Animals /
Birds Living

Yellow-billed Loon

Gavia adamsii

The yellow-billed loon (Gavia adamsii), also known as the white-billed diver, is the largest member of the loon or diver family. Breeding adults have a black head, white underparts and a chequered black-and-white mantle. Non-breeding plumage is drabber with the chin and foreneck white.

Overview

The yellow-billed loon (Gavia adamsii), also known as the white-billed diver, is the largest member of the loon or diver family. Breeding adults have a black head, white underparts and a chequered black-and-white mantle. Non-breeding plumage is drabber with the chin and foreneck white. Its main distinguishing feature is the long straw-yellow bill, which, because the culmen is straight, appears slightly uptilted.
It breeds in the Arctic and winters mainly at sea along the coasts of the northern Pacific Ocean and northwestern Norway; it also sometimes overwinters on large inland lakes. It occasionally strays well south of its normal wintering range and has been recorded as a vagrant in more than 22 countries. This species, like all divers, is a specialist fish-eater, catching its prey underwater. Its call is an eerie wailing, lower-pitched than the common loon.

Habitat & distribution

Habitats

TerrestrialMarine

Video

Representative video of genus GaviaCredit: Marc Plomp · CC BY-SA 3.0 nlSource ↗

Sounds

Audio pronunciation file from the Lingua Libre project.Speaker: Vealhurl Recorder: Vealhurl · CC0

References

  1. GBIF Auto Sync GBIF
  2. WoRMS / Aphia World Register of Marine Species
  3. Wikipedia — Yellow-billed loon Wikipedia

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