Night of 1,000 Loons

BY ALEXIS RAYMOND

Summer of 2001

Haunting, highpitched howls from loons echoed across the glass-still Watchic Lake of my childhood. Hot mornings were interrupted by boat engines, and cannonballs lled the a ernoons.

e dock was my lily pad; my eight-yearold body was never there for long. But one day I sat still, watching my memere wade into the water, descending the rough rock steps my great-pepere made when he built the camp 50 years ago.

A mother loon cried for her loonlet, still covered in its cloud-like downy feathers. Her baby was small enough to t inside Pépere’s co ee mug. As it swam up to Mémere, I could see that a clam was pinching the bird’s tiny beak closed. With its mother looking on, Mémere picked up the loonlet and removed the clam. e lady loon howled loudly as they returned to the middle of the lake. “She’s thanking you,” my mom said from the dock steps.

Summer of 2018

Distressed wings ap against the black mesh netting of my bird trap. My feet press rmly into the dew-covered grass with a squish between my toes as I run alongside the rising tide of Casco Bay. My captive is black, white, and red with a beak resembling a toothpick that could pierce your eye like an olive in a martini glass. “A Pileated Woodpecker!”

My visiting ornithology professor from St. Joe’s College rushes from behind me. He’s usually lying in the bright orange hammock that hangs inside the back of his white van. He smiles. “It’s like I’m holding a dinosaur.” e bird is a pterodactyl in his hands. His eyes look as if they’ll leap out while he delicately opens the woodpecker’s wings to reveal the details. Our jittering is fueled by excitement and the cheap instant co ee budgeted into a summer of working for free. Together we’ve tagged just under 50 loons this month. We’ve dissected hundreds of ticks and tested their blood. I’m conducting an experiment I dra ed on the decreasing population of loons in correlation with the growing population of ticks on the East Coast.

A new captive loon that we’re observing kicks and rips the sopping wet pages of my notebook.

“Say goodbye to that data.” My professor pulls out his Rite in the Rain notebook.

I make a mental note to order one.

My well-loved blue 1999 Honda CR-V is a quarter mile from the marsh line. A traditional green L.L. Bean camping stove, a blanket that was once my mother’s, a thermos, stacks of books, and my 25-pound black-and-white cat, Castiel, are among the treasures inside.

I sit with my binoculars and watch the traps through the cattails while picking at the rust eating away at the blue paint above my back le tire. e cattails will soon start to split at the top, and then slowly their seeds will oat out, lling the sky.

I quickly scroll through my phone. “Twenty People Killed in El Paso Shooting” blinks across my screen. I wonder how many more I’ll read about before my twenty- h birthday next month. Strings of feathers hanging in my CR-V are like birthday party streamers. I watch the wind blow the black feathers green, lling my space with iridescence. n