Talk:Loon

Merge with Loon

No one started this discussion, so let me start it with a resounding Against.

I am always opposed to consolidation of taxonomic groups. I am not real familiar with the sytematics but it seems that there are enough fossil records that are members of Gaviiformes but not members of Gaviidae or Gavia.

Good idea to bring this up. I'm also against merging, for the same reasons. Wikiklaas (talk) 13:41, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Against Plenty of non-Gavia, non-gaviid gaviiform birds. Unless there is consensus that all of these are referred to as "loons", in which case the article on Gavia itself needs to be split off into one named for that genus. MMartyniuk (talk) 16:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Relation to waterfowl...

"but they are completely unrelated to waterfowl"

This is of course completely untrue. They are birds. Of course they're related to waterfowl. Sure, we can say that they are not members of Anatidae, or even that they are not closely related to this family. But to say they are completely unrelated makes no sense.70.48.47.200 20:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know where Loons live ex a bog, the beach...
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.213.111.51 (talk • contribs) 13:08, 2004 September 24

They live typically in lakes, always one mate pair unless it's a very large lake and then each pair occupies one bank section along with its water. They're found very commonly in Maine and other surrounding New England areas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.106.19.44 (talk) 12:29, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Also I forgot to mention that they migrate seasonally to the Atlantic coastal waters and cannot take off for flight without being on a body of water. 68.106.19.44 (talk) 12:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

In a largish lake, usually enough distance from the land that they can take off easily with the approach of a predator.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.23.224.34 (talk • contribs) 13:34, 2005 November 3

How long can a loon stay under water without coming up for air? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.184.51.208 (talk) 21:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Improvement needed

"but are almost hopeless on land."

Weasel wording? - What does "almost hopeless" mean?
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.27.22.163 (talk • contribs) 18:36, 2005 September 2

Almost hopeless, as in they will most likely be eaten by the first opportunistic predator that comes along. Unless they're lucky enough for human intervention to get them to a body of water, as they can't take flight from anywhere else, hence all but hopeless. 68.106.19.44 (talk) 13:01, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Almost hopeless. Their legs are completely ill-designed for movement on land.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.23.224.34 (talk • contribs) 13:34, 2005 November 3

I added the cleanup tag to the article for the reasons cited above: bad grammer, general awkwardness, etc. --71.117.35.18 03:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

what was wrong with my loon trivia? it was researched, AND is the reason a lot of people I know have been to the loon page, and I was about to link from the other pages. —the preceding comment is by Stubbs supper (talk • contribs) : Please sign your posts!.

researched? the first line of trivia said that the common loon is the national bird of canada. that is a myth. canada has no national bird. prove me wrong. show me when it was passed by parliament. 70.48.44.57 18:56, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Headline text

Common Loons You Are Not going to belive..........
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.78.75.167 (talk • contribs) 12:10, 2006 April 20

Pets

Are Loons the first bird to nest in Minnesota and if why?

Fossil loons

Should we add fossil species to this article? Fossil birds lists Gavia cincinna, G. portisi, G. howardae, G. palaeodytes, G. brodkorbi, G. egeriana, G. fortis, G. moldavica, G. paradoxa, G. schultzi and two others, as well as Gaviella and the genus Colymboides. Colymboides has an article in (I believe) the Italian Wikipedia. Colymboides appears to have four species according to this paper. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 23:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Other bird articles don't seem to list their associated fossils. I looked at Cuculidae (Cuckoos), Accipitridae (Hawks), and Caprimulgidae (Nightjars) and didn't see any. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:00, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Penguin does. Alternatively, we could instead excise fossil penguins from there rather than adding fossil loons here. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 20:00, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'm not too fond of having that huge section of latin in the middle of the article. Perhaps for Loon (since there's fewer), a text version with a link to the fossil page? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 20:53, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I added a prose statement about fossil loons. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. Care to take a stab at the first paragraph under "Characteristics?" Every time I see it I shiver :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 00:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Italian and German speakers needed

The Italian version of this article appears to be much better than the version here. The German version is featured. If you can read either language, please use material from there and improve the article here. The one caveat being of course that there shouldn't be seperate articles on the order and family as the Italian version appears to do. Thanks. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I have started with resectioning the article so that the additional material can be put there. Additionally, I synthesized the German material on evolution and other sources and did a write-up; the section should be fairly complete save a few more references for the Gaviiformes presumed relationships (and any new material of course). Note that I have put in the fossil Gavia spp. in a comment; they may be useful if there is a revision of the material which e.g. G. Mayr might do in the not-too-distant future considering that he has some other hypotheses where it should prove useful (like Plotopteridae relationships). Dysmorodrepanis 05:10, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The call of the loon

The call of the loon is one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard, period. Could we get some media on here for that? It's like nothing else on earth. Sbwoodside 01:11, 26 May 2007 (UTC) Have to agree with that. It's utterly beautiful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.69.12.18 (talk) 20:32, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

MIgration

Can someone add a section regarding migration routes? How far do the birds travel and to where? Bonnaffon 11:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Shirley the Loon

Should Shirley the Loon be in the popular-culture section? At least Tom Ruegger has said he originally "pushed for a loon design", and there's a picture of an earlier design he preferred. --Kletta 01:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

He may have "pushed for a loon", but the current incarnation is clearly a duck—if it can properly be called anything "real"! MeegsC | Talk 07:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Additional Popular Culture item

The book Great Northern? (1947) by Arthur Ransome, the the 12th and last (completed) novel in his popular Swallows and Amazons series , concerns the discovery of a pair of Great Northern Divers (aka Common Loons) nesting on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 11:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Additional Popular Culture item

The book Great Northern? (1947) by Arthur Ransome, the the 12th and last (completed) novel in his popular Swallows and Amazons series, concerns the discovery of a pair of Great Northern Divers (aka Common Loons) nesting on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 11:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Congregation

Yesterday morning, 9 loons were hanging out in front of my dock. I live on a medium sized lake (approx. 360 Acres). They all appeared to be adult sized and they all swam off together when they left.

Anyone ever seen or heard of this before? 209.165.141.254 (talk) 00:24, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I have also seen loons flocking after the breeding season is over. I saw a group of loons today on Lady Bird Lake in Austin, TX. The article doesn't mention it, and seasonal behavior clearly belongs n it. All that's needed is a source... Wastrel Way (talk) 22:24, 25 November 2018 (UTC) Eric

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Loon/Diver

I've changed all instance of "diver" on this page to "loon" except where explicitly talking about the names. Parts of the article were confusing when both names were used in direct conjunction, even in the same sentence! "The loons may be confused with the cormorants (Phalacrocoracidae), which are not too distant relatives of divers" is really difficult to interpret the way it is intended. I've also changed a couple instances where the word "diver" was used where it was meant to be the general term "diving bird" Somatochlora (talk) 15:27, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Do Loons come to land when severely injured?

This statement was added in October 2015, by Whpiper (talk · contribs): "[...] loons avoid coming to land, except when nesting or severely injured". Unfortunately, the reference given at the time doesn't seem to mention this at all. I'm inclined to believe this statement under the assumption that Whpiper is W. H. Piper, author of many loon-focused research papers, but I haven't been able to find anything to support the 'severely injured' part in published work. I did find a source for the nesting thing, though, so I have edited the article to reflect it (and remove 'severely injured' for now). It's a minor detail but what started as a seemingly simple "track the right citation down" task has become unexpectedly involved and now I'm really curious to figure out what's going on here. I'm wondering if anybody has any insight? twotwos (talk) 04:05, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

References