Hi Tweets,

Well, it's many a day off I've sat in the foodfair at the N end of Canada
Place, drinking coffee, reading mysteries (currently a fairly good one:
Philip Kerr's 'A Philosophical Investigation', a wittily rude dystopic Brit
police procedural) and letting patience have her perfect work, seeing what
birds are there over the changing seasons, and waiting for one of the
locally 'big' rarities to show up (last was a northbound Gyrfalcon several
years ago parked on the railing atop the Pan Pacific Hotel). Bingo. A
juvenile-plumaged Yellow-billed Loon (YBLO) popped up about 30 meters from
where I was sitting comfortably out of the raw wind and driving rain
(birding in luxury), gave me a nice long look.

It's not a big YBLO as they go, but comparatively long-billed, bill not
quite yet classically shaped, distal half pale yellow-white with dusky near
tip, basal one-quarter of mandible dusky, with some dusky business on basal
half of culmen and tomus. Pale-faced and -necked with a very distinct dark
grey-brown post-ocular spot; the most conspicuous mark on this bird was not
the bill but the head and neck pattern, while the 'checkerboard' back
pattern is very distinct.

Its behavior was typical of YBLO, undertaking very long dives both in
distance and duration. Equally typically of YBLO, it rarely emerged in the
same direction it was facing when it last dived, while the opposite is usual
practise of Common Loon.

First saw it about 2 PM right off the end of Canada Place (N end of
Granville Street in downtown Vancouver BC). Over next fifteen minutes it
moved lazily E toward the HeliJet Airways helicopter landing pad. Lost it,
but reacquired it about an hour later much nearer to and N of the HeliJet
pad. Last saw it about 200 m N of the landing pad about 3.45 PM. As YBLO
does seem to like sheltered bays, the bay between Coal Harbor and the
VanTerm Container Port to the E of the landing pad seems to offer a good
haven for this bird. Might stick around, as another juv did for a good part
of the winter off Stanley Park in the late 80's.

Looked on the N Face of the Granville 2000 Building, but no sign of the
Peregrine Falcon which roosts there, though lots of fresh peregrine poop.

Conditions: temp: 6C; wind: E 15 kt veering to W 10 as cold front came
through; barom: rising; cloud: heavy overcast breaking to broken stratus and
clearing as Low moved E; precip: driving rain ending mid-aft; sea: light
easterly chop.

Red-throated Loon 2
Common Loon 1
Yellow-billed Loon 1 jv
Western Grebe 3
Aech. grebe sp. 61
Double-crested Cormorant 1
Brandt's Cormorant 3
Pelagic Cormorant 10
Scoter sp. 1
Common Goldeneye 7 4f 3m
Barrow's Goldeneye 140 46m 34f, 60 unsexed
Hooded Merganser 2 1m 1f, paired, in BAGO flock
Bald Eagle 1 jv
Mew Gull 102 100a 2 Bsc1
Glaucous-winged Gull 46
Western X Gl.-winged 1
Rock Dove 18
Northwestern Crow 67
Song Sparrow 1
House Finch 1
House Sparrow 3


Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net