This special edition of the award-winning Just Loons features a new introduction by David Evers, PhD, a leading researcher of loons, and an interpretive bound-in CD of the haunting calls for which loons are so admired and beloved. The audio CD runs approximately 25 minutes and contains various calls that are referenced on the CD jacket. Featuring stunning photography and insightful natural history text, Just Loons, with its new and extraordinary audio component, remains the ultimate guide to finding, watching, and understanding loons.

A gorgeously illustrated, lyrical non-fiction picture book about loons. It’s summertime, and as darkness falls there is a haunting sound from the lake — Ooh-hoo-oo, ooh-hoo-oo. It is a loon calling to its family across the water. This lyrical story follows the life cycle of two loon chicks. We see them breaking out of their eggshells, then learning to swim, find food and avoid predators such as snapping turtles and big bass fish. After they learn to fly, they migrate to the ocean. And when their striking black-and-white feathers finally emerge, they fly inland, each to find a new lake territory and mate. Accompanying Susan Vande Griek’s poetic text are Karen Reczuch’s gorgeous illustrations, which show the loons as they grow from tiny downy chicks to majestic adult birds. An afterword provides more information on loons, including their amazing diving ability, the meanings of their calls, and the environmental threats that they face. Also illustrated are five different types of loons and other animals that can be found in their lake habitat. The illustrations were researched in the Ornithology Collections at the Royal Ontario Museum, and Ron Ridout of Bird Studies Canada consulted on the text. Key Text Features illustrations author’s note further reading labels Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.5 Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading of a range of text types. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.5 Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.7 Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem).

Their haunting calls drift across a misty lake at sunset, casting a spell on those who hear. We gaze in awe as they glide past on mirrored waters, the jeweled pattern of their feathers a study in complexity and beauty. their garnet eyes reflect the span of their domain before they dive to depths unknown, surfacing such a distance away that we are left feeling abandoned by their sudden disappearance. Loons have always held a special place in our hearts and minds. They are more than a symbol of wilderness and of special places in nature still undisturbed. They are a touchstone to the natural world, to our past and things unknown. Just Loons is the ultimate guide to finding, watching and understanding loons. Providing a close look at the natural history of loons accompanied by stunning photography, this book captures the essence of the mysterious effects loons have on people. It also is a comprehensive and detailed look at the life, habits, and habitats of loons in North America, covering such topics as mating, territory, offspring, migration, and of course, what their haunting calls really mean. For everyone who has fallen under the spell of the loon, this book captures the magic they have brought to our lives since time immemorial.

The nature of the common loon, from biology to behavior, from one of the world’s foremost observers of the revered waterbird Even those who know the loon’s call might not recognize it as a tremolo, yodel, or wail, and may not understand what each call means, how it’s made, and why. And those who marvel at the loon’s diving prowess might wonder why this bird has such skill, or where loons go when they must leave northern lakes in winter. For these and so many other mysteries, Loon Lessons provides evolutionary and ecological explanations that are curious and compelling. Written by one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject, the book is a compendium of knowledge about the common loon and an engaging record of scientific sleuthing, documenting more than twenty-five years of research into the great northern diver. James D. Paruk has observed and compared loons from Washington and Saskatchewan to the coasts of California and Louisiana, from high elevation deserts in Nevada to mountain lakes in Maine. Drawing on his extensive experience, a wealth of data, and well-established scientific principles, he considers every aspect of the loon, from its plumage and anatomy to its breeding, migration, and wintering strategies. Here, in the first detailed scientific account of the common loon in more than thirty years, Paruk describes its biology in an accessible and entertaining style that affords a deeper understanding of this beautiful and mysterious bird’s natural history and annual life cycle.

Illustrations and rhyming text follow a loon chick as she learns how to survive--and thrive--in her first year. Includes facts about loons.