By now we should be seeing them on Lake Hartwell, but nary a sighting.
Resident pair left last month. Maybe they’re taking the scenic route?
I haven’t seen many around here lately either. You do mean these, right? 
@Sparky961 said:
I haven’t seen many around here lately either. You do mean these, right?
Interesting but I don’t think it has a cool call .
“The Globe? It ain’t warmin’!”
“The climate, she change!”
For those zoned intemperate
hot collars arrange,
with all things mercurial
to some boiling range,
and yet here we all stand
feeling chill of the strange,
for geese once Canadian
are year-round Pan-american,
and the don of big walls
can’t turn back a fierce caravan,
where the jaguars of Ilopango
with Californian cougars now pair again,
last Stant lobos of icy Cobo
take knee as if harming Kerrigan,
And now that Florence and Michael
have bluster-plucked neath your moon,
so live-to-dead oak and nude palmetto
are in state swept up by big broom.
then mid-December brings frost fall
of a blanketing gloom,
Well, sir, a Dixie-bound snowbird
need be more daft than a loon!
I’m not sure how common the local knowledge is so just in case my joke was lost on some, we call the Canadian one dollar coin a “looney” because of the image of the loon stamped on it’s face.
In the loon world everything sewmed late this year
Juvies left a month late
However our loons dont go south
Being so fat they go 15 miles to the ocean
Theres loonies and theres twoonies
@Sparky961 said:
I’m not sure how common the local knowledge is so just in case my joke was lost on some, we call the Canadian one dollar coin a “looney” because of the image of the loon stamped on it’s face.
I knew that because sometimes your loonies cross the border! 
Think I have one here; it’s a very pretty coin.
I like the colors of Canadian bills!
Ours are so
Boring
@Rookie said:
I knew that because sometimes your loonies cross the border!
Referring to the people, no doubt 
@kayamedic said:
I like the colors of Canadian bills!
Ours are so
Boring
So true. It’s very hard to mistakenly give the wrong bill. Grouping for counting is simple. We don’t even need to care who’s head is on the bill.
Do you guys have plastic money yet, or still paper? It’s been a while since I handled US currency.
Sorry for the thread hijack… Got carried away, feeling a bit looney. 
@Sparky961 said:
@kayamedic said:
I like the colors of Canadian bills!
Ours are so
BoringSo true. It’s very hard to mistakenly give the wrong bill. Grouping for counting is simple. We don’t even need to care who’s head is on the bill.
Do you guys have plastic money yet, or still paper? It’s been a while since I handled US currency.
Sorry for the thread hijack… Got carried away, feeling a bit looney.
Come on! We are the monetary retards. Last to have chips. Card readers tableside are unheard of. The CC still makes a mystery trip for two or three minutes before reappearing at the table… need I say more?
@kayamedic said:
Come on! We are the monetary retards. Last to have chips. Card readers tableside are unheard of. The CC still makes a mystery trip for two or three minutes before reappearing at the table… need I say more?
You’re just trying to scare me off so I stay on my side of the border. No country could be that far behind.
Hey, Applebees has card readers at the table. You just keep poking at it hoping to find the mystery spot that switches away from advertising games to being able to pay your bill. The first time I saw one I had no idea that it was how you paid your bill. It just seemed to be a way to extract more $$$ from families trying to keep the brood from chasing everyone else out. I had to have a waitress guide this poor uncultured elder.
You don’t have any women on your money (at least not in the pictures from Wikipedia). The Queen excluded, Canada has started to put more women’s faces on bills.
Well, we have had a few Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea dollar coins. I think that I’ve seen one or two Susans but I’m not sure that I’ve seen a Sacagawea. I suspect that we have been happier with the folding stuff & not so much of a fan of chunks of metal in our pockets.
On the other hand all the kool kids use plastic now … so I’m told.
@Sparky961 said:
You don’t have any women on your money (at least not in the pictures from Wikipedia). The Queen excluded, Canada has started to put more women’s faces on bills.
We’ve had the Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea dollar coins, Lady Liberty has been on a number of coins, and Martha Washington and Pocahontas were on bills…in the 1800s.
U.S. Mint must be run by misogynists. 
The bird I’m fixated on is the Red-headed Woodpecker. Their numbers just keep dropping. I’m going on a quest to spot some.
Back to the loons… I know someone who was regularly involved in loon counts for their job. They also saw the data from the ones being tracked. It turns out that loons are truly variable. There is not as clear a pattern with then as with many other birds except for when they tend to return someplace familiar to nest. The rest of the year they are true wanderers. They had one tracked that stayed within a couple of miles for five weeks, then took off one day and moved 50 miles. The after a couple of weeks went back the other way again 20 in a single day. There was no clear seasonal imperative for any of these moves.
They also bite and scratch like crazy when someone is trying to get them into a boat to be tagged.
Some of our loons are tracked and they have found that because we are so close to the ocean they do not go far… Inland lake loons have a choice… Atlantic or Gulf? But ours seem to be more set in their ways… Maine Audubon does presentations from time to time and i learned that because our loons are so close to good wintering grounds they have to fly just once. And they are 30 percent bigger than their counterparts elsewhere.
They don’t bite as they don’t have teeth but they can become aggressive if you wander too close at the wrong time. And at some times they are very tolerant of human activity… We had six babies hatch here from three pair… One baby was found dead of unknown causes ( not visibly hurt). We also have eagles and from time to time they do have egg or baby snacks to feed their young,
This summer I had a family swim up to my canoe… But once when I was looking up the side creek by our house which has lots of twists and turns and is narrow a loon came at me and pecked my boat hard with its very sharp bill
If any of you are fishermen please please no lead sinkers and I know its extra work if you get a snagged line but we on our lake spend too much time disentangling cut and snarled line before the loons get caught in it.