FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Yellow-billed Loons TN and KY

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

March 15, 2004
I spent most of Saturday and part of Sunday looking for the Yellow-billed 
Loons that have been hanging around Pace Point on the TN River in Henry Co. We 
had no luck but another Yellow-billed was found on Saturday just 20 miles north 
in Kentucky and photographed by Roseanna Denton on Sunday.

I asked Roseanna to send me copies of the photos she took of the KY 
Yellow-billed Loon Sunday. I thought it would be interesting to compare the two 
loons 
but had little faith that they might be the same loon. She had seen the first 
bird I found, a 2nd year Yellow-bill at Pace and immediately knew the bird in 
Kentucky was not the same as that bird.

She had not seen the immature that I had found a week later off Rocky point. 
Like I said it would be silly to think a bird that did not feed for two days 
would just fly 20 miles and start feeding but stranger things have happened.

Her photos show a first winter bird just as the second one found at Rocky 
Point but the KY bird is not as far along in molt, still having broadly edged 
feathers on the lower back and tertials where the Rocky Point, Yellow-billed 
did 
not. The bill shape and head pattern are also subtly different. 

Yellow-billed Loons take 3 years to reach adult plumage, the larger you are 
the longer it takes to mature. The scalloped edges to the juvenile plumage, 
giving fresh birds a scaly patterned back, wear through the first winter and 
during the summer they acquire a darker base to the neck and a darker back that 
is 
variegated light and dark, and they never acquire the white markings on the 
wing coverts retained on winter adults. Since neither of the young birds had 
white markings on the wing coverts, did have light necks and still retained 
some 
scalloping, they are first winter birds. The first bird I found was aged as a 
2nd year bird because it had vestiges of the square blocks on its back but 
showed no white on its wing coverts.

There now have been 4 Yellow-billed Loons in 3 southern states this winter 
(GA-TN-KY) and no telling how many are being overlooked.


Good Birding!!!

Jeff R. Wilson
OL'COOT / TLBA
Bartlett, TN


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