Was on my bench early enough this morning to see two fine sights: first, a cruise ship coming in, floating along in that magic way they have. The thing was massive, like recumbent skyscraper, but made almost no foam where it cut the water in front, and no wake behind. And it was silent. Marvelous, heading inexorably through the fog.

And, on the other end of the scale, a tiny and very busy pied-billed grebe. Never saw one before, and though they usually travel in pairs, this one was alone. They like rushes and grasses and spend almost not a moment of their lives on land, even building floating nests. We don't do much in the way of rushes along the seawall here, so if it was scouting for territory it'll probably move on. Meanwhile it was diving for food, popping up, and swimming over to check out the mallard and then the geese, in case they were someone it wanted to know. They weren't, and it hurried upriver, to see what it could see.