Lost loon rehabilitated, released at MTU

By Dennis Walikainen

HOUGHTON -- On a chilly morning, last Wednesday, Apr. 23, a group of Michigan Tech students, faculty and staff gathered to celebrate a (somewhat late) sign of spring. A loon had been rescued from a puddle, kept overnight and was ready to be released by local concerned birders.

The loon was calling in the box on the car ride to campus. (Photo courtesy Michigan Technological University)

An adult male loon was released, after an overnight recovery, by civil and environmental engineering graduate student Erin Satchell, his wife, Michelle, and young son, Benjamin. The loon had mistaken some wet pavement for open water and had badly scraped his feet in a landing attempt. Michelle works for a veterinarian's office and helped rehab the bird.

The Satchell family releases the rehabilitated loon on Wednesday, Apr. 23, in the Portage, near the MTU campus. Pictured, left to right, are Benjamin, Michelle and Erin. (Photo courtesy Michigan Technological University)

He was doing fine Wednesday morning and called out immediately after hitting the water.

"He's happy," said one of the observers, watching the loon dive under the water and surface a couple of times.

He stretched his wings and shook his head during his slow cruise out toward the middle of the Portage.

Landing in the water, the loon spreads his wings and calls. (Photo courtesy Michigan Technological University)

Before his release, the Satchells also brought the loon to their other children's kindergarten and second-grade classes in Calumet.

An MTU biology class in freshwater biodiversity was present at the release, as were members of a birders’ email listserv, where word of the injured loon had spread.

At last report, the loon was drifting happily out in the Keweenaw Waterway, building up strength to finish that flight north.

Editor's Note: This article appeared recently on Tech Today and is reprinted here with permission. Author Dennis Walikainen is senior editor for Michigan Technological University Marketing and Communications and a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric and Technical Communications.