Dec. 9 (UPI) — A Maine ice skater ended up coming to the rescue of a loon he found stranded on the ice covering a frozen pond.
John Picone, who posted video of the rescue to YouTube, said he was skating on East Pond in the Belgrade Lakes Region on Sunday when he came across the bird on the ice.
Loons often become stranded on frozen bodies of water because they require at least 500 feet of open water to launch into flight.
Picone said he contacted rescue group Avian Haven, but ultimately decided to attempt a rescue himself by gently pushing the loon with his ice poles.
“I scooted him like a curling [stone] (or a hockey puck) which he did not take to be too strange,” Picone wrote in an email to WMTW-TV. “Other skaters came and helped organize and mobilize our rescue resources.”
A professional rescuer summoned to the scene by Avian Haven was then able to load the loon into a vehicle and take it to be examined for injuries.
