All,



As Tina and I were starting our long drive home from a weekend of birding in
Ferry County, Tina spotted a leucistic or perhaps albino Common Loon on Lake
Roosevelt. The location was 47o 56.499 N 118o 48.444 W (Delorme p82 A2) off
Swawilla Road. The bird was completely white and did not show any pattern
or color variation. The structure of the bird was consistent with the other
3 common loons in the same general area. The bill was a very light grey.
By the time that I got a scope set-up and on the bird it was too distant to
discern eye color. When first spotted, it was close enough to shore to be
well seen through bino's. However it was moving rapidly away from us and
spending more time diving than on the surface. As we had already packed up
the scopes for the long drive back to Everett, it took us several minutes to
setup a scope and dig out the camera to try getting some digi-scoped shots.
We only got two very poor shots as we were hand holding the camera to the
scope and the bird was moving quickly and staying down for long dives. If
anyone is interested in these truly awful photo's let me know.



Rick



Rick Taylor

Everett, WA