I also did the flights over Lake Erie the last couple years and observed the Bonaparte's gulls-loon interactions on the open lake.  Jim McCormac and I discussed at length what was going on out there.  Jim is right on with his observations.  This loon-Bonaparte's gull interaction has caught my interest.  The past two weekends I had a chance to observe numerous small feeding flocks of Bonaparte's gulls from my house.  What I found was the interaction between the gulls and loons was a little different here.   On all occasions a small feeding group of 10 or so Bonaparte's gulls would form.  As the gulls fed, the activity would attract common loons and other birds that would then join the feeding flock.  On two occasions the flock built up to include 20+ Bonaparte's along with ring-billed gulls, loons, and mergansers.  The only kleptoparasitism I observed was a young herring gull harassing surfacing loons and then flying off after a Bonaparte's gulls.   I think the difference between here and the open lake is there were schools of minnows just below the surface that were getting brought to the surface by larger fish.  The Bonaparte's flying overhead were able to spot this activity and respond.  The other birds followed the Bonaparte's to the minnows.  On the open water, the diving loons are causing the minnows to surface, which cause the Bonaparte's to get up and feed.  In other words, on the open lake the loons were initiating the feeding and closer to shore in shallower water the Bonaparte's were the initiators.   In the past I have seen some massive feeding flocks just offshore that inclusde hundreds of mergansers, loons and gulls.  The interesting thing is how frenzied the feeding is one minute and the next everything disperses and heads in different directions.  No real large flocks yet this year. John Pogacnik                                          
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