The last Saturday in April, I decided to ride out to Chappell Marsh Conservation area to see if there were any new birds in residence. Before I even made it to the city limits I spotted an (almost) all black birb bobbing in the river near the water treatment plant….
It didn't have the same profile as a Cormorant, so I stopped to have a better look.
Turned out to be an American Coot!
The reddish stuff in apparently some kind of sand used in the filtration process at the Water Treatment Plant...? At least that's what I've been told.
Since seen a few more a bit further North and downstream by the island between the University Bridge and the weir.
They were SO CLOSE I actually got some not-half-bad pictures with my dinky little camera!
Three of them!
You get the idea...
American Coot in the Birbs of Saskatchetoon Sketchbook.
When I started this sketchbook, I wondered if I'd actually see enough birds (and be able to identify them!) to fill it. There are 30 sheets, so 60 pages. I'm starting to feel like maybe I will actually fill it... of course, the new fear is that I will just fill it... and then spot another hand full of birbs near the end of the year... nowhere NEAR enough to fill a second... ugh... I guess we'll have to wait and see.
The reason for the big space between American and Coot is this...
I originally spelled it AmeriCACAN Coot!? FML!? Luckily I hadn't posted it TOO many places before I noticed and had to go back and "fix" it... Maybe i should have left it...? Who would have noticed...?
(oh, there would have been that special SOMEBODY desperate for self-validation by pointing out others spelling errors...)
LOL (maybe your brain was combining America and Canada?)
ReplyDeleteNice pic. Coots have interesting feet.
Ha-ha! Maybe!?
DeleteI think it was more because I often pencil the lettering, roughly, to get a sense of how much space things are going to take up... and then... i ignore the pencils and just write shit however I want. I think the "an" at the end of the third line, was at the beginning of the fourth... but when I went to ink i stuffed it in at the end of the third line and could start the "A" in AMERICAN right at the margin... and when I got to the second "A" must have gotten distracted and started following the pencils on the page... which was apparently where the CAN of the original pencils were... compltely forgetting that I'D JUST WRITTEN a "CA"...
doooooooooh....!
I had to google pictures of coots feet, because I've only ever seen them in the water and never seen their feet in person. SWEET JIMINY! They ARE weird-looking!?
Oh, yeah, it's so easy to make lettering flubs like that.
ReplyDeleteI know, right? ha ha