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 =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================