White-winged Scoter/Melanitta deglandi close to shore. And further out, Black Scoters/Melanitta americana.

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Snails are hermaphroditic so perhaps it is not surprising that the German word for snail, Schnecke, was masculine in Middle High German but became feminine in Modern High German. Snail in German, French, and Latin can be slang for vulva. Hegel thought snails upset taxonomic order; he presumed they reproduced body parts like plants. There’s a

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These give you a good sense of how small Bufflehead Ducks, and/or how big Mallards are. The same day the above were on Crescent Water, There was a female Ruddy on Valley Water, keeping on eye on threats from above.

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The female seen regularly in Sunset Park. This time a Northern Mockingbird was raising a ruckus about her.

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There have been an usual number of Brown Pelicans/Pelecanus occidentalis between Coney Island and Breezy Point and across the bay towards Staten Island in the last month. The fishing is said to be very good…. On Saturday, I made my second trip to Coney Island to see them, and unlike the first time, voila!

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Two and a half dozen Black Skimmers/Rynchops niger lingering at Coney Island amidst the gulls and pigeons. Flushed by a loose dog.

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Lesser Black-backed Gull/Larus fuscus on the Coney Island beach, slightly smaller than American Herring Gull/Larus smithsonianus. Two views of a nearby Greater Black-backed Gull/Larus marinus, largest gull species in the world.

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Small flocks of American Goldfinches have been all over the cemetery lately. The crop of American Sweetgum seeds is still largely to come.

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Not that Honeybee haven’t had enough of Blue Jays, already…

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