ML40573011

Age and sex

Adult, Unknown sex - X

Observation details

Tim Lenz, Jeff Gerbracht and I saw an adult PACIFIC LOON this morning on Cayuga Lake visible from the hamlet of Aurora, Cayuga Co. Tim first spotted the bird from the boathouse below the college. We watched it for about 10 minutes before it flew north and out of sight. Jeff refound the bird from the post office about 30 minutes later (845am), when it was much closer to shore with a flock of ca. 200 Common Loons and 2 Red-throated Loons. Tim and I were able to take several diagnostic photographs through scopes. From Arctic, note the comparatively much smaller bill, smaller overall structure, paler gray to the back of the nape (which helps create impression of a broad dark line coming up the side of the neck), and no white showing along flanks (white on flanks could only be seen when bird was rolling on side to preen). We aged the bird by the retained upperparts (showing on image as mix of white and black--even on this poor photo, a juvenile would show crisp uniform edging to uppers with paler upperparts).

Technical information

Model

DSC-N1

ISO

800

Focal length

23.7 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/8.0

Shutter speed

1/200 sec

Dimensions

643 pixels x 386 pixels

Original file size

153.94 KB