White-winged Crossbills, Silver Spring 02-07-2009

This female flew into a neighbor's spruce late yesterday afternoon, giving the familiar and distinctive mechanical flight call. After a couple of minutes, it departed, two other birds leaving the top of the tree with it (must have been lurking undetected amongst the cones). Nice addition to the yard list!
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Yellow-billed Loon

Yellow-billed Loon
Originally uploaded by sjdavies1969

I spent yesterday morning kayaking with friends on the Russian River in Jenner, CA. Having just rounded the west end of Penny Island, close to the mouth of the river I looked up from paddling to see a large, pale loon in front of me. Through binoculars, I was immediately impressed by the big, creamy, uptilted bill and overall pale brownish plumage, with heavy whitish barring on the mantle and scapulars. My thoughts immediately went to first cycle Yellow-billed Loon, but the bird dove almost immediately, leaving me second-guessing if I'd really just seen what I'd seen! Scanning the river, I saw what appeared to be the same bird surfacing a considerable distance upstream. We began paddling after it, getting brief and distant views every time it surfaced way ahead of us. On the river adjacent to the eastern limits of Jenner town, the loon finally allowed us to catch up, showing well down to 40 m or so. The harsh light wasn't good for photography, but the images (more back at the flickr photostream) show the heavy, upturned bill with pale distal portion to the culmen. Note also the generally creamy and brownish tones to the plumage, unlike the cold drab grays and blacks of Common Loon. The heavy pale barring on the upperparts suggests a first-winter bird. The bird was still present close to the eastern limits of town when we paddled away upstream.