Tim Melling – Great Northern Diver

Tim writes: In Britain we call this bird Great Northern Diver, whereas in America the standard name is Common Loon.  In Britain we prefer the name Diver, because Loon has another meaning (fool) and we would not want to lumber a bird as majestic as this with such an insulting name.  But Loon was used in Britain about 100 years before Diver was used for this family of birds.  Loone was first used for Diver in 1634 and is a corruption of the old Norse word lómr for Red-throated Diver.  The word translates as moaner, referring to the loud wailing calls of these birds.  The word diver was not used for this family of birds until 1764, but confusingly, it was also used for grebes.

I photographed this one in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and the fish it has caught is a Gunnel.

Taken with Nikon D500 with Nikkor 300mm f4 lens plus 1.4x converter at f5.6 1/640 second  ISO 1250

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