Journal of a Sabbatical

July 19, 2000

the cats of wednesday morning

Adopt Joe and/or lots of other wonderful cats at Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society.

More about these cats, more cats, and dogs and geese and all kinds of homeless animals at Bonnie Buckley's Adopt Homeless Paws site.

The weeds are not up for adoption. I just thought they looked interesting. They are from top to bottom:
Rosa rugosa (aka beach rose)
Common mullein
Blue eyed grass

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island
greater yellowlegs (1)
great egret (3)
common grackle (2)
snowy egret (3)
eastern kingbird (2)
gadwall (18)
American crow (3)
lesser yellowlegs(2)
least tern (4)
semipalmated sandpiper (1)
gray catbird (7)
purple martin (4)
double crested cormorant (7)
mourning dove (3)
brown thrasher (3)
song sparrow (1)
American goldfinch (2)
Canada goose (16)
redwinged blackbird (1)
herring gull (14)
ring billed gull (14)
bobolink (1)
American robin (2)
common tern (2)

Butterflies:
cabbage white
clouded sulphur
eastern tiger swallowtail

Today's Reading: The Herring Gull's World by Niko Tinbergen

Today's Starting Pitcher: Pete Schourek was scheduled but the game was rained out

The plot thickens. First thing I noticed this morning was Buddy's name on the adoptions board. Since there are too many Buddies, I asked Kendra right away.

Me: "Is that big Buddy who got adopted?"
Kendra: "Yes, some woman who is a friend of Mrs. L..."
Me: "What, the fake niece? I thought she absolutely positively did not want Buddy."
Chorus: "I guess she changed her mind."

So, here it is Wednesday again already. Somebody from the Tuesday night shift has put a nice comfy towel and a catnip toy on top of the big yellow bucket for Sandy. He reigns as lord of the yellow bucket today. Of course this means anybody who wants to get litter to refill the boxes may experience sharp alteration in Sandy's mood. For now, he's mellow and affectionate. All is right with his world.

The new guy today is Joe, a cute light orange kitten - a paler color than my new best friend Sandy or my cohabitant Wilbur. He finds the lens cap dangling from my camera irresistible. Some of the black and white kittens are still around as is the tabby from that litter. We don't usually have kittens around this long. It's kind of fun.

There are way too many people here today. It would be great to have all this help except the place is so small we keep stepping on each other. Reminds me about that example of the Law of Diminishing Returns: One farmer cultivates a plot of land. Add another farmer and they cultivate it twice as fast. Add a third farmer and they start having to communicate and stay out of each other's way so you get some improvement but not 3 times. Keep adding farmers, they keep getting in each other's way. Pretty soon you end up with nothing but dirt and dead farmers. I think we passed the point where diminishing returns turns into dirt and dead farmers today.

Bob and I both start to feel crowded and retreat to the office for awhile to play with the black and white kittens. This refreshes me a little, plus a couple of the people leave, and Cynthia and James hang out in the conference room/socialization room petting Katrina who has become Cynthia's new best friend.

Somehow, I still manage to get 99% of the dishes done, including the community litter boxes and the community water bowls, which I note have not had the towels under them changed since I did it last week.

Miraculously, there is still time for a quick lunch - the girl at Angelina's started making my sandwich the instant she saw my car pull into the parking lot and it was ready before I finished giving my order - coffee, and a brief drive-by birding outing.

First, I stop by The Birdwatcher of Newburyport to discuss which Nikon scope I should order to work with the Nikon Field Imaging system - which actually arrived on July 6 but I'm just now getting to deal with. Carl at Birdwatcher had called Nikon for price info and left me a phone message, but here I am returning his call in person. Except that he's home mulching and the young woman who works there doesn't understand the note he left with the info for me. She calls him at home, I get the info and ask him to order the scope. He says he'll order it tomorrow. So, soon, I get to see if this miraculous camera and monitor will actually enable Nancy to see far away shorebirds and diving ducks at the cove - I could just use the scope but with Nancy's odd visual problems she can't. Hence the Field Imaging System. Besides that, I just like the idea of finally having some techno-geek toy that is so new none of my family or friends even know what it is let alone have one.

Still scopeless, but not for much longer, I don't really get the full impact of the beginnings of the shorebird migration. I am always amazed at how many species I can see just from the refuge road without even really trying. Mourning doves attempt to get out of my way by flying directly at the car. Brown thrashers criss-cross the road near the Pines Trail disappearing in the bushes. Gray catbirds fly back and forth making lots of noise. Oddly only one bobolink starts up from the grass. It's a pretty quiet bird day, but July usually is.