Call of the Loon

You hear him before you see him. That lonely, echoing call across the water—the one that sounds like the lake itself is speaking.

The Common Loon of Boundary Waters, the Northwoods, the lakes up north where summer never lasts long enough.

Loons mate for life. Year after year, the same pair returns to the same water. There’s something in that kind of faithfulness that doesn’t need to be explained. You either know it or you don’t.