The 21st Century Matriarch

Internet Archive has the 4 volumes of John Charles Phillips’ A Natural History of the Ducks; the books were published in the early 1920s – well illustrated in color and black and white from drawings by Frank W. Benson, Allan Brooks, and Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The author was educated as a doctor but never practiced professionally…instead focusing on hunting, zoology, ornithology and the environment. He published over 200 articles on his activities including animal breeding, sport hunting, ornithology, wildlife conservation, faunal surveys and systematic reviews, and Mendelian genetics. I enjoyed browsing these eBooks for their illustrations…wondering about the modern classification of ducks and how many of them have become endangered in the years since Phillips observed them.

After the very wet and blustery morning, Saturday afternoon was wonderful for the boat from Lewes Fisherman’s Wharf out onto Delaware Bay. There were birds in the waterway between the wharf and the bay: a great blue heron

And buffleheads among them.

My pictures were not fabulous…but good enough for identification. The rocking of the boat makes it more challenging to stay on subjects. And some birds were just a little too far. These birds may be Surf Scoters. They were being identified by our guides.

There were seals swimming in front of the sandy beach of Cape Henlopen. We were hoping to see them on the rocks, but we only saw the mobile bumps in the water.

There were people and gulls on the beach.

The gulls were everywhere….flying up off the breakwater as we passed.

Sometimes they would sit for long enough…and I managed some portraits. My idea was to identify them all….but I’m being lazy and not doing it for this blog post.

My favorite is this one with the open beak individual on the far right – Great Black-Backed Gulls (note the pink legs!).

As we headed back….we went to the lower, enclosed part of the deck to get warm…after a few minutes I noticed a Bald Eagle on a breakwater (no other birds around it). I took a picture through the window since there was no time to run out to the open deck.