Red-Breasted Merganser

Red Breasted Merganser - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)

I’d never seen a Red Breasted Merganser before and yet I knew instantly what this was. The name came bubbling back to me like fizz to the neck of a bottle. I remembered it from forty years ago when I used to read bird books from the library from cover to cover. “It’s a Merganser,” an inner voice told me, calmly but firmly. Now I’m left wondering what other distant memories will pop like champagne corks and what they will reveal.

What a stunning bird; and it’s got a bill like a saw. It was closer than I could possibly have hoped but still the mist obscured it slightly.

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