Date: 5/2/24 4:27 pm From: Will Richardson via groups.io <t.will.richardson...> Subject: [countybirders] Loon Hat-trick off S. Lake Tahoe this morning (incl. Yellow-billed)
Geoff Hanlon and Jared Manninen found three species of loon from Geoff’s boat this morning, all in breeding plumage, including the best-documented Yellow-billed Tahoe’s ever seen! That bird was in about 100’ of water a few miles off the Camp Richardson pier. There’s a really dramatic shelf underwater near there, and if you’ve scanned off that pier you know that loons are often on the very far edge of visibility a bit left of straight out from the pier. That’s where this bird was, hanging out with a Common.
A Pacific has been hanging out for about a week more or less straight off Regan Beach, along that shelf from the sandy shallows where it drops from ~ 10’-15’ (right now) to maybe 30'-50’.
Geoff and I went out mid-day in hopes of refinding, as did another boat with Bob and Jenny Sweatt, Jennifer Scott, and Jeff Miller, but nobody was able to relocate the Yellow-billed. In fact, the other boat saw a large loon flying east overhead, and that was probably it, but it’s unknown if the bird was leaving the basin or just getting out of the relatively steady boat traffic from the Tahoe Keys to and from Emerald Bay. Between both boats we covered A LOT of territory, thoroughly, and twice. Hopefully it was just relocating for the afternoon and will return to that fishing spot in the morning. Best chances for seeing from land are surely off the Camp Rich pier!
We also found a Common diving at about 800’ depth, way out in the middle of things - hunting mysis shrimp in the middle of the water column perhaps?
