Sunset at Gulf Islands National Seashore / Pixabay.

My brother and I sat in the Santa Rosa area of Gulf Islands National Seashore in Florida, beach chairs perched on the bright white sand facing the Gulf of Mexico. In May, the water had taken on a bright, aquamarine hue, waves breaking against the shore in a froth of white. 

We had come to relax and swim, the culmination of my brother's visit before he returned to California where he lived. He read a book on his phone, while I had a paper version propped open on my lap. However, as always, I kept a pair of binoculars in my bag next to me, ready to jot down the species that we saw.

Gulf Islands National Seashore is a birding hotspot. Sanderlings ran along the water’s edge, probing for invertebrates, while terns and gulls and pelicans patrolled the shallows for fish near the surface. Loons are common during the colder months of the year, retreating from the freshwater lakes and ponds in the northern United States where they breed for the summer. I had seen one or two Common Loons bobbing on the swells, lazily marking them down,

Suddenly, I sat up straight, rapidly pulling my binocs up out of my bag. There was a loon out there, I knew that much, but this one just looked…different.

Pacific Loon at Gulf Islands National Seashore / Erika Zambello

I began birding at 23, and since have logged hundreds of checklists and over 400 species, most of which are North American varieties. Don’t get me wrong, there are so many birders out there who have thousands of species on their life list, but I’m comfortable in my status as an intermediate birder, knowing enough to know when a bird is unfamiliar to me.

Luckily I brought my camera with me as well, and I walked to the water to close as much distance between me and the strange loon as possible. Zooming in, I noticed the gray head, the red throat, the white chest: I had discovered a Pacific Loon. 

Now, Pacific Loons are not supposed to be in Florida, let alone the Southeast. During the winter they hug the western coast, in the summer flying up to Alaska and northern Canada. 

In fact, my sighting was so rare that when I submitted the observation on eBird - a citizen science platform run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology - their quality control volunteer emailed me to basically say, “Are you sure you saw what you think you saw?” My pictures luckily confirmed my initial identification, and he wrote back: “That is the first picture I have seen of Pacific in breeding plumage. Nice.” Woohoo!

In national parks, and natural landscapes in general, it’s so critical to always be alert to the flora and fauna surrounding you. Even when visiting locations you’ve seen dozens of times - like me and Gulf Islands National Seashore - there’s always a way Mother Nature can surprise you!