Mike North
Joel A. Schmutz
Brian D. Uher-Koch
2019
<p><span>The Yellow-billed Loon, known in Europe as the White-billed Diver, is a relatively rare bird nesting in arctic tundra regions of North America and Eurasia. This species was first described by G. R. Gray in 1859 (</span><span class="ToggleUp">1</span><span>), and named (</span><i class="SciName notranslate">Gavia adamsii</i><span>) after the surgeon Dr. Edward Adams (who collected the first specimen) aboard the H.M.S. </span><i>Enterprise</i><span> on a voyage through Bering Strait. The Yellow-billed Loon is closely related and similar in appearance to the </span>Common Loon<span> (</span><i class="SciName notranslate">G. immer</i><span>), but distinguished from the latter by bill shape and color. Further, the Yellow-billed Loon breeds generally north of the range of its more widespread relative, although the 2 species overlap on marine wintering grounds in the Pacific Northwest. Increasingly, however, vagrant Yellow-billed Loons have been recorded wintering well inland in North America, a phenomenon that likely stems in part from improved information on field identification of loons in Basic plumage.</span></p>
application/pdf
10.2173/bna.yebloo.02
en
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
The Yellow-billed Loon
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