Journal of a Sabbatical

May 25, 2000

light and dark

Official plover count:
9 pairs
4 nests

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island

3 cedar waxwings
1 gray catbird
2 purple finches
________________
2 great blue herons
5 yellow warblers
1 gray catbird
2 redwinged blackbirds
5 herring gulls
32 double crested cormorants
6 eastern kingbirds
4 common terns
20 Bonaparte's gulls
dunlins & sanderlings (large mixed flock)
5 great black backed gulls
27 least terns
1 great egret
2 mallards
5 American robins
16 black bellied plovers
18 ruddy turnstones
1 American crow
2 killdeer
2 oldsquaws
1 red knot
1 water pipit
_______________
2 greater yellowlegs
4 great egrets
2 snowy egrets
4 common grackles
numerous bobolinks
24+ gray catbirds

Today's Reading: The Birds of Brewery Creek by Malcolm MacDonald,
Uttermost Part of the Earth by E. Lucas Bridges

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Pete Shourek

I believed the weather forecast that the rain is over. Indeed it isn't raining when I leave the house. I stop for a bagel and as I return to my car I hear a thunderclap. A really loud thunderclap. Moments later the heavens open up. By the time I get onto the highway I can't see the road. Why am I driving to the beach? Why is the radio weather person telling me the rain is finally over and it's a gorgeous bright spring day? Where is this radio station? Obviously not on 495.

The storm continues until I get to Joppa Flats. Then suddenly the sky is bright blue. The air is hot and humid like a steam bath. Steam rises from the salt marsh. The trip from the gatehouse to the south end of the island is like something out of a dream. Everything is brilliantly clean and shines like it was just created this morning. Birds are everywhere singing like crazy. One skinny little bare tree by the Hellcat parking lot held 3 cedar waxwings, a pair of purple finches, and a cat bird all singing. Cat birds were all over the place. It seemed like every little shrub had a cat bird in it and every patch of grass had a bobolink. A bobolink flew alongside my car for a quarter of a mile, vocalizing at top volume all the way.

This amazing amount of bird activity continues on the beach - once I finally get there. Without even trying I see 23 species just from my spot on the beach. Two yellow warblers spend the whole shift with me on the beach. They are evidently a pair, as the male keeps offering little tidbits to the female. They chase each other back and forth from the wrack line to the dunes. Sometimes they land on a log right behind me. The male almost lands on my backpack but thinks better of it. I don't know if it's the sunscreen or the bug repellent he doesn't like.

A male redwing blackbird cavorts on top of a pile of salt marsh straw, catching bugs and offering tidbits to a female who blends in with the beach detritus really well. A catbird hangs around with the redwing blackbirds, hopping around on the beach. I have never seen a catbird hop around on the beach before. The catbird mostly mews, but it does break into fragments of mimicry every once in awhile. Swallows of various kinds are all over the place skimming low over the sand catching bugs. They move so fast and fly so low it's hard to sort them out.

There are almost no visitors around even though this is supposed to be the first nice day in a very long time. I see blue sky and puffy white clouds to the south. I'm so engaged in watching the birds that I don't notice the ominous black sky to the northwest until the storm is almost on top of me. I'm talking with a visitor who has come to look for bank swallows when thunder roars and a few big raindrops fall. I head for my car to wait out the storm, as does the swallow man. The heavens open up and I can't help getting wet. Twenty minutes later, the sky is blue again.

Back on the beach, the swallows are gone. Not a one remains. The yellow warbler pair and the redwing blackbird pair continue their antics in almost the same spot as before the the thunderstorm. The swallow man asks if I've seen any ruddy turnstones. I tell him there's a large flock of shorebirds just out of binocular range that could be a combination of ruddy turnstones and black bellied plovers but they're not close enough to sort out yet. He goes off to look for the bank swallows.

A flock of Bonaparte's gulls lands on the beach just to the south of where I'm sitting. The shorebird flock moves closer and I see it's about evenly divided between black bellied plovers and ruddy turnstones. I watch them for awhile, talk to a couple of visitors, watch them some more. They take off, swirl around, and then land right at the edge of the rock pile. We're talking close. I examine every individual in detail and notice one of these birds is not like the others, one of these birds doesn't belong ... It's a red knot. I've always wanted to see a red knot on the refuge. Cool. I start walking closer to the rocks and see the swallow guy looking in the direction of the red knot also. He asks me: "Do you see a knot there?" "Umm,yeah, on that rock right next to the black bellied plover." Made his day too.

A few minutes before the end of my shift, the refuge biologist roars by on the ATV and hollers out to me that she counted 9 pairs and 4 nests already incubating. Don't know what the others are waiting for. C'mon, little endangered beasties, reproduce yourselves.