How do you feel…?

Had a walk down Leg In Boot Square, today. I was hoping I might come upon Mother’s mysterious brown birds — you know, the big, majestic ones with the small heads, that were sitting up and begging like dogs — but no such luck. A great ugly goose had parked itself right at the water’s edge, and was patrolling the seawall like a sergeant-at-arms, all loud and burly. A-HONK!-two, three, four! MARCH!-two, three, four! Hoo-ah, and what have you. Quite the military bird.

Point of interest: I wasn’t the only one admiring the goose. As I approached carefully, walking on tiptoe to keep my heels from clicking on the cobblestones, I saw an old lady whip out a cell phone and take some pictures of her own. And that’s not all. Everyone who passed by had a look at the goose. People were pointing it out to each other: phoah, hey, look at the size of that goose; too bad Christmas is over, what?

How do you feel when you marry your ideal?  Ever so goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey.

How do you feel when you marry your ideal? Ever so goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey.

How do you feel when the bells begin to peal?  Ever so goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey.  Walking down the aisle in a kind of daze...do you get your wind up when the organ plays?

How do you feel when the bells begin to peal? Ever so goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey. Walking down the aisle in a kind of daze…do you get your wind up when the organ plays?

On another note, my attempts to get close to an eagle again, this time with camera in hand, continue to meet with failure. I pursued a nice fat baldie to the end of Moberly Road, and halfway down — what’s the name of that street, you know; there’s an empty lot with trees on it, and a car park, and a lot of…is that Commodore Road? Anyway, I chased it down there a bit, before an area of dense tree cover put the kibosh on my pursuit. Later on, I saw it again, circling high above False Creek, either harassing or being harassed by a pair of gulls. I’m dubbing that bird Larry David, on account of its bald-headed snideyness. Eagle, would it kill you to descend to a camera-accessible altitude? Everyone in my neighbourhood’s going to think I’m weird, stumbling about not looking where I’m going, with my lens trained on this tiny eagle-shaped dot.

Larry David

Larry David

Eagle, I’ll get you, yet.

What is it?

Mother’s visiting tomorrow, so today, I’m tidying like mad. No birding for the wicked (or the slobby) — but here are some grainy, long-distance snaps of the WTFerfowl. WTF is that? (I just know it’s something ridiculously common, something I’ve seen a thousand times before — something disguised, perhaps, in its winter plumage, or washed out by poor lighting…but I can’t put my finger on it.)

What the devil is it?

What the devil is it?

If anybody’s out there, and recognises this bird, please help me take the WTF out of WTFerfowl.