{"id":22813,"date":"2023-06-16T11:31:29","date_gmt":"2023-06-16T15:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=22813"},"modified":"2023-06-16T11:31:29","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T15:31:29","slug":"night-of-1000-loons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/night-of-1000-loons\/","title":{"rendered":"Night of 1,000 Loons"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"position: relative; padding-top: max(60%,326px); height: 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; border: none; width: 100%; height: 100%; left: 0; right: 0; top: 0; bottom: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23e9e9e9&amp;d=pm_summerguide_2023&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;pageNumber=88&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" sandbox=\"allow-top-navigation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation allow-downloads allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-modals allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-forms\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p3\">Counting loons begins below the surface.<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p4\">By Alexis Raymond<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Summer of 2001<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">H<\/span>aunting, high-pitched howls from loons echoed across the glass-still Watchic Lake of my childhood. Hot mornings were interrupted by boat engines, and cannonballs filled the afternoons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p7\">The dock was my lily pad; my eight-year-old body was never there for long. But one day I sat still, watching my memere wade into the water, descending the rough rock steps my great-pepere made when he built the camp 50 years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p7\">A mother loon cried for her loonlet, still covered in its cloud-like downy feathers. Her baby was small enough to fit inside P\u00e9pere\u2019s coffee mug. As it swam up to M\u00e9mere, I could see that a clam was pinching the bird\u2019s tiny beak closed. With its mother looking on, M\u00e9mere picked up the loonlet and removed the clam. The lady loon howled loudly as they returned to the middle of the lake. \u201cShe\u2019s thanking you,\u201d my mom said from the dock steps.<\/p>\n<p><em><span class=\"s1\">Read the full story in the digital magazine above.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22814\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Night-of-Loons.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Night-of-Loons.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Night-of-Loons-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Night-of-Loons-768x402.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Night-of-Loons-200x105.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Night-of-Loons-620x325.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Counting loons begins below the surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1276],"class_list":["post-22813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-summerguide-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22813"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22875,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22813\/revisions\/22875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}