For the Birds 11

Whatzit?  Or, howzit?

It’s just a male bufflehead caught in mid-dive.  This is the winter bird of the sixth boro . . . Hmm . . .  maybe we need a whole set of sixth boro symbols.  I’m open to your suggestions for tree, rock, beverage, flag . . .  the works . .

Sometimes while sitting by the bay, motionless and deep in thought, I am approached by birds doing what they do quite nearby, like this one of a set of mourning doves,

this great blue heron I snuck up on,

and even these ring-billed gulls seen this way and

that.

I could be wrong about some of these identifications, but I’d call this a common loon in winter plumage. Several times I’ve seen these but heard the crazy loon sounds that serve as confirmation.  Ever wonder what a dozen and a half loons together sound like?   Ever wonder what a humans soundlike to loons?  Sorry, I can’t help with the loon perspective.  Of course, there are people who speak like birds . . .

 

And in mid-February this year I saw a whole tree full of these robins, coming up north in a flock early because maybe they knew as the woodchuck did that winter would be mild.

I started with a bufflehead, and as a reminder that I’m open to suggestions for natural symbols of the sixth boro.

All photos, WVD, whose previous birds and critters posts can be found in those links.