2/24/22 - COTE- Common Tern
BRDL threw us a curveball this morning. I woke up early, and solved it with some help from my birding app. The winning code was 'GRFR' -- never heard of it before. It was a Gray Francolin. Learned a little bit about it though -- it's native and relatively common in India and Iran, but has been introduced in Hawaii. It's a gray partridge looking bird. So I got home tonight, to remember what bird it was that I had learned about....and there was an update! The BRDL software messed up somehow, and loaded the wrong bird! Scandal! Or, bonus! Two BRDLs in one day!
The bird of the day, the true bird of the day, is the Common Tern. And it's pretty common, yet I have only seen one, convincingly, once -- while on our 'Escape the Pandemic' week vacation August 2020 on Cape Cod. Medium sized tern, black cap, grayish body with darker wingtips, red/orange bill with black tip, and forked tail. I have trouble with terns -- they move so quickly it's hard to get all of their markings down. Interesting facts though-- they drink water as they're flying, and can drink salt or freshwater. Many birds can, apparently, and excrete excess salt through nasal glands. Pretty clever.
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