Hi Tweets,

Michael Dossett writes:

>Mike,

Actually, it's Michael... '-)

>I know that Yellow-billed Loons are really uncommon around here, but it
>didn't look like any immature cormarant that I have seen. First, most of
>the cormorants that I have seen have atleast had a small patch of orange
>at the base of the bill. This bird had none.

You must have been very close, then. On some first-year birds, the orange at
the base of the bill is so limited as to be virtually invisible. In a
bare-eye observation, I'm surprised you could see it all unless you were
almost directly beside the bird: experience shows this mark to be quite
subtle on a certain proportion of non-adult birds, and at distances greater
than, say, twenty meters or more in an unaided-eye sighting, might be very
difficult to impossible to see.

>Also, the bill looked
>heavier than the bills of the cormorants which I saw. The bill seemed
>chalky yellow, but still bright and contrasting. Nothing else really
>sticks out in my mind.

In some light conditions, the bill of the Double-crested Cormorant
(Phalacrocorax auritus) can fit your above description in size, color,
structure and shape; so can that of Yellow-billed Loon (Gavia adamsii). I'm
not saying it's either one, Michael; just that there's some ambiguity in
your description, and without other field marks, it could suggest either
species.

In a previous post I asked if you can give us more details of the bird,
Michael? For example, yours was an unaided-eye observation. At what
distance? In what visibility? What was the bird doing? Unfortunately for the
purposes of giving good ID assistance, you mention only the bill color and
that the bird typically held it above the horizontal. What else can you say
about it? What was the bill-shape and where was what color of what shade
distributed? As for what the rest of bird behind the bill looked like, can
you describe the colors and any patterns on head, fore-, rear- and
side-neck, breast, back, sides/flank, tail?

I notice in your notes that at no point do you actually say definitively
that the bird you saw *was* a loon, just an impression that this was a
given. Did you see enough details on the bird to be able to say
categorically that it was a loon and not a cormorant? What field marks did
you use to separate the two, keeping in mind the resemblance of immature
Double-crested Cormorant to Basic-plumaged Yellow-billed Loon at any
distance, particularly in an unaided-eye observation? If you can say with
complete confidence that field marks of the bird you saw definitely
established it as a loon, then the chances of it being anything but a
Yellow-billed Loon disappear. If not, then it's still an open question, and
to answer your original request for help needs the relocation and a more
detailed observation of the bird.

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)