----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Will Wright" <willwright26@xxxxx>
To: priscillanhk@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, November 1, 2015 5:03:39 AM
Subject: Re: [obol] Inland Common Loon, Eugene --- Yellow-billed?
Does anyone else think Pricilla's photos look a lot like Yellow-billed?
---Will
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Priscilla Sokolowski" <priscillanhk@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "OBOL" <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2015 2:09:31 PM
Subject: [obol] Inland Common Loon, Eugene VRC pedestrian bridge, (Willamette
River), 10-31-15 9:40am - photos
Dear OBOLers:
I would have rushed a short and quick version of this report if this bird was
not already in the area at least since Thursday morning. There is a decent
chance one can find it again.
I went out this morning to look for a Loon which had been heard and seen on the
river right here in town a few days ago. Presumably I found the same loon and
was able to get a couple nice photos of it. It called once as soon as I got out
of my car near the bike/pedestrian bridge. My first impression was that I was
hearing Tundra Swans, but I knew it is early for them, (typically mid-November
arrival) nor have I ever heard of them flying this close to
town. Since we had seen a Loon here on Thursday I figured it must be a Loon I
had just heard.
I thought this was worthy of mention because I have not seen OBOL reports of
Common Loons right in the Willamette River near town; and no eBird reports
mention them any closer than Fern Ridge Reservoir (~10miles West). I did some
eBird research on this after our sighting on Thursday. In eBird data there are
only a few inland sightings reported each Winter in the southern Willamette
Valley. This Fall, Foster Reservoir and the Philomath Sewage Ponds might be the
only sightings in this portion of the valley. Distance-wise, after Fern Ridge,
eBird sightings in the last decade have been at Lookout Point reservoir, (15
miles SE), Cottage Grove and Dorena Reservoirs, (~20 miles South), and perhaps
most regularly (yearly) at Foster Reservoir (25-30 miles NE) and the Philomath
Sewage Ponds, (30 miles NW).
So it was with quite some surprise that a half dozen of our seniors birding
group, Birds of Oregon and General Science (BOGS), heard the distinctive rising
wail of a Loon as we walked along the river just downstream from the
bike/pedestrian bridge at Valley River Center this past Thursday. We could not
see the river from where we were at, there were tall bushes blocking the view.
I spoke to several who had heard it, including Nola, from Cottage Grove, who
has possibly the best hearing, and at least the most familiarity with bird
songs of anyone in our group. She assured me that yes it was the call of a Loon
she had heard, but she figured it was someone playing the call on their
smartphone. Others said it was too loud and came from the direction of the
river.
Perhaps 10 minutes later, when we were right at the place where the river pours
water into the Delta Ponds system, (a quarter mile downstream from the VRC bike
bridge), someone pointed out a nice sized bird floating in the river current,
maybe 100 feet out from the bank. Even without my binoculars I got a sense of
the size and bulk of the bird as well as being able to see a lot of white on
the neck. With my binoculars, I got a good look at it for maybe 7 seconds and
saw that it was about the size of a Western Grebe, but had a much thicker neck
and head. Nothing delicate or sharply defined about this bird. The demarcation
between black and white was not at all sharp like the Grebe. After shooting a
few photos while the bird drifted out of sight, I asked our group leader Steve
Barron what he thought and he said it looked like a Common Loon in winter
plumage. I would certainly have come up with a Loon species on my own after
going through the guides, because of the look I had had of it. Even at the
time, I couldn't think of anything else (other than a Loon) that this bird
could be confused with. But I
would not have been able to eliminate Pacific Loon based solely on what I saw.
After taking that 7 second look through my binoculars I tried to photograph the
bird. By then it had already drifted out of our "window" opening and was behind
stems of bushes. There was no time to play with manual focus and the auto-focus
on the camera preferred the closer bushes rather than the bird. Why did I not
take
photos first rather than taking a 7 second look through my binoculars? Because
in the last 3 years, I have missed really "seeing" a lot of birds because I was
too busy trying to get good photos of them. Even with a less common bird like
the Loon, I wanted to SEE the bird whether I got a good photo of it or not.
I was pretty jazzed about seeing a Loon right in town on the river so I went
out again today to see if was still around. (I had been sick on Friday to the
point where the idea of going out to look for the Loon never even came to
mind). Rain was threatening when I arrived at the bike bridge this morning, but
nothing was falling from the sky at the moment. After hearing what had to be
the Loon, I walked out to the middle of the bridge and started scanning around.
Not seeing anything like a Loon, I took advantage of the close proximity of a
small group of Lesser Scaup and photographed them. After about 15 minutes, it
started to drizzle enough that I put away my camera. Wouldn't you know it, the
Loon took that moment to announce itself with it's rising wail call. It was
very close to the bank of the river, and only about 50 feet downstream from the
bridge. There were walkers and bicyclists constantly moving along the bridge,
including a loud clanging gorilla jogging by twice, (it is Halloween in Eugene
after all), and with all this traffic and racket, this Wild Bird of the North
was right at the bank of the river, so close to the bridge.
I must have looked at it with my binoculars first even though I remember seeing
without them, the white throat and dark back and the size of the bird, not to
mention having just heard it call from that location, so I knew it was a Loon.
It dove, and I'd forgotten over the last 40 years (since seeing them in Ontario
Canada),
how far a Loon travels underwater before surfacing again. By the time it did
surface, I had my camera ready to go. The bird was now about 200 feet
downriver, but close enough for a decent photo with a 50X superzoom camera.
(Canon SX50). I got a few shots and then it dove and came up again about twice
as far away.
Once I got situated in a coffee shop, I examined my photos and compared them to
those in STOKES, and those in the Audubon birding app and BirdsEye app. I
consider range maps only "circumstantial" evidence in building the case for a
bird ID, because the birds do not read the bird guides and break the rules
often enough; so I considered the Arctic, the Red-Throated, the Pacific and the
Common Loons. (Of these only the Common Loon would be considered at all likely
based on range maps). It took me a few minutes to rule out the other three
Loons and settle on the Common Loon; based on the partial dark collar found on
the Common Loon, and the diffuse border between dark and light on the neck and
the white extension going back towards the back of the neck and the apparent
absence of a chin strap even in the closest photo. I'm not 100% sure, but ...
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Four Photos:
http://priscillanhk.com/common-loon-willamette-river-10-31-15.html
Priscilla Sokolowski
