Common Loon

Gavia immer (Brünnich, 1764)

Common Loon, Gavia immer, breeds across North America and in the Palearctic, including western and south-eastern Greenland and Iceland, and winters on inshore waters from north-west Europe to the Gulf of Mexico and north-east Mexico. It is a loon of lakes and other waterways in the breeding season, with a broad black head and neck showing a greenish, purplish or bluish sheen, dark upperparts, and white underparts apart from the undertail coverts and vent. Outside the breeding season it is brownish, with a dark head and neck and paler underparts.

Order

Gaviiformes

Family

Gaviidae — Loons

Breeding range

North America, Palearctic: w, se Greenland, Iceland; subarctic to temperate n North America: w Alaska mainland to n tier of contiguous USA, across subarctic Canada to s Baffin I. and New England

Nonbreeding range

inshore waters: to nw Europe; Aleutian Is., s Baja California and Gulf of California (nw Mexico); w North Atlantic coast to Florida, Gulf of Mexico to ne Mexico