Down on Sagg Main Beach the other day, I saw a flock of birds I had never seen before down by the water’s edge. They had thin yellow beaks and legs, long white necks, black wings and thick white bodies. Flying off and circling around, as sea birds are wont to do occasionally, they made quite a sight. With the very pronounced black and white, they set my mind to thinking of flying pinto horses from the wild west, although much smaller, of course.

Two days later, down at the same beach, they were there again. I really wondered about them now. Were they here to stay? We have seagulls, plovers, sandpipers and an occasional egret or two out on the beach. If these pintos are trying to move into the neighborhood, it’s a big deal.

Back at the office in Bridgehampton, I mentioned what I had seen to Sabrina, who is our resident bird watcher. She ventured that they might be Western Gulls, and she emailed me a picture of one. I told her the Western Gull was too turkey-like. These guys are more graceful and have long legs and hooked beaks. I also told her she ought to drive down to Sagg Main to see them, whatever they are. Maybe she could identify them that way.

We’ve just come back from a trip to the Pacific Northwest and the Canadian Rockies. Three times, out on the Olympic Peninsula, we stopped what we were doing — once at a breakfast, when everyone got up and ran to a window — to look at Bald Eagles perched up high in evergreen trees. Bald eagles were going extinct just a few years ago. Now, they are coming back — and what a majestic bird they are. They have eight-foot wingspans and glide and float on the air currents without appearing to exert even the slightest effort. And boy, are they fabulous. They aren’t on the insignia of the United States of America for nothing.

On the other hand, we also saw four nasty-looking black Ravens, big as turkeys, fighting over garbage in a parking lot in Banff. Everyone walking down the street gave them a wide berth. You didn’t want to mess with these guys, with their beady little eyes, bad attitudes and razor-sharp beaks.

With our luck, these new pinto birds at Sagg will turn out to be endangered, so we’ll have more protected nests to be careful not to step on at the beach.