Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 22:07:05 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Rick Sussman Subject: Re: Loons at Clopper Lake MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/31/2002 8:50:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Bell@ACNATSCI.ORG writes: > . When it swam head-on you could see the chinstrap clearly. The > easiest field mark on this bird from any distance is the clear > demarcation of the dark hindneck and the white foreneck. The first > summer Common Loon shows a smooth gradation of white foreneck to dark > hindneck. Rick Sussman's note about the combed appearance of the crown > and nape were true during our viewing and must have something to do > with it's frequent diving and water watching. > Tyler, and all, I guess I didn't get a "head-on" view of the bird long enough to see the chin strap. It is evident (at least a partial chin strap) in the first of Dave Czaplak's photos. As my kids are fond of saying, "my bad". Glad to see so many enjoying this bird (and the rather late Common Loons as well). And certainly kudos to Dave Powell for his heads up reporting here on MDOsprey, even though he wasn't quite certain at first of the I.D. A really nice find, Dave! Rick Sussman Ashton,MD warblerick@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================