8-2-17 **Common Loons - Fighting In The Early Morning Fog

Both females and males battle viciously for territories. You would expect that both sexes are endangered by the fights. But females almost never fight to the death; somehow a female owner that is being beaten up by an intruder is able to slink off to a protected spot in the lake, rest, and ultimately fly off to another lake nearby to lick her wounds. Not so with many male owners, who become so weakened by repeated beatings that they lose the capacity to defend themselves, cannot find refuge and end up dying on the lake they used to own. Luckily this intruder got to fly away.

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Both females and males battle viciously for territories. You would expect that both sexes are endangered by the fights. But females almost never fight to the death; somehow a female owner that is being beaten up by an intruder is able to slink off to a protected spot in the lake, rest, and ultimately fly off to another lake nearby to lick her wounds. Not so with many male owners, who become so weakened by repeated beatings that they lose the capacity to defend themselves, cannot find refuge and end up dying on the lake they used to own. Luckily this intruder got to fly away.

D51_9890

common loons fighting