He carried his childhood like a hurt warm bird held to his middle-aged breast.
A Herbert Gold quotation
Juvenile Yellow-billed Loon: Have you seen this bird?
Yellow-billed Loon
The Yellow-billed Loon or White-billed Diver, (Gavia adamsii), is the largest member of the loon or diver family of birds.
This species occasionally wanders south of its normal range into the United States, even as far south as Arizona. However, t breeds in the Arctic in Russia, Alaska and Canada and winters at sea mainly off the coasts of Norway and western Canada; it may sometimes be found on large inland lakes in winter.
Identification Tips:
• Length: 25 inches Wingspan: 60 inches
• Sexes similar
• Immature like basic-plumaged adult
• Large diving bird with long body that rides low in the water
• Large bill is beveled upwards at tip and is held slightly above horizontal
• Feet set far back on body, and trail behind body in flight
• Upperwings wholly dark in flight
Adult alternate:
• Yellow bill
• Black head
• Black neck with white markings
• White chest and belly
• Black back with white checkering and spotting
Adult basic:
• Pale bill
• Gray-brown cap, forehead, nape, hindneck, and back
• White face, eye ring, chin, throat, foreneck, and belly
• Dark auricular spot
Similar species
Cormorants have hooked bills. Western, Clark’s, and Red-necked grebes have thinner bills and show white in the wings in flight. Red-throated Loon has a thinner, upturned bill. In basic and immature plumages its back is spangled with white spots and its head and neck are pale gray, with a straighter line of division with the white foreneck. Pacific Loon has a shorter, thinner bill, a sharp line dividing the pale foreneck, and dark hindneck and no white around the eye.
Like all divers, the Yellow-billed Loon is a specialist fish-eater, catching its prey underwater.
The scientific name of this bird is after the naval surgeon Edward Adams.
The White-billed Diver is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
He carried his childhood like a hurt warm bird held to his middle-aged breast.
A Herbert Gold quotation
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He carried his childhood like a hurt warm bird held to his middle-aged breast.
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