8 September 2013. Ruthven Park, Cayuga ON. It would have been nice to have picked Bird of the Day from any of: a young Bald Eagle that soared low along the riverbank during my census walk, a Greater Yellowlegs that flew low upstream and settled to feed in sparkling shallows just in front of us, or the bright lime-green-backed male Chestnut-sided Warbler caught up in a flock of Cedar Waxwings, or even the soaring and hunting Osprey, all of them made my eyes widen in near disbelief. But Bird of the Day was a Black Tern, dead unfortunately, a rare bird and freshly deceased.
The tern was lying ignominiously in a sludgy backwater and for a long moment we had no idea what it was. I picked it up gingerly and was struck by the long pointy wings, narrow beak and something glistening pinky-yellow at the base of its belly; maybe partially disemboweled we thought. Then one of our small party seized with diagnostic inspiration exclaimed, Black Tern! and then it all came together: the swallow-like wings and tail, the gull-like bill and the overall gray black topside plumage; Yes. Holding it at arms length, we admired it for what it had once been but were vaguely repulsed by what it had become, a muddy bird with nothing left to do but decay.
Perhaps the most disquieting aspect though was its left foot. The glistening pink-yellow thing at the base of its belly turned out to be a foot, distended, swollen and deformed beyond recognition except that claws were discernable emerging from a pair of cherry-sized malformations. It seems to make sense that the foot with its perhaps cancerous growth had so exhausted the bird that further weakened and drained by the effort of migration it expired at the side of the river .
Here are a two pictures of it. Viewer discretion is advised.
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