Status and Occurrence of Arctic Loon (Gavia arctica) in British Columbia
By Rick Toochin and Louis Haviland.
View the complete article and photos here.
Introduction and Distribution
The Arctic Loon (Gavia arctica) is a Eurasian species found breeding from Scandinavia across northern Europe through northern Russia to Siberia (Clements et al. 2012). There are two populations of the Arctic Loon. The western population is a subspecies (G. a. artica ) which is found in Western Europe and breeds from Scotland to Norway and across northern Russia to the Lena River (Clements et al. 2012, Mullarney et al. 2009). These birds winter from coastal areas of Norway, south through coastal areas of Great Britain, south to the Atlantic coast of northern Spain and along the northern coastline of the Mediterranean Sea (Mullarney et al. 2009). The eastern population of the Arctic Loon is the subspecies ([i}G. a. viridigularis) and is found in Asia, with birds breeding from Transbaikalia, and the Lena River estuary east the Chukotka Peninsula, south along the Kamchatka Peninsula south to the Amur River and north Sakhalin Island (Brazil 2009, Clements et al. 2012). These birds winter from the coastline of the Kamchatka Peninsula south along the Kuril Islands to coastal Japan, the coasts of both North and South Korea, south to the Yellow Sea and the coastline of east China where it is rare (Brazil 2009). The Arctic Loon is considered an accidental vagrant to Taiwan (Brazil 2009). The Asian subspecies of Arctic Loon is the only subspecies that has been found in North America (Dunn and Alderfer 2011).
The Arctic Loon is a regular migratory species in western Alaska in both the outer Aleutian Islands and in the Bering Sea regions including St. Lawrence Island (Sibley 2000, Sibley 2003, West 2008, Dunn and Alderfer 2011). This species breeds on the Seward Peninsula with most birds returning to Asia to spend the winter (Brazil 2009, Dunn and Alderfer 2011). Along the West Coast of North America, the Arctic Loon is a casual vagrant with 4 accepted records for California, 2 accepted records for Oregon and 3 for Washington State (Hamilton et al. 2007, OFO 2012, Wahl et al. 2005, WBRC 2012). There have been many good sight records in British Columbia that lack photo documentation (Toochin et al. 2013, please see Table 1). To date there are only 2 records with identifiable photographs and both records likely involve the same bird recorded in the Juan de Fuca region of Vancouver Island (Toochin 2012b, Toochin et al. 2013).
