Today’s Best Pleonasm
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Warm, damp, and rain-free out on English Bay this afternoon, with a few birds here and there: a Red-throated Loon, cormorants of the two common species, and a scattered smattering of ducks, among them these Common Goldeneye.
Most appealing of all, though, were the gulls. A single adult California Gull joined the Glaucous-winged and white-headed-blackish-wingtipped-birds-of-uncertain-parentage, and gentle-looking little Mew Gulls continue to charm at the beachside swimming pool.
It’s a funny name, “Mew Gull,” a little like “Graylag Goose” or “tautological redundancy”–”mew,” of course, just means “gull.” The current scientific name applied to this taxon isn’t much better: “canus” means simply gray, not a very good way to distinguish this bird from other gulls.
