On the Wing #32: Oldsquaw
In what would normally be another life bird for me, I felt not only the usual bubbling of excitement followed by the normalizing of the experience into the sure feeling that I knew what it was I was identifying. Last weekend when I saw my first Harlequin Ducks ( Histrionicus histrionicus ), Red Crossbills ( Loxia curvirostra ), and Horned Grebes ( Podiceps auritus ) I felt these very emotions, but they've faded slightly as I remember them now. Today was different though. As the title suggests I saw a bird that I've held in high esteem since I was a boy of ten. As I gleaned through a copy of "Duck Hunting" by Dick Sternberg and Jeff Simpson, I looked over the species accounts and absorbed much of the information I know today from them. One bird always stood out to me however because it looked like the most exquisite dandy of the whole lot. The Long-tailed Duck ( Clangula hyemalis ), or Oldsquaw, as it was formerly know, with the male's large white crown and nape, ...