Tim Laman

| Wildlife Photojournalist

Wildlife Diaries

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The Making of “Loons of Mount Desert Island”.

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It’s been a crazy year, but one of the perks for me has been working closer to home, and spending more time with family.  Last summer, I took on a project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to film the early lives of Common Loons up in Maine, and my children Russell and Jessica, 20 and 16 at the time, were my crew.  We maintained our “covid bubble” while working out of a small cabin on Mount Desert Island.  Loons are spectacular and fascinating birds, and it was an amazing experience to spend so much quality time with them every day as we worked to tell their story.  Russell and I did the filming, and Jessica helped out in the field, made sketches and behavior observations, and then narrated the film.  So it was a true family project.  We are really happy with the result, and I think you’ll enjoy spending ten minutes with us as we explore the loon’s world.  The link is below…. Enjoy!

I’ve also selected a couple of my favorite still frames from the shoot to share here, and you can scroll down further to see a bunch of behind the scenes shots from the trip, and learn a bit more about how we filmed the loons in Maine.

 “Loon Birthday” 
This baby loon emerged from its egg during the night or early morning, and after a few hours in the nest, without ever being fed, walked down the ramp into the water and started swimming after its parents.  By afternoon they were feeding it small fish.  Loons rarely go on land except to breed.  They are strictly water birds, and this chick is no exception.  It may never set foot on land again until it begins nesting as a full adult.  It was amazing to witness and film the first day of this little chicks life, and the film features a sequence of it being fed its first fish.
“Afternoon Loons” 
Beautiful afternoon light sweeps across Echo Lake as the loon chicks ride on mom’s back while dad starts to rise up for a wing flap in the background.  Between feeding bouts, the loon family rests on the water, preens, and naps.  What I like about this frame is the way multiple elements came together to elevate the shot above the ordinary: light, behavior, composition, story.…

LOONS OF MOUNT DESERT ISLAND

View the short film here

The Making of “Loons of Mount Desert Island”

  • Filming from shore, we often tried to work our way ahead of the loons and take up positions so as they moved along the edge of the lake, hunting in the shallows, they would pass by us.  This was a very effective strategy in places where there were multiple access points, but did mean a lot of scrambling with the heavy gear along rough trails around the lake.  We often put our tripods right in the shallow water to get the best angle, as you see me doing here.
  •  Russell shoots wide shots of the loon family on Echo Lake on a beautiful misty morning.  We used RED cameras as our main cameras for filming for their amazing quality, ability to shoot slow motion, relative compactness for field use.  A great aspect of the RED brand of cameras, is that every frame of video is a high quality raw file that also has the potential to be turned into a still frame, assuming it has suitable sharpness, etc.  All the images of the birds in this newsletter are stills from our RED cameras.
  • Photo by Russell Laman.  This is an example of the type of beautiful wide shot Russell was able to capture, while I focused on the closeup behavior shots.  These wide shots really add to the film by putting the birds in context with their environment. 
In the summer of 2020, Russell, Jessica and I filmed loons on Mount Desert Island during the peak of the season when chicks were hatching, taking to the water, and in their first few weeks of life.  We filmed at several lakes and ponds around the island where different loon pairs had territories, and were raising chicks that were at slightly different ages.  Here we are at Echo Lake, where two pairs of loons had divided the lake into north and south territories.  The loon families here saw people often since their territories included popular swimming beaches and kayaking areas, so that worked to our advantage because they were quite used to people, and would often pass by quite close to us if we were shooting from the shoreline as we are here.
Jessica developed her interest and skills in sketching from nature during this trip.  This is a sample page from her journal, and a view of her sketching live in the field.  While of course worthwhile and enjoyable in its own right, her sketching also added a nice element to the film.
  • The less glamorous part of wildlife photography.  People often tell me they would love to be my assistant, but Jessica and Russell know what it’s actually like.  Here they are hauling heavy tripods and backpacks of camera gear to one of the filming locations on Somes Pond.  To create the best quality film, you need to use solid tripods and big heavy lenses.  Getting these to the right spot for filming can be physically demanding, but it’s all part of a days work in the field.
  • It was a wonderful experience working as a family team, and spending so much quality time with the loons to work on this project.  We couldn’t have done it though without the help and support from Billy Helprin of the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary (www.somesmeynell.org), who monitored all the breeding loons on Mount Desert Island and generously shared his knowledge with us.  Please check them out and give your support to this worthy organization that does so much for loons.  We also would like to thank Acadia National Park for their support and providing access, and of course the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who sponsored the project and made it possible.  

 We will continue to add new images and galleries to TimLamanFineArt.com.  Our latest additions include a new Hummingbird gallery.  Please check it out!

Tim Laman