Black-throated Loon (Gavia arctica)
About the Black-throated Loon
The black-throated loon (Gavia arctica), also known as the Arctic loon and the black-throated diver, is a migratory aquatic bird found in the Northern Hemisphere, primarily breeding in freshwater lakes in northern Europe and Asia. It winters along sheltered, ice-free coasts of the north-east Atlantic Ocean and the eastern and western Pacific Ocean. This loon was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 and has two subspecies. It was previously considered to be the same species as the Pacific loon, of which it is traditionally considered to be a sister species, although this is debated. In a study that used mitochondrial and nuclear intron DNA, the black-throated loon was found to be sister to a clade consisting of the Pacific loon and two sister species, the common loon and the yellow-billed loon.
A real field recording of the Black-throated Loon. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
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Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
1 recording on this page · licensed Public Domain / CC0 ×1 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia and elsewhere · xeno-canto lists 175 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- Common LoonGavia immerrecording
- Pacific LoonGavia pacificarecording
- Red-throated LoonGavia stellatarecording
- Yellow-billed LoonGavia adamsiiprofile
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.