I stood there on the beach, looking at the loon that was in obvious distress, hobbled and contorted by monofilament netting wrapped around its body. I was miles from the mainland. What should I do? What could I do?
This is part 2 of a 2-part story. Click here for part 1.
I took out of my knapsack my knife and a pair of thick leather gloves, slipped them on, circled down below the loon again, then walked up slowly toward it, speaking gently and extending my hands. When I got within a few feet it suddenly jabbed out at me again, pecking my hands and my legs, but the entangled netting restricted its range.
Then it began uttering the loon distress, or warning cry, those short little leaping laughs that I associate so much with their northern breeding lakes. Here it seemed foreign and wrong. I opened the small blade of my pocket knife, quickly circled behind the bird, knelt down beside it, grabbed the scissoring beak with my left hand, and held it shut. Immediately the loon began trying to row away from me with its wings. I twisted its neck around so that I could hold its head down with the same hand as I held its beak, leaving my knife hand free.
It worked. The bird subsided, glaring at me with one round red eye. A rat's nest of thin, light-green monofilament was wrapped around its body, one wing, and its throat. I began cutting the netting as carefully as I could.
The binding strands seemed endless, but finally I managed to cut all the visible strands away and to tug the crinkled lines out of the loon's mouth. I released the bird and stood back, expecting it to head immediately for the water. To my surprise and discomfort, it turned and, extending its wings, charged at me with glowing eyes and darting beak. I stumbled backwards, non-plussed. I had, of course, been thinking of myself as its savior; but obviously, and not unjustly, the loon regarded me as a clear representative of the species that had inflicted this outrage and threat upon its person.
But its clumsiness on land protected me. After several feints that fell short of their mark, it turned again and made a series of awkward wind-and-leg hops down to the water's edge, where it stopped. After a half-minute or so, it made a few more clumsy hops seaward, like some large, avian rabbit, then stopped once more.
But now I had no doubts. I knew that the loon would shortly move again, down to the water, that it would go in, and be all right. I knew it with a surging confidence, with the calm assurance of a basketball player who knows, even before the nubbled surface of the ball leaves his fingertips, that the arc has already been drawn and that he has shot nothing but net. I was, I realized, pumped.
And sure enough, this time the loon hopped down to the edge of the low, curling waves, looked out for a few seconds, waddled into the gentle swash, and then, as soon as it felt its native medium gently lift it, shot underwater, its powerful pinkish feet pulsing it along. It remained submerged for over a minute, then, nearly a hundred yards out, the loon broke water, cried out, and immediately dove again. I echoed its triumph, and set off again down the firm beach, into the face of the low winter sun, flushed with importance, not looking back.
