Family Time with Red-throated Loons

BirdNote^®
Family Time with Red-throated Loons
Written by Ariana Remmel

This is BirdNote.

         [Red-throated Loon]

Millions of birds begin their lives in the Arctic wetlands of northern Alaska. Environment reporter and author Lynda Mapes visited a few of them on a small pond near Teshekpuk Lake.

Lynda Mapes: And there was a family of Red-throated Loons right in the center of the pond. So the mother, the father, and two very fluffy chicks.

         [Red-throated Loon chick]

She watched the mother tend her chicks as their father flew off.

Lynda Mapes: And eventually, there's this great commotion, this great flurry, and he arrives with this perfect little silvery fish in his mouth. And he comes up to one of the chicks and he passes it to the chick. And the chick drops it! [laughs] Drops it in the water!

Was it an accident? A fishing lesson? Lynda couldn’t say. But she was struck by her own immense privilege…

Lynda Mapes: …of sharing their family time with them as these beings doing the things that we all need to do: to eat, to take care of one another, to persist into the next generation.

         [Red-throated Loons]

But now, fossil fuel development in the Teshekpuk wetlands is encroaching on their home.

Lynda Mapes: It means disturbance, it means danger. They don't have another place they can go to like this. This is their place. They will come back here next year looking for the very same nest sites. What will they come back to?

         [Red-throated Loon]

Learn more about what you can do to protect America’s Arctic when you visit our website, BirdNote.org. I’m Ariana Remmel.

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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Red-throated Loons recorded by Gerrit Vyn. BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2026 BirdNote February 2026   Narrator: Ariana Remmel

ID# MapesL-01-2026-02-06    MapesL-01