I thought she had a duck. I run back there, yelling "NO, LEAVE IT!" All I see are these large dark wings and a bird flopping around on the ground.

Pushing my curious doggies away from it, it calmed down and allowed me to pick it up.

I come running back to the front screaming for my friend Dawn to "Grab me a towel, grab my dogs, grab my phone!" Poor Dawn, just wanted to relax a bit

I call my good neighbors, John & Mel for help and Mel immediately gets on the horn calling Wildlife Rescues and the DEP.

No one could help us that night or could tell us what the bird was. So Sunday Morning, I did my own research and found out it was a Common Loon.

Discovering that it can not walk well on land and that it more than likely got itself stranded in our yard, since it did not appear to be hurt at all.

The river behind our house was just about frozen over and probably not large enough for our little friend to take flight out of.

So VJ knew the perfect spot on the Quinnipiac River to let it go.

Hoping that we were correct in our research, and our friend just needed a large body of water, we let it go.

She slid down the ice and jumped right in and was happy as can be.

Swimming, diving, eating and drinking.

She lingered around, showing off its swimming skills to us.

Flapping its wings and diving some more...

She felt right at home...