|
This
oil painting entitled A Favoured Spot is a scene on Mirond Lake
Saskatchewan. This painting depicts Saskatchewan’s Precambrian Sheld which
is lovely to look at (a photographers delight) and a pleasure to experience.
The waters of Mirond Lake are clean, clear and cold. It is places such as
this that the Common Loon choose to make their home.
The
Loon family in this painting include the female carrying her chick on her
back and the male in a common pose in the foreground. This pose is used by
the male loon to “show off” (also called posturing) to the female and is
portrayed by the female as well during the mateing season.
The
Common Loon family usually has one or two chicks. Both parent birds will
carry the chick or chicks both to warm them and also to protect the chicks
from predation from fish such as the Northern Pike. The parent bird will
cuddle the chick/s with their wings on their back and dive underwater when
necessary with the chick/s clinging tightly to the underfeathers of the
parent bird.
The
Common Loon, which is anything but common, can be traced back at least sixty
million years. They are thought to be the most ancient of Canadian birds.
This in no sense means that the loon is a simple organism. It is one of the
world’s more sophisticated animals superbly adapted to life in the water.
 Designed
as a fish-catching machine, it has a projectile-shaped body, strong
propulsive feet mounted well to the rear, remarkable vision, and a
javelin-like bill, all of which add up to awesome efficiency. It can stay
submerged for three minutes or more and can dive to depths of two hundred
feet. Elaborate physiological processes conserve oxygen. Also it can alter
its specific gravity at will, sinking into the water like a submarine until
only its head is showing. This is possible because it has relatively solid
bones for a bird and it is able to press air from its lungs, plumage, and
elsewhere to give it the desired level of buoyancy.
In
its specialization it has had to sacrifice mobility on land. Its legs are
set so far back on its body that the bird can scarcely move and is forced to
hump itself along, seal-like, on its breast and belly or to use its wings
and bill as props when moving on land.
The
result is evident when the heavy, goose-size (28-36 inches) bird takes off.
It has to taxi quite a distance to become airborne and once aloft must beat
its wings very rapidly to maintain altitude. It cannot take off at all from
land and therefore nests very close to shore.
The
voice of the Common Loon is an unforgettable spine-tingling feature of the
northern forest especially after nightfall when the air is still. It has
become a signature sound of the north, and one awaited by visitors and
residence alike.
Where
they can find seclusion from the increasingly ubiquitous out-board motorboat
(bane of the lake country and its wildlife) loons breed throughout the
northern part of the northern hemisphere. There are four species all of
which can be found in Canada.
It
is the hope of the artist that everyone enjoying the north will do there
part in helping to preserve this magnificent bird and it’s habitat for it
is as we all are, creatures of God.
Watch
for future paintings of the other members of the loon family!
|
