We have a pair of loons that return each spring and nest nearby. We are on a river near town, and there is a fire station close by. When the emergency vehicles go out on a call with their sirens on, the loons call out in response. Can you explain this?—Graham Norwood, Port Carling, Ont.
Yes. Your loons are alarmed by the sirens. Which, well, makes sense: sirens are alarming. That’s kind of the point.
“It’s normal behaviour for common loons to call out in response to loud noises,” says Doug Tozer, the director of waterbirds and wetlands with Birds Canada. “They typically react to perceived threats by vocalizing. By calling out, they may be communicating about the threat with their mate or chicks.”
This doesn’t mean the sirens are causing the loons to alter their behaviour in any kind of detrimental way. When they hear the siren, “They probably stop what they’re doing, pay attention long enough to figure out what the noise is about, and, once they realize there’s no immediate threat to themselves or their chicks, they likely go back to whatever it was they were doing prior to the noise,” says Tozer.
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If you’re worried for your loons, remember that birds, like most animals, do have the ability to learn and adapt. “In northern communities that have frequent float planes that come and go within loon territories, the loons eventually react less and less to them and go about their business,” says Tozer. In some cases, they even raise chicks very close to float plane operations.
So, counterintuitively, it’s possible that the constant, as opposed to sporadic, sound of sirens would be less disruptive to your loons…while, obviously, being incredibly disruptive to any human who lives near the Port Carling fire station.
Got a question for Cottage Q&A? Send it to answers@cottagelife.com.
This article was originally published in the September/October 2025 issue of Cottage Life.
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