Joe Kipper
Fort Collins
On Friday, June 25, 2021 at 9:41:10 AM UTC-6 Caleb Strand wrote:
Hi All,
I am currently working out in Central Nebraska, so I was intrigued when Steve's Mlodinow's report of an Arctic Loon at Walden Reservoir came in, as it was only around a day's drive from me and some of the other birders out here in Nebraska who would have loved to see the bird. Throughout the evening, after Steve reported the bird, many birders noted one Arctic Loon and one rather obvious Common Loon, looks of the Arctic Loon were distant and poor for birders throughout that day and most birders were going off Steve's description to tick this bird, as they couldn't quite see the field marks due to the conditions. The following day, after a handful of birders went out looking for the bird, the only two loons present on the lake were Commons, with one obvious bird and another rather Arctic-looking Common Loon that 1st drew birder's attention by the rather smooth-looking demarkation on the neck and white flanks. The structure of this bird was off for Arctic and when the bird's neck left the resting posture it was obvious that it had a large white collar at the base, instantly eliminating Arctic Loon. Later on in the day, when photos were posted by Nick Moore and Steven Mlodinow of the bird, there was much discussion on the ID across the country with a few opinions by good birders with experience with the species such as Gary Rosenberg and Cameron Cox, both of which suggested that by the pics provided, the bird looked fine for Common Loon and very off for Arctic.
To my dismay, this still wasn't enough for anyone to publicly suggest on this platform that the bird was missIDed, but instead, more reports were coming in requesting for updates on if the bird had been relocated and some even suggested that people were on the wrong bird and area which blew my mind (people really wanted this bird to be an Arctic)!
A couple days ago, Nick Komar photographed a loon that in some pics looks identical to Nick and Steve's loon but in other pics it obviously shows a white collar. Joe Kipper's photos of the same loon make this bird look like an obvious Common that wouldn't draw many birders' attention at all. What more is needed for people to understand that there was never any Arctic Loon present?
There are still eBird reports with this loon labeled as an Arctic. I hope the Colorado Review Team will soon reach out to these people and update them on the correct ID of the bird.
Anyways, I was keeping up with the posts on here and was seeing very mixed signs on what the identification on this loon was so thought I would make the claim that nobody else was willing to make on here, as there are still some birders who aren't sure what is going on with this loon.
Caleb
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