Famous loon hurt in battle after getting back with his old lover, Michigan group says

The breakup between ABJ and Fe — the world’s oldest common loons — is quite messy.

It was just last year that the once inseparable duo divorced after a struggle to produce more children, McClatchy News reported at the time.

They eventually relocated to different homes in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — then Fe was caught with another male while ABJ returned to the pool of bachelors looking for a new lady loon, conservation experts said.

“Given Fe’s current status … in the shorter term their remarkable run is very likely over,” Damon McCormick of Common Coast Research & Conservation said in May 2022.

But sometimes two ex-lovers find their way back to each other.

That was the case for ABJ and Fe, who were spotted together in early April, according to an article written by McCormick and shared by the Seney National Wildlife Refuge.

The two loons were seen in the F Pool — their old territory at the refuge — “manifesting normal pair behavior,” McCormick wrote. This had conservation officials wondering if the water birds had truly reunited.

ABJ and Fe do have a long history, after all. They’re considered “the most successful pair in terms of lifetime productivity, with 32 hatched chicks during their 25-year partnership at Seney.”

But by the next day, ABJ was gone.

In his place? An unbanded male who is likely Fe’s mate from 2022. Fe and the unnamed male fledged one chick during the nesting season.

“Having missed the fireworks,” conservation officials weren’t quite sure what happened to ABJ.

That was until about a week later, when ABJ was once again spotted at his bachelor pad.

The 35-year-old loon was seen with a broken bill, photos show. More specifically, his upper mandible is broken.

It’s likely ABJ was injured during a battle, McCormick said in a post shared on April 30.

“When two male loons fight, they will often rise out of the water and, with powerfully flapping wings approximating punches to the opponent’s body, grab the adversary’s neck with their bill and try to violently flip him and thereafter hold him in that capsized position – an attempted drowning,” McCormick wrote. “The most plausible explanation for ABJ’s missing mandible is breakage from the sheer torque of this flipping maneuver.”

This type of injury has been documented in three different males at Seney National Wildlife Refuge, according to the post. In each case, the wounded males forfeited their territory and their mates.

The loons were still able to eat, and by the next spring they were seen with “the appendage fully, if imperfectly, regrown,” McCormick said.

But this doesn’t mean ABJ will heal without issues.

“That three prior Seney males survived a broken mandible is no guarantee that ABJ will also be able to adapt to foraging for fish and crayfish with compromised tackle,” McCormick said. “We hope this old loon can learn this new trick.”

And while not as important as the need to eat, ABJ will likely have issues in the love department, too.

Because a loon’s bill is used as a weapon and a tool to eat, loons pay attention to bills when courting, officials said.

It’s likely other loons will equate ABJ’s injury with “very low reproductive fitness,” meaning he is expected to stay single this year.

This story was originally published May 2, 2023 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Famous loon hurt in battle after getting back with his old lover, Michigan group says."