Peeking into the rock

So I almost convinced myself that the very large, very dark bird I saw at Lighthouse Field was a golden eagle, until I saw the picture of the dark morph of the -- you guessed it -- red tail hawk. It was perhaps the biggest red tail I've seen close up, maybe head and shoulders taller than an average red tail, but not so big that I couldn't believe it. I saw also a pair of falcon things. I guess that they had to be peregrines. They were way too big to be kestrels. Also, the almost (American) robin-sized birds that are running around on the ground at the field right now are either horned larks or American pipits, I think. The yellow-breasted birds, sort of finch like but bigger than finches, that are flying around are not tyrant flycatchers because they are not solitary. Maybe they are pipits, but if they are, the running around birds are horned larks. I am sure they are not the same birds that are running around (they're somewhat smaller and the running around ones seem grayer, less truly yellow). There are various warblers and sparrows which make a case for themselves, but I'm not convinced of any of them yet.

We just got the Sibley field guide to birds of western North America. We used to have the Peterson but we lost it and had to get a new book, and so I did the reference book choosing thing: I got all the relevant books off the shelf (there were seven, I think) and went looking for indications of quality. One: how many cormorant species does it list? You'd be surprised at how many books only list the double crested. What's up with that? Cormorants, at least hereabouts, come in several types (I thought four, but it looks like four total of which we get three), and they don't practice apartheid. So if you care,you need pictures and descriptions of all of them. Another thing: does it have in-flight pictures? Does it show you the features you need to differentiate similar birds? Does it show females and juveniles? How about common-uncommon morphs? Does it discuss seasonality, or have a migration map? Voice?

Sibley won. So anyway now I want to identify the feathers off every damned bird that flies or sits in town.

On another front, I'm still struggling with the storylet, which would like to be a very angsty relationship novel instead of a quick-draw storylet with a dangerous Thing in the Hills.