“Actually, I didn't even know what a loon was until I moved to Montana,” she said.
This summer, the University of Montana senior is getting intimately acquainted with the uncommon waterfowl in her role as the loon ranger for the Swan and Blackfoot valleys.
Alhadeff oversees the monitoring of loons across a dozen lakes as part of a partnership between Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the U.S. Forest Service and the nonprofit Montana Loon Society.
“They're just beautiful birds,” said Alhadeff, 23, a Georgia native who came to UM to study wildlife biology. “The more I learn about them, the more I'm fascinated.”
Despite decades of research, scientists know relatively little about loons compared to other major wildlife species.
“There are a lot of assumptions about loons without empirical evidence,” said Scott Tomson, a wildlife biologist for the Lolo National Forest.
Five species of loons live in western North America, including the common loon that migrates across much of Montana.
Prompted by concern about DDT's impact on waterfowl in the 1970s, Montana researchers and volunteers started monitoring loons and helped to define nesting, migration, range and other information for a statewide database, according to the Montana Loon Society.
The research also showed that human disturbance during the nesting season has a detrimental effect on breeding loons.
Breeding loons are found primarily in northwestern Montana west of the Continental Divide and north of Missoula. Among the highest concentrations of nesting loons are in the Clearwater drainage.
Montana wildlife managers - as well as citizen-scientists - monitor and protect the loon population, while scientists conduct research into nesting, migration routes, health, reproduction, chick mortality and other factors.
Common loons, large black and white diving birds, migrate in the spring from the Pacific Coast to their summer nesting range on freshwater lakes before returning to the coast in the fall.
Classified as a species of concern in Montana, common loons nest from Missoula to Glacier National Park, where they feed primarily on small fish.
An estimated 200 loons nest in Montana each summer, the largest population in the United States, and produce an average of 45 chicks each summer.
Montana's loon population includes about 65 nesting pairs, including a dozen that lay their eggs in the Swan and Blackfoot valleys, where data collected over the past decade indicate the population has remained stable despite fluctuations from year to year.
But increased recreational use by motor boats, Jet Skis and other motorized watercraft and a boom in residential development along lakefronts has wildlife managers worried about the loons' ability to find suitable nesting habitat.
Loons will leave their nest if watercraft come within 150 yards and will abandon the nest if they are repeatedly disturbed. A pair might build another nest, but less than 50 percent of nesting pairs successfully hatch and raise one to two chicks a year.
“It's a lot of balancing, giving people the opportunity to see and hear loons, but at the same time making sure that people don't have negative impacts on these birds,” Tomson said.
Government agencies and nonprofit groups formed a Common Loon Working Group about a decade ago to look for ways to protect the sensitive species in the Swan and Blackfoot valleys.
Only one loon chick was documented in the Clearwater drainage last year, but wildlife managers aren't sure whether the drop was a natural fluctuation in population or whether human disturbance was a factor.
This year, six chicks have been documented in the Clearwater drainage and two more have been found in the Blackfoot drainage. Some lakes have been abandoned by nesting loons, but others have been colonized.
Loons, which mate for life, build their nests in marshy areas at the water's edge and claim entire lakes as their territory.
They aggressively defend their nests and chicks against natural predators, but they're no match for a speeding boat, an unleashed dog and other human-caused disturbances, officials said.
Alhadeff, who is an FWP intern, was hired to document the loon population, their location, nesting behavior, chick mortality and other factors.
She also does public outreach, talking to boaters, anglers and other recreationists, handing out brochures and posting warning signs on the land and on buoys. The signs warn people to stay away during the loons' nesting, incubation and early rearing period from early May to early July.
Most people respect the signs, but some anglers, photographers and others ignore them or claim they didn't see the distinctive yellow signs, she said.
“I didn't have a lifelong fascination with loons, but I'm learning a ton,” said Alhadeff, who also collects eggshell fragments, egg membranes and dead chicks for scientists studying loons.
Gavia immer, the scientific name for the common loon, is popular in western Montana, where birders turn out for loon population counts, loon festivals and loon meetings and have loon napkins, figurines and other bric-a-brac in their homes.
Alhadeff doesn't consider herself a true “looney” - the nickname for the most dedicated of loon enthusiasts - but she's become fascinated by the iconic birds, whose grace underwater contrasts with their clumsiness on land, a condition resulting from the location of their legs toward the back of their bodies.
She works long hours, driving backcountry roads in a pickup packed with equipment. She watches the birds through a powerful telescope, drops cinderblock-anchored loon signs into the water and charts data in her notebooks.
She thinks humans and loons - and other sensitive wildlife such as grizzly bears - can co-exist in the Swan and Blackfoot valleys.
“People just have to be educated,” she said. “When I talk to most people about loon nesting, they say, ‘Oh, I didn't realize that,' and they want to know more.”
Like many others captivated by the cry of the loon since ancient times, Alhadeff recalled the first time she heard the bird's distinctive repertoire of cries.
“It gave me goosebumps,” she said. “It really did.”
At Clearwater Lake on Thursday, Alhadeff checked on the last nesting pair of loons in the Clearwater and Blackfoot drainages that still had an unhatched egg.
She scanned the far shore with binoculars, then her telescope. She spotted their nest in the bright green marshes.
Bobbing low in the water nearby, one adult loon appeared, then the other, their black and white plumage shining in the sun.
Then a chick popped up, all dark and downy, alternating floating in the frigid water and riding on the back of its parents.
For a moment, Alhadeff thought there might be two chicks, but there was just one. Still, she was excited.
“Look at that,” she said, smiling. “Awesome.”
Call of the wild
More information on the common loon and Montana's loon conservation efforts is available at www.montanaloons.org.
Reach reporter John Cramer at (406) 523-5259 or john.cramer@missoulian.com.
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