Journal of a Sabbatical

July 6, 2000

more blue sky, and greenheads

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island:
least tern (3)
ring billed gull (19)
herring gull (7)
great black backed gull (2)
double crested cormorant (5)
purple martin (3)
common tern (2)
rock dove (4)

North boundary midday shift (11:30 AM - 3:30 PM)

Visitors Contacted: 21
Refuge Biological Staff Sighted on Beach: 2
Trucks on Beach: 1
Greenhead Bites: 6

Today's Reading: Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Paxton Crawford

What a gorgeous day! Blue sky, low humidity, puffy white clouds, a sea breeze ... Having the midday shift at the north beach feels almost like a privilege. I get to relieve Bob, so we get to compare notes immediately instead of next time we see each other at the cat shelter. Bob says he's seen one greenhead so far. It's that time of year. The weather is perfect for people to be at the beach and perfect for greenheads to bite them.

At approximately 1:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time I got my first greenhead bite of the season. Then I got my second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth by 3:30 PM. Plus a few deer fly bites. But no no-see-'ums. A young tourist couple with what sounded like Dutch accents asked me if the greenheads were dangerous. Dangerous? Well, they don't carry any dreaded disease like Triple-E or Lyme disease. They just hurt. A lot.

Bird activity was pretty quiet today. Even the least terns were kinda quiet and unobtrusive, which is not typically the least tern way of knowledge. I only saw three of them - at least I think I only saw three. Three least terns would fly out to the water, catch fish, and return with fish dangling from their bills to the newly fenced in colony spot repeatedly. So I suppose it could have been 6 terns total. I don't' know if terns take turns incubating. I should look that up. I'm sure in my vast and ever growing reference library the information is just waiting for me to flip to the right page.

I spent most of the day in the company of a gull version of the Odd Couple. A ring billed gull and a first year herring gull hung out together the whole shift. They rested in the sand next to one another, flew off together, landed together, walked along the sand at the water line together... did some head-tossing displays at each other... Do they realize they are different species?

People activity was pretty heavy, but all were cooperative and nice. I like it when the people are nice. It makes it so much easier. Anyway, today I talked to 21 people. I think that's an all time high. Previous high was 19 I think.

The gull skull on the path is still recognizable despite another week's worth of weather and ATV tracks. I'm getting kind of interested in how long it will take to disappear if undisturbed. Of course once the beach opens (when the chicks are ready to fly), I'm sure Roberta will sneak it into her collection.

Plover mavens may tune out now while I digress briefly onto the Red Sox. I take back my suspicions of Paxton Crawford. He's actually not bad. I still do not understand why they called him up instead of Tomo Oka who pitched a perfect game at Pawtucket and another 2-hit masterpiece in which he had 6 perfect innings. Whatever, these guys may all be better than Brian Rose, but they don't make up for Pedro being on the DL. That is all.