...is apparently the actual pronounciation of the town I've always called Suh-KAW-kus. That would be Secaucus, NJ, whence I journeyed on Sunday to take a boat tour of the Hackensack River. The Hackensack Riverkeeper organization has been working for years to clean up what used to be a gargage dump/landfill: that is, dump enough untreated raw garbage in the wetlands, and it'll all fill up and you can build on it. Which is the hope of any empty piece on land, right? To be built on? (Can you see why I gave up architecture?)

We -- JL, who comments here from time to time, and two other friends, one of whom organized the trip (thanks!) -- went out on a small open pontoon boat with a dozen other people, one of them Capt. Bill Sheehan, the Hackensack Riverkeeper himself. The river's coming back to life now that the dumps are cleaned up, and we saw a huge variety of birdlife. Highlights:

Three male mallards swimming with a single duckling. Capt. Sheehan said they were "the bachelors," but they were keeping a sharp eye on the little one just the same. (Wonder where the babymama was.)

Double-crested cormorants, great egrets, snowy egrets, greater and lesser yellowlegs (dining conveniently near each other, so you could tell them apart), great blue herons, and a cliff swallow. We heard marsh wrens and rails, but didn't see them.

And then there was this guy: a black-crowned night heron, who was lurking in the pilings of a bridge, stalking the fish. He looked quite noir, for a bird.