[Riverwild]

Sooo...today we have been working on all those last minute things that need to be done before the snow REALLY starts coming down. It's been snowing all day, just a fine mist of snow, not really accumulating, but it's freezing cold and blowing hard.

I took a break to warm up after stacking some wood, and I was folding some laundry and the old man came in and told me to get my coat and boots back on (picture me whining here)

I went back out, coat, boots, hat, gloves...and he told me to grab the binoculars. He pointed out something stuck downstream of our house on the ice. I got the binocs sighted and checked out the thing on the ice.

It was a young loon. It had either been blown off course while flying and tried to land and hit the ice or had been frozen in while swimming down the shallow end of the lake. Even worse, there was a young eagle flying above it, getting lower and lower, checking it out, more than likely thinking dinnertime!

Soooo...(picture me swearing here), we put the boat back in the water, grabbed lifejackets and a paddle, and headed down to see if we could help it. It was close to the edge of the ice, but frozen in it! So we used a paddle to chip at the ice until we could get the ice it was in loose. We got it loose and the loon and the ice it was still stuck in floated into open water. We stayed with it to make sure that the ice was melting and that it could stay upright and then backed off. It had one foot loose and kept heading back to the ice, and we kept turning it out to open water.

It finally got the other foot free and headed out to the open lake away from the ice. Last I saw it was slowly making it's way up the lake and preening it's feathers and flapping it's wings, maybe to get the rest of the ice off?

Back to shore, pull boat out of water AGAIN, put away life jackets and paddles and head around the house to watch and make sure the little dummy didn't try to beach again.

It's so sad to see a young loon that doesn't get out in time. Sometimes they are born late and when winter comes they still don't know how to fly, but the parents stick with them until the very last minute that they can. These birds need a LONG stretch of open water to take off. We don't know why this one was still here, was alone, was frozen in ice when there was open water right near it. We did what we could. I hope he/she makes it. At least it has a fighting chance out of the ice, but I don't think it will be many more days before it ices in completely here.