What can I say? So many ducks, so little knowledge. I was tired of looking at all these waterfowl and having no idea who they were. I ask myself, what difference does it make? It's not like I know their individual names. It's not like I can talk to them -- well, I can, and have been, but they don't listen. But it seemed important, and I have a policy of never refusing to buy an important-seeming book. So I went out and got a Sibley's. So far, I've learned my cormorants are Double-crested ones; that ducks can be divided into dabblers and divers; that Buffleheads -- of whom we now have three, probably on their way south for the winter and the weather here's so warm they think they ARE south -- are the smallest North American ducks; and that the new brown ducks hanging out at the pilings are probably Gadwalls. It makes me absurdly satisfied to know all this. I hope I don't start getting really boring on the subject.

I know -- some of you are already thinking, Start? But it's my blog.