A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
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anhinga
A long-necked, sharp-billed diving bird of warm American wetlands that hunts on foot underwater rather than from above, stalking through the water column and spearing fish with a bill that works like a thrown knife. Its feathers lack waterproofing oil, which destroys its buoyancy and makes it a far better diver, but then it has to sit with its wings spread to dry. It swims with only the neck showing, which is where the other names come from: snakebird, darter, water turkey.
Etymology
Portuguese took the word from Tupi, in Brazil, where ajíŋa — also written ayingá — named a malevolent spirit of the forest. The name describes less a snake than the feeling of watching a head rise out of still water with no body attached to it.
Notes
Adults have no external nostrils and breathe through the mouth. They soar well and often circle high overhead in the heat of the day, where at a glance they read as a raptor with a crooked neck. In the southern United States, they are water turkeys, for the fanned tail.