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
