Appearance:

Large and bulkily built diver with heavy bill, square head profile and steep forehead. Usually holds bill pointed straight, not uptilted like White-billed Diver. Summer: White underparts and chequered black back. Black bill and head. Neck with white band. Winter; white underparts and dark back. Neck with incomplete black band, creating contrasting, jagged edge. Heavy, goose-like flight.

Sound:

Song: Like a slow Black-throated Diver. Pitch slowly rising with a register break, progressing into a cyclic, two to four syllable, motif. Also various vibrating eerie descending calls. Often used as sound effect in horror movies.

Song:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

CC

CC-photo:jackanapes, Licence,Link.

CC-photo:jerryoldenettel, Licence,Link.

Sounds:Recorded by Patrick Åberg,http://www.xeno-canto.org ,CC license

Appearance:

Smallest bird of Western Palearctic. Crown stripe yellow in female, orange in male. Since bird is often viewed from below, the crown stripe is often not visible. The dark eye with the large, pale grey eye-ring is a better character. Pale wingbars and pale tips of tertials. No supercilium. Behaviour essentially tit-like. Restlessly moving among branches in treetops, with frequent hovering to get at insects.

Sound:

Contact call a very high pitched "zit zit zit", only similar to Firecrest and treecreepers. Treecreepers usually calls with longer "zzzziiiiit" repeated at regular intervals, while Goldcrest calls in phrases with two to four calls in series in an uneven rhythm. Firecrest contact calls lower pitched than Goldcrest, and in a softer tone (but quite similar). Song: a very high-pitched, undulating series of arpeggiated notes moving down and up again, repeated 4-5 times ending with a marked "conclusion" (like "trying to start a tiny motor and failing"). Timbre of song similar to contact call.

Song:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC