I live on an island at the edge of a maze of estuaries, at the convergence of a bay and a sound, a place full of waterbirds, even in the dead of winter.
Janice P. Nimura goes birding on the East River.
…they were gadwalls, not mallards. The female looked mallardish, but the male was different, with dove-gray feathers, paler at the tips, over a black rump. Understated and elegant, like a morning coat. I love the word “gadwall”; it sounds Dickensian, the name of a prosperous man of business, paddling about on the social pond.