03/06/2023

Great Northern Diver
paddles offshore stops to view
what it created

Erdos 2023

The common loon or great northern diver (Gavia immer) is a large member of the loon, or diver, family of birds. Breeding adults have a plumage that includes a broad black head and neck with a greenish, purplish, or bluish sheen, blackish or blackish-grey upperparts, and pure white underparts except some black on the undertail coverts and vent. Non-breeding adults are brownish with a dark neck and head marked with dark grey-brown. Their upperparts are dark brownish-grey with an unclear pattern of squares on the shoulders, and the underparts, lower face, chin, and throat are whitish. The sexes look alike, though males are significantly heavier than females. During the breeding season, loons live on lakes and other waterways in Canada; the northern United States (including Alaska); and southern parts of Greenland and Iceland. Small numbers breed on Svalbard and sporadically elsewhere in Arctic Eurasia. Common loons winter on both coasts of the US as far south as Mexico, and on the Atlantic coast of Europe.

Folklore (Wikipedia)

The voice and appearance of the common loon has made it prominent in several Native American tales. These include an Ojibwe story of a loon that created the world,[103] and a Mi’kmaq saga describing Kwee-moo, the loon who was a special messenger of Glooscap (Glu-skap), the tribal hero.[104] The tale of the loon’s necklace was handed down in many versions among Pacific Coast peoples.[105] The Delaware in the east of North America and the Buryats of Siberia also had creation stories involving the loon.[106]

Folk names for the common loon include “big loon”, “call-up-a-storm”, “greenhead”, “hell-diver”, “walloon”, “black-billed loon”, “guinea duck”, “imber diver”, “ring-necked loon”,[107] and “ember-goose”.[108] An old colloquial name from New England was call-up-a-storm, as its noisy cries supposedly foretold stormy weather.[109] Some old Scottish names such as arran hawk and carara are corruptions of old Scottish Gaelic onomatopoeic names representing the bird’s call; others, like bishop and ember goose, were used to avoid older names for this sometimes ill-omened bird.[110]

The common loon was eaten in the Scottish Islands from the Neolithic until the eighteenth century, and its thick layer of fat beneath the skin was used as a cure for sciatica.[106]