![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/common-loon-5227c-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"common-loon-5227c-ron-dudley\\"")
1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nBut yesterday morning we found this one on the Bear River instead of a reservoir so at first ‘he’ was close enough for some acceptable documentary photos. I got a fair number of shots of him but he was spooky so he kept diving or swimming away and few of my other photos were as detailed as this one.<\/p>\n
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Back in the 80’s my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I embarked on what we considered to be the trip of a lifetime – a leisurely camping trip all the way to Alaska and back. Our intention was to drive to Prince Rupert in northwest British Columbia and take the ferry from there to Alaska where we’d explore as much of that spectacular state as time allowed before driving home via the Alcan Highway. In those pre-internet days I spent months researching the trip and some of the literature they sent me said I wouldn’t need reservations for the ferry at Prince Rupert.<\/p>\n
So you can imagine our extreme disappointment (understatement) when we arrived in Prince Rupert and discovered that reservations for the ferry actually were required<\/em> if you had a vehicle. By that time we didn’t have time to backtrack and drive all the way back to the road that would take us to Alaska so we tucked our tails between our legs and headed east to find some kind of out of the way lake where we could camp for a week or ten days and lick our wounds.<\/p>\n We chose the Babine Lake\/Pinkut Lake area which turned disaster into triumph. It was wild country and we nearly always had pristine Pinkut Lake to ourselves. Mornings and evenings on the lake in particular were truly magical and one of the many things that made it so was the calls of the numerous loons on the lake. Their haunting tremolos, yodels and wails wafting across the still water would make my hair stand on end (I had hair back in those days). The calls of the loons made our time on the lake truly unforgettable. I’m guessing that loons don’t typically call during migration because I’ve never heard them here in Utah.<\/p>\n I’ll never, ever forget that trip and the loons are a big reason why. I’m incredibly jealous of some of my readers who often hear loons and see them in breeding plumage.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Loons have a special place in my heart but until today I’ve never posted a photo of one to Feathered Photography.<\/p>\n