ice-duck

Updated: December 29, 2024

When approached, the whole flock rose at once, and flew with arrow-like speed round the lakes and twice or thrice back over the heads of their visitors, of whom they were not at all shy, being used to the sight of the man who keeps the reservoirs' banks in order. They swept now overhead, now just above the ice, like a flock of sea-magpies or ice-duck playing before some North Atlantic gale.

C. J. (Charles John) Cornish - The Naturalist on the Thames