Non-stop bird action on the river, now that it's the start of migrating season. Brants, mallards (including a pair of males, swimming together everywhere; but this IS the Village), gadwalls, still some buffleheads getting fueled up for the flight north, two male mergansers -- and this morning, racing overhead, a pair of swans! A large colony of swans winters on the Secaucus River; I've been watching them from the train every time I go through there on this book tour. At its largest, there are about 40 of them, but last week they were down to maybe ten. That's about the area's year-round population, so the others must have headed back north, and I was wondering: do swans migrate in pairs, or in a flock? Well, I guess it's pairs. (These are mute swans, by the way, which Mr. Sibley calls "uncommon but conspicuous.")