Bird Tidbits

• 22 January 2025
• birds,
• books

I just read The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico, and I learned some bird tidbits I wanted to share!

skeins

“Tamed in his enclosures were the geese that came winging down the coast from Iceland and Spitsbergen each October, in great skeins that darkened the sky and filled the air with the rushing noise of their passage–the brown-bodied pink-feet, white-breasted barnacles with their dark neck and clowns' masks, the wild white fronts with black-barred breasts, and many species of wild ducks–widgeon, mallard, pintails, teal, and shovelers” (Gallico 11–12; emphasis added).

Flocks of geese or ducks are called skeins! This is the same word as a length of yarn (“Skein”). I was a bit confused with the connection, but the Scottish Wildlife Trust says, “[w]ith their very efficient, orderly lines, they can kind of look like a long piece of wool gliding through the sky, rippling as the geese change positions.” Who knows, though, because they even concede it's a “bit of an etymological mystery.”

I also adore how the edition of the book I was reading typeset the flock's formation as a tiny v.

primaries

“Some were pinioned, so that they would remain there as a sign and signal to the wild ones that came down at each winter's beginning that here was food and sanctuary” (Gallico 12; emphasis added).

The main character, Philip Rhayader, is a kind man to all wildlife, and the birds all very much like him, so I was confused why he would pinion–bind the wings of–some birds that visited him. However, it seems pretty common to pinion a bird, and it looks like they might grow back?

“See, we will clip her primaries so that we can bandage it, but in the spring the feathers will grow and she will be able to fly again” (Gallico 19; emphasis added).

These pinions are the outermost primaries, which are flight feathers that allow a bird to take flight!

Those are all for now, but it was such a great read! If you are interested in reading The Snow Goose you can read an e-book scan here or find it in print at a library (WorldCat).

Works Cited