Backyard and Beyond

Look who’s back! I mean, probably. Couldn’t see the bands on this bird’s leg, but assume they are the black rings marked R, top, and 7, bottom. Some call the bird “Rover,” but I don’t think the Adamic naming thing has turned out well, so I pass on naming wild animals.
The bird was banded in infancy in a New Haven cemetery in 2018 and has been showing up in Brooklyn for a year now, with a hiatus last summer. In recent weeks, when Green-Wood’s ponds were mostly frozen, the bird spent time on Prospect Park Lake.
Like whitewash on some old wood. “Bald,” from an old definition meaning white. But the white feathers of the head and tail are age-determined. (Boy, does that sound familiar.) The tail will be all white eventually, next year or the year afterwards. See here for the bird in April, 2020 and then in early November, 2020.
Look out! Big bird, lots of excrement.
A piece of dried fish skin, found under the tree, along with some other droppings.