Hi Tweets,

Ken Klimko writes:

>The RTLO was a real surprise. At first I thought it was a Pacific until
>it turned to face the shore when I noted the obvious red throat patch
>and slight, upturned bill. The Vancouver bar graph checklist doesn't
>show this bird for July and I wonder how frequent a sighting of this
>nature occurs?

The Vancouver BC bar-graph checklist is wrong. Red-throated Loon Gavia
stellata is often present as a single or in small numbers off Iona and/or
Point Roberts from the average departure period in mid-April to
mid-September when southboumd migrants arrive.

Even before this current checklist was compiled in 1994, my observations
during seawatches from the tip of the Iona South Jetty in the summers
1989-93, first conducted alone, then joined in part by Rick Toochin, and
also made at such locations as Point Roberts and Boundary Bay, demonstrated
that both Red-throated and Pacific Loons, often in Definitive Alternate
plumage but equally often in Alt 1, summer regularly-- probably as
non-breeding adolescents-- in singles or small numbers in the Greater
Vancouver Checklist Area during the April--September migrational hiatus.

It could have been right, but was compiled with an a priori assumption-- and
I know it was that because it was based on record-keeping which did not
admit the presence of records which belied the assumption; they were
considered, equally a priori, 'unreliable', in one of those ugly little
Catch-22's which used to, and still may for all I know, litter Vancouver BC
record-keeping politics like unexploded mines. The spurious summer-month gap
in the distribution line for this species shows who won this particular fight.

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)