Journal of a Sabbatical

July 5, 2000

wow, blue sky and dry air

Adopt These Cats at Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society

(Raccoons not available for adoption. Included solely for cuteness.)

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island:
stilt sandpiper(1)
snowy egret (5)
gadwall (4)
double crested cormorant (35)
herring gull (19)
Canada goose (40)
purple martin (3)
redwinged blackbird (8)
mourning dove (2)
common grackle (2)
gray catbird (2)
mallard (11)
least sandpiper (1)
great egret (3)
great blue heron (1)
great black backed gull (1)
bobolink (5)
American crow (2)
tree swallow (5)
greater yellowlegs (1)

Today's Reading: Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake, The Herring Gull's World by Niko Tinbergen

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Jeff Fassero

Oil Spill in Narragansett Bay

Raccoons are almost as cute as cats. Especially baby ones. The vet downstairs has a litter of them in the wildlife rehab cage next to the parking lot. They play kinda like kittens. I just couldn't pass up the cuteness opportunity...

So, Buddy is back and is none too happy about it. He picked a fight with another cat as soon as he came out of his cage this morning. He was having no part of my petting him either. And y'know, even though the activities director at Brigham claimed they'd weighed him and he's down to 17 pounds, he looks like he's back up to 20 pounds already. So now we have two huge black and white lump-like beings named Buddy.

Sandy ignored me for the first hour I was here. He wasn't even hanging out on the big yellow bucket. Then suddenly he was my best friend, head-butting, rubbing, demanding to be petted. He jumped up on the counter by the sink to supervise the dishwashing. When he was done with that, he sat on top of the fridge staring at the sign that says "Attention All Cat Bites Must Be Reported to Staff..." I kid you not. I went to get the camera to record Sandy reading the cat bite sign but he'd moved over to the bucket again by the time I got back. He showed no interest in any other reading material and nobody brought him donuts today so he soon went off to harass the other cats again.

Heidi is a returnee also. I don't know what the story is. I was too busy cleaning the community litter boxes, which for some reason were way worse than usual. Some weeks, it looks like nobody has used the community ones at all. Other weeks, it looks like all 45 cats have used ONLY the community boxes. Both are illusions I know.

Today's weather is so fantastic after the yucky heat and humidity, that I'd be nuts to try to be out in it for awhile. I hit the birding jackpot with a stilt sandpiper at the salt pannes. A life bird for me. I had to look it up in the book. I'm like sitting there staring at this thing that is acting exactly like a dowitcher but does not look anything like either short-billed or long-billed dowitcher or any bird I know well. One cool thing about getting into list-keeping (I refuse to call it twitching) late in life, is that you get to have "new bird" experiences on like every other trip! Anyway, I was pleased with myself for figuring this one out.

There were lots of interesting beings out of binocular range at Hellcat once again. And now that I've ordered the fabulous Nikon Field Imaging system, I have double incentive to just go out and buy a new scope. I have no idea why I keep dragging my feet on this.

I keep forgetting to bring the butterfly book with me so I can do another butterfly list. I want to do a dragonfly list also. There's not, so far as I know, a separate field guide to dragonflies, but my "almost every living thing in Massachusetts" book is pretty good on dragonflies. If I want to do this, midsummer is the time.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox are making me crazy.