Texas Chic
New member
My interest in joining this website is to find out if anyone can help me identify a most interesting bird that landed on our dock last Friday. We live on a small lake in the midst of a forest, so we get a fair number of birds to watch. Usually they are easily identified, but this one was very unusual: All black from the back, about 9 inches tall and 3 1/2 inches across, it actually looked like a black kitten from the back. I called to my husband to come and look, and just at that moment it flew away. Then I saw the white front, with a solid black horirzontal stripe across the body. It all happened so fast, but I stand by my statement that it looked like a kitten on its haunches from the back.-- a broad body form that went from head to bottom. Any insights are welcome!