- Jun 10 1:30 am
#77224
This evening while out birding I observed a loon quite a way of shore. Some very heavily cropped photos below.
I have only been up close to a single Yellow-billed Loon and it was much lighter and paler overall than this specimen and the bill was uniformly pale yellow. Through the scope the bill definitely appeared pale yellow, but I started questioning myself as to whether this might be a yellow-billed loon or common loon with a trick of the low-angle warm light. The brownish back and crest and darker area on the upper bill / culmen were throwing me off based on my previous observation, but after I got home and had a better look at examples of immature and non-breeding Yellow-billed loons, but that made it less rather than more clear.
The off-angle lighting was pretty terrible for photos and the bird very far away, so the images aren't great.
What do you think? Yellow-billed or Common loon?
I have only been up close to a single Yellow-billed Loon and it was much lighter and paler overall than this specimen and the bill was uniformly pale yellow. Through the scope the bill definitely appeared pale yellow, but I started questioning myself as to whether this might be a yellow-billed loon or common loon with a trick of the low-angle warm light. The brownish back and crest and darker area on the upper bill / culmen were throwing me off based on my previous observation, but after I got home and had a better look at examples of immature and non-breeding Yellow-billed loons, but that made it less rather than more clear.
The off-angle lighting was pretty terrible for photos and the bird very far away, so the images aren't great.
What do you think? Yellow-billed or Common loon?