A very interesting observation I thought would be worth sharing:
-- Today my sister was telling me about birds that she had observed at Fourth Debsconeag Lake near Millinocket in previous years, and happened to mention seeing some loons during late July-early August 2019 that were feeding a single small chick, perhaps a week old. She said that she had been surprised to see not two but THREE adult-plumaged loons feeding/interacting with the chick and each other. Below are a few details that my sister could recall:
1) The chick was first observed swimming, then climbed onto the back of one adult.
2) At least two, and possibly the third adult were observed actually feeding the chick
3) All three adults were seen together at the same time, interacting calmly and not showing any signs of aggressiveness towards each other
I started researching this online, and could only find one source, Cornell Lab's Birds of the World, that had any information about this. It was one short paragraph, reading
"Very rare. Three cases in Wisconsin (1) and Michigan (2) where three adults (2 males and 1 female) cared for chicks (<6 weeks). In each case, care of chicks by the males appeared to be divided by night vs. day (DCE)"
In that case, this would be a fourth recorded case, and first where all three birds took care of the chick at the same time. Would this be an example of very rare cooperative breeding? Or is this a case where a now fully mature offspring of a pair from a previous year was accepted into a breeding territory another year by its parents? I highly doubt a pair with a young chick would join a pre-migratory social group.
If anyone here knows anything about this, I would love to learn more.
Weston Barker
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