Yellow-billed Loon - first-winter, Colorado River near Parker, La Paz Co., AZ. January 19th, 2011. Images taken using Canon Powershot A495 handheld through Swarovski HD telescope.This bird was frequenting both sides of the AZ/CA state line on the Colorado River just north of Parker and was originally found by David Vander Plyum et al on January 15th. Susannah and I failed to find it on January 16th en route to the Salton Sea, but I tried again on January 19th and eventually found the bird off Riverside Drive about 3 miles north of the Blue Water Casino.
For my money, the most exciting of the loons with a unique jizz and well worth the drive (about 3 hours from Phoenix). Remarkably, this was my third Yellow-billed Loon in Arizona, the other two also coming from the Colorado River - one at Havasu City in Feb 2001 and one on Lake Havasu in Feb 2008.
JPS
3 comments:
You are birding a portion of AZ I never got to in the 3 1/2 years I lived near Tucson. How wonderful to see this bird! I now live in MA and took a drive over to Turner Falls earlier this month because of your blog. While I did not find the Iceland Gull, I did find a snow goose and what I think are cackling geese. I posted pictures on my blog.
Good thing you are out there. We are getting swamped by snow just now!
Great shots of an awesome bird; however, I don't think I could pick a favourite loon!
Great shots of the loon. Now why couldn't this guy have made it over to Quabbin this year? Perhaps next year?
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