[Tweeters] Yellow-billed Loon(s?) at Blaine, Semiahmoo

[Dennis Paulson via Tweeters]

Hello tweets,

Netta and I visited Blane and Semiahmoo Spit today (12/27), as much as anything to see if we could get photos of a Yellow-billed Loon that people had been reporting on eBird as “at close range.” As far as I recalled, it had been seen at Semiahmoo only.

We got to Blaine and were watching birds from the pier at the end of the road, talking to a group who were conducting the White Rock Christmas Bird Count. They had not seen a YBLO from there. As we were talking to them, a loon surfaced with a fish right in front of us, and I photographed it quickly before it dove again. We didn’t see it again.

We drove over to the opposite side, spent quite a bit of time watching the water at the end of the spit, where another group of people had just spotted a YBLO. Finally, the loon surfaced in front of us and quickly dove, but not before I got a few photos. It stayed underwater much longer than the Common Loons, of which there were quite a few in sight, and we only had it close to us that one time. We saw it surface three times, each time surprisingly distant from where it dove, certainly at least several hundred feet.

Now home and looking at our photos, I see the the one I photographed was also a Yellow-billed! It came up and went down so fast that all I could do was snap the photos, and because no Yellow-billed had been seen from there by this diligent group, I just presumed it was one of the Commons among several that were feeding nearby. It could just be the lighting, but I suspect they were two different birds, as the barring on the upperparts looks wider in the Semiahmoo bird. The photos were taken two hours apart, so there was plenty of time for the Blaine bird to have moved across the channel. But I don’t know why it would have.

At least now I understand why we didn’t see the Blaine loon again.

I’m writing this in part because the CBC group hadn’t seen a Yellow-billed, and if anyone on tweeters knows anyone who was on that count, it would be good to let them know.

Dennis Paulson
Seattle
dennispaulson at comcast dot net