Common Loon (winter plumage)
Gavia immer

f10 @ 1/1250s, ISO:800, Nikon D3S w 500mm and 1.7X teleconverter

"Common Loon," Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Adult non-breeding plumage is brownish with a dark neck and head marked with dark grey-brown. The eyes are surrounded with white, and the eyelids are pale. The bill is mostly pale grey, with a dark culmen and tip, but in early spring the tip may turn whitish. The underparts, lower face, chin, and throat are also whitish. The foreneck is whitish, usually forming wedge-shaped notch in dark neck-sides, and may sometimes reveal a shadowy trace of the neck ring or a pale collar. It has dark brownish grey upperparts with an unclear pattern of squares on the shoulders and some wing coverts spotted with white, which are usually concealed while swimming. The male and the female have similar appearances, although they exhibit sexual dimorphism in their physical dimensions with the male larger and significantly heavier than the female.

Cape Cod Canal, Sandwich, Massachusetts

12/21/2018