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Journal of a Sabbatical |
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June 22, 2000 |
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natural purple sand |
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South Plover Warden Today's Bird Sightings: Today's Reading: Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake, Hokkaido Highway Blues by Will Ferguson, The Herring Gull's World by Niko Tinbergen Today's Starting Pitcher: 2000
Book List
Copyright © 2000, Janet I. Egan |
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We have chicks! That's like in "we have liftoff" or "we can rebuild him, we have the technology". Two of the biologists paused as they were about to roar off on their ATVs to survey the nests and gave me the update that one nest hatched on Saturday. Others won't be far behind unless they were really late nesting, or re-nested. I had the south beach all to myself for the first hour and a half of my shift, which is a good thing because even though I was there at 8:00 AM as scheduled, I can't say I was really awake. Anyway, I passed the time scanning the side of the bluff for the yellow warbler nest but never found it. The only movement among the shrubberies was butterflies. Every time I saw something move in the thicket, it turned out to be a butterfly. Mostly cabbage white although a monarch showed up and landed on a pile of seaweed just below the bluff. Also, one clouded sulphur flew by but didn't land. Lots of visitors today with the hot weather and school out for the summer. Kids of all ages are fascinated by the purple sand. One little boy taking his grandfather for a walk commented on how much he like the "poorpul" sand. But the best line was from a little girl who stopped, looked down at the beach, turned to her mother and asked: "Is that natural?" When the mother answered yes, the girl ran around exclaiming to a flock of other little girls: "Hey look at this, the purple sand is natural. It's natural!" Somebody asks, quite concerned: "Are those people camped on the beach?" She does not believe me when I say the green things she thinks are tents are actually lobster traps washed up onto the beach by last week's storm. She walks away shaking her head like I must be crazy to think those huge things are just lobster traps. I might have thought the same thing the first year I was doing this, but I've gotten used to one of the strange phenomena that plover wardens encounter: looming. The weather conditions today are perfect for looming. Basically it's a kind of mirage. Not exactly like the classic water hole in the desert mirage, which is called an inferior mirage because it inverts and lowers an image on the Earth's surface and in our range of vision. Looming is a superior mirage, which happens less frequently in general but I've experienced it a lot on the beach and once on a boat at sea. Superior mirages invert and raise images from above and below the horizon. This happens when the air close to the surface is much colder than the air above it. This condition is common over snow, ice and cold water surfaces. In this case, it's the hot air mass hovering over cold water (and cold beach). The light passing through the warmer air bends toward the cold surface. This tricks our eyes into thinking an object is located higher or is taller than it actually is. Objects located below the horizon appear above it. Objects appear to float in the air. Objects can appear to be elongated as well as taller. So those lobster traps on the beach are a classic example of looming. They look big and elevated above the beach. Easily mistaken for tents. I've had the experience of mistaking great black backed gulls for people approaching at a distance, and dogs looking the size of deer. Other plover wardens have told me they too mistook great black backs for people. Anyway, the girl didn't stick around for an explanation of the optics involved. It is pretty cool though. Later on a guy tells me he saw a coyote the other day near parking lot 1. I haven't seen a single coyote all season. Last year they were way more visible. Not that I want to encounter any coyotes today or any other day. I'm just wondering how come nobody else has mentioned seeing any coyotes this year. Food for thought. Greenheads are starting to put in an appearance though I have not encountered any today. I did get bitten by a deer fly and some kind of tiny little midge. The idea of keeping a life list of everything that has ever bitten me, by species, recurs. Maybe I should really do it. Don't know exactly what species that midge was though. And it's not in my field guide to beings commonly found in Massachusetts (neither does the piping plover, so you get an idea what they mean by common). |
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