Bufflehead
David Gregg
By
My Spark Bird story:
My father, a surgeon at Falmouth Hospital, on Cape Cod, worked long hours and didn't have much time to spend with us kids. One hobby he pursued with his meager free time was birding, and I liked it too, perhaps mostly because it meant getting time with him. In particular, we liked to drive along the shoreline of Woods Hole in winter, preferably during or just after a storm, and look for ducks in the coastal ponds and the sea. The first bird I remember being able to reliably identify (besides feeder birds) was the bufflehead. My brothers and I called them "bubbleheads" which seemed to make sense to us because the male's head looks like it has a white bubble on top. I still can't see a bufflehead without thinking, "Hey, there's a bubblehead" and remembering cold winds, a warm car, and time with my father.