Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE LOONS AND GREBES

THE LOONS, OR DIVERS (Family Gavidse)

As a family the Loons are relatively very old, two or more fossil representatives having been discovered in the lower Miocene of France and the Pliocene of England, but so far as we are able to determine they did not differ essentially from the modern representatives, showing that the latter have changed but little with time.

They are birds of large size, ranging between twenty-four and thirty-eight inches in length, and are past masters in the art of swimming and diving. They present a very awkward appearance on land, since the legs are placed far back on the body, but the water is their natural element, and they are perhaps the most expert divers known among birds, diving so quickly that it is almost impossible to shoot one, when it is alert, even with a rifle.

Although they have well-developed and rather strong wings, they rise from the water with more or less difficulty, but when once under way their flight is exceedingly swift and as straight as an arrow. The sexes are alike in plumage, although there is considerable difference between the summer and winter dress as well as between adults and downy young.

They are blackish or slaty above and white beneath, becoming in summer thickly spotted or speckled with white, while the throat and fore neck are blackish or chestnut. In winter plumage and in the young the white markings are absent from the upper parts and the throat and fore neck are white like the remainder of the lower parts. They are circumpolar in distribution, the five recognized species being referred to a single genus (Gavia).

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