also Scissorbill, Shearwater and previously known along the Virginia coast as Storm Gull.
I'd suggest the addition of Penguin Gull.
; )
Do you see the similarity?
My 1917 edition of the Birds of America is a joy for many reasons, but I particularly enjoy it for the local or historical names; so often these names are much more evocative of a bird's spirit or some fundamental quality that we associate them with.
Peterson sort of dryly describes their call as *barking* or alternately as "kaup, kaup." To me it sounds like something between a bark and a quack. Members of a colony at rest on the beach will call anxiously to one another as people approach on foot and it sounds for all the world to me like a childhood game of "Marco Polo."
Listen for that next time!
2 comments:
Their bills are so thin. I know, but it still gets me every time I see them.
And I like that.
What the heck is that????
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