Hi all,
I was with Charlie Wright and his dad today and viewing this bird, the
bird that I originally found on Thursday and refound yesterday. Late in
the afternoon were able to spot it near the same location as on Thursday
and managed to get down to the river and get very close views and
charlie some video, which we will post soon and I welcome everyone to
look at the capture and opinions on it. I will describe in a second my
notes, but saw some things today that I didn't see on Thursday and was
too distant to see well yesterday. I want to caution people that I'm not
saying it isn't an Arctic Loon, opinions on that can be discussed after
the capture is posted, yet anybody coming over for it, do at your own
risk as I'm not positive any longer on its identity.
Notes:
Flanking-on both sides of the bird, goes full length of the body and
extends up to the full way of the flank and almost to the top of the
rump. Can common loons have this much of pure white flank showing on
both sides?
The size is on the smaller size and when noticed yesterday was 3-4
inches smaller than the nearby common loon, but don't know if this is
within range of common loon or not.
The bill was some slight angle to the lower mandible and clearly thicker
than a pacific loon, yet more slender than the common loons in the same
stretch. What the variation on Arctic loons here?
The neck is more jagged than I originally saw on thursday. There is
jagged marks and some cuts of the white into the darker neck, suggestive
of a common loon. Whats the range of arctic here? The color is darker
than the light brown than most of the common loons present, but again
know that commons can vary alot.
I encourage people to look at the capture once its posted, hopefully in
the next day. Then the experts can weigh in and people can form their
own opinion. It is clearly an odd common loon, if it is one. And doesn't
look like a typical Arctic pictured in the field guides or what I
remember of the priest rapids loon (the only arctic I've seen), for
those that know, any chance of a hybrid here? Just a random thought.

If anybody was inconvienced by a potential misidentification on my part
I apologize for the trouble and hope people still enjoyed other birds
such as the yellow-billed loon.

Pondering in Ellensburg.

Scott Downes
downess at cwu.edu
Ellensburg WA