Journal of a Sabbatical

June 13, 2000

of summer

Today's Reading: Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake,
The Birds of Brewery Creek by Malcolm MacDonald, Plum Island and its Bird Life by Ludlow Griscom, Birds of Concord by Ludlow Griscom

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Brian Rose vs. El Duque

The sun actually came out today.

Beloved WGBH radio host Robert J. Lurtsema died last night. As a former regular Morning Pro Musica listener - for years I woke up at 7:00 AM to Robert J's bird songs mixed with classical music (different birds and a different classical piece for each day of the week) - I feel like I've lost an old friend.

A deer ran across Rt. 133 right in front of my car this evening. I had to tromp on the brake real quick to avoid hitting it.

This explains why I've never heard of a wolf eel. It's a Pacific species and it's not found in tide pools, so it would be a newsworthy event if Thursday's eel in a Skittles bag was a wolf eel. The thing in the Skittles bag did not look anything like these pictures. In fact, now that I think about it and am at home with appropriate reference books, I think it was an ocean pout.

The rain clouds have returned.

Imagine my surprise as I'm reading Ludlow Griscom's list of birds that have been seen on Plum Island and I come to Great Auk. Great Auk!?!? Turns out he listed it because the bones of a Great Auk were excavated from native American shell middens in 1869. So it's not like Griscom himself ever saw the extinct species. This little pamphlet entitled Plum Island and its Birds finally arrived in today's mail and I sat down to devour it immediately. Fortunately it's only 24 pages. It's jam-packed with history and sightings and other cool stuff. Besides knowing somebody dug up the remains of a Great Auk, I like knowing that in December of 1953 Ned's mother saw a Black Gyrfalcon there. The sighting report doesn't mention whether Ned, who was 4 years old at the time, was there. Oh, and the jetties at the mouth of the Merrimack were built in 1881. How did I get along all this time without knowing that? Heck, this is about the most fun you can have with a used book.

The Griscom pamphlet sent me off on a mission. His bibliography lists a pamphlet by Thomas Franklin Waters about the island, put out by the Essex historical society. Naturally (or maybe unnaturally?) I looked it up on bibliofind.com and discovered that a bookstore called Much Ado in Marblehead claimed to have it in stock. Did I order it? Did I call them to inquire whether they still had it? No. I drove to Marblehead to find the bookstore. It's a tiny place crammed with well-selected hardcover used books. The pamphlet I wanted showed up on their computer as in stock but they are in the midst of moving across the street and the "ephemera" collection had already been moved. The woman there took my name and phone number and said the owner's would call me when they found it. Browsing yielded two must haves: Birds of Concord by Ludlow Griscom (with it's frequent references to Thoreau's journals) and The Sea and the Ice: A Naturalist in Antarctica by Louis J. Halle (of The Storm Petrel and the Owl of Athena fame). It's funny how one used book leads to another and another and another...