Visitors from the Frozen North

We were recently treated to a visit from a species that breeds in Nanook-of-the-North country:  namely, the red-throated loon.  This pair, probably a plighted couple, has been right below the Amelia Earhart dam for a couple of days.  We tend to think of migration as a thing that brings us birds in the spring and sends them home in the fall.  But while we're "north" for all those birds in the tropics, we're also "south" for birds of the higher latitudes.  And like typical snowbirds, they might like somewhere a bit more balmy for the winter months.  The red-throated loon apparently ranges an enormous distance in its escape from the winter Arctic -- even as far as the Yucatan. By those lights, we're not all that far south.  And heck, lately we haven't been all that balmy.