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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Reader photo: Snack time

A mother loon holds a fish in her beak while her chick. Joanie Christian took this photo  at Big Meadow Lake in Pen Oreille County. She captured the shot using a 500 mm lens. Christian used the bigger lens partially to get better detail and partially to minimize human disturbance. (Joanie Christian / Courtesy)

A mother loon holds a fish in her beak while her chick rests on her back. Joanie Christian took this photo in early July at a lake in Pend Oreille County. She captured the shot using a 500 mm lens. Christian used the bigger lens partially to get better detail and partially to minimize human disturbance.

Christian spent two days camped on the lake, paddling and observing the natural world. While there, she observed the male loon gathering trout fry and feeding them to the chick.

“It had difficulty swallowing it at first, and the parents seemed to sort of chew on it a bit first and had the chick try again,” Christian wrote. “Soon he was swallowing them whole in one or two gulps.”

Web extra: Submit your own outdoors-related photographs for a chance to be published in our weekly print edition and browse our archive of past reader submissions online at spokesman.com/outdoors.