. This year, for the first time in our experience, what we thought was a family of loons swam right by our site. I didn’t have my camera at hand when they first appeared, but I raced into the trailer to get it and managed to catch a few pictures. This one is probably the best of the lot. It was at dusk, so it’s a bit dark, but still impressive though, as far as I’m concerned. We counted thirteen (13) youngsters trailing their mama in strict formation.

After we got home and I downloaded the pictures from the camera to the PC, I took a much closer look at our “loons.” Ooops – it was quickly clear that these were no loons! Then I went searching on the Web. (Good grief! What did we ever do without Google?) First, I found a number of photos of loons and some interesting facts. For instance, because their feet are located far back under their bodies, loons are quite awkward on land and most species of loon can only launch themselves into the air from the water. On the other hand, the position of their feet makes them excellent swimmers. Another fact: loons look very different from our mama with the 13 kids. And finally, loons generally lay only one or two eggs each year. If it was a mama loon we saw, she must have borrowed 11 or 12 chicks from the local Loon Kindergarten! How’s that for a loony idea?

Anyway, thanks to some beautiful pictures by E.J. Peiker, Nature Photographer (http://www.ejphoto.com), I think I’ve identified our “loons” as a species of duck called a Common Merganser.

Over the years, Deb and I have many times enjoyed watching families of ducks swim by, very close to our little beach. Sometimes they have even come up onto the beach at our site. This year, however, is the first time we’ve experienced having them come this far into the campsite. In the picture, Mama Duck is on the far left. She and her ducklings literally had me surrounded! They did much the same thing in the site next to ours, where a friend and her grandkids marvelled at the experience.

I don’t know just why this particular family of ducks was so fearless of coming so close to us. I’d like to think they really have nothing to fear from us humans, but I hesitate to believe that. In fact, our wild animal friends probably are safe around most campers and RVers…at least the ones I’ve met. Maybe they could somehow sense that we were no threat to them. But, when you hear news stories like the recent one about a woman who screamed at, beat and kicked her little dog because he ran off (can you blame him?), you have to wonder just how safe animals are around humans.

Anyway, we were enthralled by the friendly ducks. They certainly have nothing to fear from us and we hope they’ll come back next year! We’ll let you know.