[TN-Bird] Georgia Yellow-billed Loon

From: tcbirdwatcher@xxxxxxxxx (Tommy Curtis)
To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 21:31:08 -0600 (CST)
This bird was still present on Thursday, January 15th, at 2:00 p.m.
Central Time.  We kept saying it was too far to drive from middle
Tennessee to see it.  But after getting home late last night from seeing
the Short-eared Owls and American Bittern at Shelby Bottoms with Mike
O'Malley, we called the Georgia RBA and the loon was seen that day.  So
we left this morning and after over four hours of driving arrived at
Lake Horton, south of Atlanta about noon.

There were two loons on the lake, a Common and the Yellow-billed.
Almost as soon as we parked at the end of Antioch Road and set up the
scope, the Yellow-billed surfaced not more than 25-30 yards from us and
we had excellent views of the color, larger size than the Common with a
larger bill tipped in yellow and upturned.  A fishing boat seemed to
scare him, and we searched for almost an hour before finding him again
about 100 yards out and watched him for quite a while.  Not the most
beautiful bird we've ever seen but a worthwhile "lifer" find.
The cutest bird of the day was an American Pipit foraging along the
shoreline not more than 6 feet from us the entire time we were there; he
seemed completely oblivious to our presence.

By the way, whoever coined the phrase, "crazy as a loon" was wrong.  No
loon ever flew 4 hours to see a human he had not seen before.  As we got
to the lake we met a couple from Maryland who had driven 13 hours to see
the Yellow-billed Loon, found him immediately and watched for 10
minutes, then got back in their van and headed back to Maryland !

Tommy & Virginia Curtis
Smithville, TN

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[TN-Bird] Georgia Yellow-billed Loon

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