Winter waterfowl
Feb. 23rd, 2016 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeIn the winter, when J. and I go for a quick walk from our offices, I especially like to go and see the birds that have come to the millrace duck pond. Today we had the usual, year-round mallard ducks and Canada geese, along with a black-and-white duck who was suspicious of us, and who I think is a ring-necked duck, although I'm not certain. I do know that we've seen ducks just like him before, but he's not an exact match for what I can find online or in my bird books.
Today there was another bird who was particularly interesting -- we first spotted him catching and eating a fish, then we concluded he was neither a duck (too big) nor a goose (too small). He was altogether black except for a bit of orange around his beak, and he was swimming much lower in the water than a duck would, as if he weren't optimized for it. He kept rising out of the water and working hard to shake the feathers off his wings. When I got home I looked him up and found that he's a double-crested cormorant. He very well fit the description on one website, "a prehistoric-looking, matte-black fishing bird." He could also have been a she, as the sexes look the same for his species. Yay, cormorant.
Today there was another bird who was particularly interesting -- we first spotted him catching and eating a fish, then we concluded he was neither a duck (too big) nor a goose (too small). He was altogether black except for a bit of orange around his beak, and he was swimming much lower in the water than a duck would, as if he weren't optimized for it. He kept rising out of the water and working hard to shake the feathers off his wings. When I got home I looked him up and found that he's a double-crested cormorant. He very well fit the description on one website, "a prehistoric-looking, matte-black fishing bird." He could also have been a she, as the sexes look the same for his species. Yay, cormorant.