SENEY, MI – A springtime shakeup among the serene pools and wetlands at an Upper Peninsula wildlife refuge sent a famous pair of loons packing – and into a messy breakup.
After 25 years together on F Pool at Seney National Wildlife Refuge, scientists report common loons known as ABJ and Fe were most likely ousted this spring from their longtime home by a neighboring upstart couple. The world’s oldest common loon pair fled to different places within the refuge to recover from their undoing.
Related: World’s oldest loon couple returns to Michigan’s Seney Wildlife Refuge
Now Fe – the ousted female and the single oldest observed loon – has been spotted scoping out possible new nesting digs with an unidentified male loon. She has seemingly moved on after the big breakup, while her former longtime partner ABJ was this week confirmed swimming all alone but uninjured on another nearby refuge pool.
Officials said a younger pair of loons from a neighboring pool apparently ejected the famous and beloved bird couple and already set up a nest in their newfound territory as of this week.
In May 2022, the new F Pool loon pair, having evicted ABJ and Fe from the territory, attends to their new nest upon a small hummock. The male adjusts the position of the egg before settling onto it for a shift of incubation while the female preens her feathers nearby.
Researchers are still trying to sort out what drama ensued at the 95,000-acre refuge’s watery loon paradise and how Seney’s famous loon couple got the boot. It’s a shocking turn of events for the famed pair of common loons which the National Audubon Society dubbed the refuge’s resident power couple.
“Loons don’t mate for life. And even though ABJ and Fe were spectacular in the longevity or their devotion, what have you, the pattern for the species is that there is a fair amount of turnover,” said Damon McCormick, co-director of nonprofit Common Coast Research & Conservation.
ABJ and Fe this spring fled their longtime summertime home on F Pool, but they did not leave the national land and water refuge altogether. ABJ was spotted on adjacent H Pool, while Fe was confirmed on nearby I Pool.
“What was missed was some kind of altercation where either these new birds came in alone, or more likely as a pair and evicted ABJ and Fe. And for reasons unknown they ended up on separate pools rather than basically fleeing together,” McCormick said.
“The general idea is that when a loon loses its territory, what’s common is for it to end up very close to where it used to live.”
Before the pandemic, he said researchers closely watched the man-made pools for loon activities at the federal refuge in Seney. In more recent years, scientists have more heavily relied on observations from visitors and snapshots from volunteers and others.
This spring’s observations came from refuge employees, volunteers, visitors, and news reporters. The first proof of a shakeup came May 17 when MLive journalists visited the refuge for a tour.
“If we could grab a picture or a sighting of their tags that would be fantastic,” said Jen Wycoff, from the refuge’s visitor services as she guided the reporters through the refuge’s pools.
“Often, they will put their legs up in the air and shake them like this. And then you can see them pretty well.”
Photographs from MLive photojournalist Cory Morse and environment reporter Garret Ellison from that morning confirmed the female loon on F Pool was a bird that had in previous years nested on neighboring I Pool.
That indicated to researchers there was a change afoot among the pairings at the refuge; ABJ and Fe weren’t at their usual spot and somebody else was at home.
“Her backstory is much shorter. We caught her in 2018 in I Pool and at the time she actually had an eye injury,” McCormick said. “It could have been an eagle attack. It could have been something else but basically, she had an open wound over her eye. And like, loose flesh was dangling down over her eye.”
That ocular distraction caused her to pay dangerously less attention to her chick, so McCormick said they intervened. Researchers netted her, performed field surgery on her wound, leg-banded her, and released her. He said the next day she was observed better caring for her offspring.
That was four years ago. Things have changed since then.
“Saving her life may have led to her evicting ABJ and Fe, so we may have caused the breakup of those loons by trying to save another,” McCormick said.
Other factors are also at play.
ABJ and Fe are famously productive common loons, hatching 32 chicks in their 25 years together, with 29 successfully fledged from the refuge – a survivorship rate 10 percent higher than the rest of the Seney loon population.
Many of ABJ and Fe’s offspring are now also breeding, while McCormick said it is thought some perished in avian botulism outbreaks in the Great Lakes through the years.
However, in the last several years ABJ and Fe’s success rate diminished. They didn’t have any chicks during two of the last three years, their last chick hatching in 2020.
In July 2020, a week-old chick rides on Fe's back while ABJ displays the colored plastic leg bands that allow for the identification and long-term monitoring of individual loons.
McCormick said that breeding pattern change may have weakened the strength of the loon pair’s bond, but it remains unknown exactly what happened with the uncoupling.
The longtime avian researcher said he first started writing about the now-35-year-old male loon ABJ because of the bird’s endearing behavior. The longevity and success of ABJ and Fe together built up over the decades.
“He was such a good dad and never left his chicks. You know, in the autumn he was almost always the last one to leave. So, there were behavioral characteristics that he had, and to some extent he was actually more of a rock star parent.”
Fe was first banded in 1990 when she was already a successful mother. She went on to hatch seven and fledge four additional chicks between then and 1996 when she was paired to another male, prior to ABJ.
Fe is the most productive common loon ever documented with at least 39 hatched and 34 fledged chicks, McCormick said.
Researchers intend to in coming weeks watch the loon activity at the refuge to determine which male Fe seems to now be preparing to nest with on I Pool, as well as whether ABJ finds a new partner on H Pool.
Yet all may not be lost for a possible reunion of the long-running loon lovers – simply not this year.
“They have split up after 25 years and there’s a chance to reunite because that’s happened in the past,” McCormick said. “It’s unlikely at this point that it would be this season, but we’ve had cases both in the distant past and this year where we’ve seen birds reunite after being paired with other birds.”
MLive Environment Reporter Garret Ellison and Photojournalist Cory Morse contributed to this article.
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