The First Loon

Loons!  Loons dead ahead. Keep your light on the loon. The boat creeps up on the blinded adult loon paddling back and forth in the turbid dark waters of the submerging delta.  Steadily ahead Darwin at the ready with a 12 foot giant fish net big enough to hold the largest loon. Closer, the loon is almost frantic, moving trapped in this blinding million watt light being held over the bow of our 24 foot open cockpit research boat. Deftly maneuvering at the zig zagging loon with the deep red eyes white and black z patterned neck is impossible to corral.  Water is shallow in the lee of this spartina island. Now seven feet away, Darwin swings the giant dip net downward on top of the loon. A miss. It escapes, dives down to escape but hits bottom and quickly pops up alongside the boat. Darwin backhands the long cumbersome dip net and snags the loon and swoops the dripping loon into the boat and I grab the open end of the dip net with the ensnared loon looking at me in the bottom of the net. I am sure this male adult loon was thinking that I was just sleeping for the night in the wave free lee of this island all by myself just like I like it now I am the hands of aliens.