Subject: Re: I need I.D. help
Date: Jan 18 22:58:11 1998
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets,

Michael Dossett writes:

>First, on the ferry, I saw several loons. Most of them I recognized as
>Common Loons, but there was one I did not know about. It had a yellow
>bill, and it was distinctly upturned. My first thought was Yellow-billed
>Loon, but when I looked at the drawing in my field guide I wasn't sure.
>The drawings all have birds with varying degrees of yellow, and atleast
>slightly upturned bills. The bill was atleast as bright as the Western
>Grebes which were nearby, and the bill was all yellow.

Two thoughts, Michael. First, there's two large diving seabird species which
have yellow bills typically held above the horizontal: Yellow-billed Loon
(Gavia adamsii); the other is Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax
auritus) which in pale brown immature plumage (some are so pale that some
local birders here call them 'Rough-legged Cormorants' '-) can under some
circumstances be a real ID headache with pale brown Basic-plumaged
Yellow-billed Loon: their respective colorations are *very* similar. Second,
bill color on a Basic Yellow-billed at this time of the year is usually
overall white, subtly tinged yellow, but not as bright as the bill of a
Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis), not yellow; the yellow bill is a
feature of Alternate plumage, something we won't see for a few months yet on
locally-wintering loons.

Could you see any other features of this bird, even without bins?

>Second, there were a couple of ducks which were about 40 feet away which
>were really giving me problems....Any ideas on this one?

Sort of sound like wigeon to me--can't think what else, with those features.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)