Sunday, January 30, 2011 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM
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Wigeon v Mallard, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, January 24, 2011
Photo finish - variations on a theme
It's a close call but I lean a bit toward the subtlety of the American Wigeon over the brashness of the Mallard for best-of-class in duck design. Those are two magnificent birds, but now if I were to take the subtly complex design of a Wigeon head and neck and stick them on the slick Mallard body I'd have a... well, I'd have a hybrid Mallard.
Night camp
Site 10 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM
- This is a basic, small Mom & Pop RV Park with full hookups.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
- Locate Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park on my Night Camps map
- Click for Google street view
- Check the weather in San Antonio NM
Sweet, Rich Hickory Milk
Hickory was another favorite. Rambling through the Southeast in the 1770s, the naturalist William Bartram observed Creek families storing a hundred bushels of hickory nuts at a time. "They pound them to pieces, and then cast them into boiling water, which, after passing through fine strainers, preserves the most oily part of the liquid" to make a thick milk, "as sweet as fresh cream, an ingredient in most of their cookery, especially hominy and corncakes." Years ago a friend and I were served hickory milk in rural Georgia by an eccentric backwoods artist named St. EOM who claimed Creek descent. Despite the unsanitary presentation, the milk was ambrosial - fragrantly nutty, delightfully heavy on the tongue, unlike anything I had encountered before.