The Lake Where You Live

From my living room recliner I can reach over and open one of the double-hung windows in the wall that faces Birch Lake.

I can do this to let a cool evening breeze come in through the screen. In the bargain I let in something even better. The lake ice went out a month ago and soon afterward the loons returned. So now I can hear their wails from somewhere down on the water.

The calls carry for long distances, so it’s hard to tell exactly from where on the lake they emanate. Regardless, there’s something primal about them, something about the long, plaintive notes that soothe the soul.

There’s no sound on earth like it. In Mercer each year they hold a loon calling contest, in which even the winners offer pale imitations. In stores I’ve seen wooden loon whistles that I imagine replicate the call with some fidelity. 

A few years ago I bought for each of our grandsons a bird-shaped whistle with three finger holes like those in a recorder. With it they could play long notes similar in pitch to a loon’s call. Still, there’s nothing like the real thing, and when a loon lets out a wail, even though I’m accustomed to it after a dozen years on the lake, I can’t help but stop what I’m doing and listen.

The signature sound is imprinted in my brain, although in reality not every wail is the same. Researcher James D. Paruk, in his book, Loon Lessons, describes three versions of the call. I’ve heard all three, and most likely, so have you. A wail can have one, two or three notes.

“One-note wails consist of a single unbroken note that gradually rises in frequency in the middle and then gradually returns to the original note,” Paruk writes.

The two-note wail is the one I can conjure up during those long winter months when the loons are away, the one digitally recorded in my memory. This one starts with a short note, then jumps to a much higher pitch that is sustained for a couple of seconds. Sometimes it ends with another short note at a frequency similar to the first.

Three-note wails start like the two-note variety but add a third note at a pitch about an octave higher than the first one. I’ve heard this call, but far less often than the others.

Can a human mimic a wail, which signals “Come here,” well enough to fool a loon? Likely not but our grandson Tucker would be inclined to disagree. Several years ago Noelle and I were on a pontoon cruise with daughter Sonya, her husband, and Tucker and younger brother Perrin. We spotted three loons a couple hundred yards away; I shut the motor down so we could watch them. 

As a breeze pushed us slowly and silently in the loons’ direction, Tucker, age seven, did his best imitation of a wail. Ooooooooo. Oooooooo. Over and over. Before long the boat had drifted to within about 100 feet of the loons, who then submerged and departed. To this day Tucker believes he called those loons in. 

No matter. Every spring after ice-out I await the first loon call drifting in through an open window. And when it comes I want to say, “Thank you for the music.” 

Ted Rulseh, a writer, author and advocate for lake protection, lives on Birch Lake in Oneida County. Visit him and his blog at https://thelakeguy.net.