On Sunday, a rare bird was discovered on Great Pond in Eastham, driving local birders loony. This unassuming gray and white waterbird was in the wrong kind of water in the wrong town on the wrong coast. It was a Pacific Loon, a bird you’d normally have to trudge through two miles of soft sand to have any chance of seeing around here because the only place these lost loons are typically seen is Race Point in Provincetown.
One of the persistent oddities of Cape Cod birding is this small diaspora of Pacific Loons that can be found hanging out at Race Point each winter, and increasingly year-round. As the name suggests, this is the wrong ocean for Pacific Loons and their presence here is a mystery. Equally mysterious is the fact that, despite hundreds of square miles of perfectly loon-worthy local ocean surface, they essentially only occur at Race Point, sometimes in groups of three or more, while records elsewhere are rare and always viewed skeptically without a photo. Is there a wormhole between Race Point and the Pacific? Or have people just learned to look for them at the Race and they’re getting passed over as other species when they visit other places?
It's easy to confuse the loons in winter plumage. All three loons we see here are gray above and white below in the bland non-breeding plumage we mostly see. Structurally, Pacific Loons fall between the hulking Common Loon, which can weigh over 13 pounds, and the petite and sinuous Red-throated Loon. Compared to the dagger-billed, Frankenstein-headed brute that is a Common Loon, a Pacific is smaller, showing a gracefully rounded head and neck and smaller bill. But next to the delicate Red-throated Loon, they sort of look like a Common Loon. Pacific Loons have a sharp, straight line of contrast between the dark and light on the neck, but their most famous clinching field mark is a dark “chinstrap” on the throat.
All loons are heavy, with solid bones and feet set way back on the body, making them awkward on land but great at diving and chasing fish. Penguins also have solid bones, but they don’t have to worry about getting airborne. Due to their heft, loons need long runways for takeoff, on which they patter their feet until they can get some altitude.
Most people know Common Loons, those yodeling residents of summer lakes in northern states. The other species are lower profile, nesting only up in the Arctic and staying far enough from shore to escape the notice or interest of most winter beach walkers, though Red-throated Loons are more abundant overall here in winter. The record high count for Red-throated Loons was over 10,000 migrating past Eastham on one November day, whereas Common Loon high counts don’t break triple digits here on the Cape. The state high count for Pacific Loons was 6, where else but Race Point. No other eastern state has a high count over 1.
Now that you’re hip to the loon scene around here, why not get in on the lunacy and see if this Pacific Loon is still at Great Pond in Eastham today – it was still there as of yesterday, even helpfully posing next to a Common Loon according to one birder. But mainly, if you’re lazy like me, it’ll save you a slog of several sandy miles to see one at Race Point.
