Since we had four hours from the time we checked into our room until high tide when the shorebirds would arrive, we decided to walk the marina. Thinking that the loons who overwinter here would be gone, we hoped to see the Brown Pelicans who have just recently arrived. I’ll have to admit that I was surprised to see a Common Loon resting up on the shore.
Common Loons are a favorite bird and I’ve seen many of them over the years, but I’ve only seen one on shore before. When Leslie saw it, she thought it must have a broken leg, but their legs are set so far back on their body that they are great for swimming but pretty useless for walking.
I’ll have to admit that my first impression was that the bird must be sick, but I wasn’t sure that was true when we returned about a half hour later and the loon was calmly swimming around.
It appeared downright rambunctious, turning over on its back, diving, and rising up out of the water.
I would have been convinced that it was just resting on the shore earlier if it hadn’t started climbing onto shore as we were leaving the marina.
I looked up this behavior online, but there didn’t seem to be any consensus on whether this was a sign of illness or just an attempt to rest.
In retrospect, I should probably have notified local authorities that the bird looked like it was in trouble. Unfortunately, the article that suggests you should notify authorities didn’t tell you who to notify.
If I had thought to use ChatGPT, though, I would have had the needed information immediately because they just provided me with three different ways to notify authorities and get help for injured birds in Washington.