Hi Tweets,

Kristi Streiffert writes:

(snip)
>It had a bright yellow bill, and it's plumage seemed bright, too. It
>had those fetching loon speckles.
>I haven't mastered the art of plumage
>i.d. yet.

Sounds good enough to be an Alternate-plumaged Yellow-billed Loon (Gavia
adamsii--YBLO) to me.

>The Yellow-billed loon was with a more confusing loon... on
>the second one, the bill seemed a lot darker, and the plumage seemed
>muddier.

A juvenile or first-year Common Loon (COLO), sounds like.

>They were doing a behavior I hadn't seen
>before. They were putting just their heads in the water and scoping
>along. They looked like they were skimming the surface to feed, with
>their heads completely under water.

Looking for fish swimming below them; Common and Red-breasted Mergansers do
the same thing, their rear-crown crests sticking straight up like little
periscopes. Interesting, come to think of it: of all the fish-hunters, only
all four loon species, and Common & Red-breasted Mergansers, but not the
cormorants nor any of the grebes, seem to do pre-dive searches, the
mergansers especially in shallower, and/or nearshore waters, the loons in
close or further out. Suggests the others just dive and hope to find
something--maybe their chances are better--while the larger birds don't want
to waste energy in simple prospecting. Or maybe, since loons dive without
pre-dive searching as often as with, it's the difference between an hungry
loon and a snacking loon. Hmm. Maybe the thing is to see if these pre-dive
searches happen at a particular tide-level or generally throughout the tide
sequence. Interesting!

And thanks for that observation, Kristi--never considered that YBLO too
would do this pre-dive prey search. One more thing to look for in their
behavior!

Michael Price The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters
Vancouver BC Canada -Goya
mprice at mindlink.net