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Common Loons are quite large aquatic birds. During the breeding season their head and neck are black, with some white stripes along the sides of the neck and on the throat. The entire front, from the chest down, is white. The back is near-black, with large rectangular white patches on the inner wing coverts and neat rows of white spots on the outer coverts. In eclipse their plumage is plainer. While the front remains unchanged (white), throat and chin also turn white and the rest of the head is charcoal-grey. Only parts of the hindneck remain darker, with a white indentation above its sides. The back is plain dark-grey, possibly with a few white spots visible on the wing coverts. The irises are red; the bill is dark-grey during the breeding season and light-grey with a darker upper edge in eclipse. Legs and feet are grey. Juvenile Common Loons resemble adults in eclipse, but their plumage is a somewhat lighter shade of grey, with a neat scaly pattern on the back.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Common Loon is available HERE .

Common Loons are primarily found in North America. With a few small exceptions (southern Alaska; the far north-eastern US), they breed in Canada, mostly up to ca. 70 degrees latitude, along the Aleutian Islands, the southern seaboard of Greenland and around Iceland. They overwinter mostly in coastal waters, down both the American East and West coasts. Along the East coast, they can be found from about New Foundland to the northern Gulf of Mexico. Along the West coast, they can stay just off the Aleutian Islands to as far South as eastern Mexico, beyond the Baja California. Some also migrate across the Northern Atlantic to (mostly near-coastal) Europe. During their migration on the North American continent they can be found basically anywhere in the interior, as far southward as roughly the US/Mexico border.

In Europe, Common Loons are non-breeding migrants to the islands in the North Sea and northern Atlantic Ocean and the western coastline from northern Norway and the base of the Kola peninsula to southern Portugal and the Mediterranean coast from Spain to southern France. They are increasingly also found along inland waters in western Europe (including the British Isles and Ireland), southern and central continental Europe and around the Baltic Sea.

J. Pires reports spotting two Common Loons in the Sado estuary, Setubal, Portugal, in January 2023. Another was found at the same location in February 2025. All sighting and photographic information presented on this page has kindly been contributed by J. Pires.