Journal of a Sabbatical

July 20, 2000

the birds of thursday morning

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island
least tern (5)
piping plover (1)
great black backed gull (4)
ring-billed gull (48)
purple martin (2)
double crested cormorant (3)
common tern (3)
semipalmated sandpiper (2)
barn swallow (10)

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

Today's Starting Pitcher: Ramón Martinez in the first game
Pete Schourek in the second game

Greenheads are out in force today. The AM shift north plover warden is dancing around at the water's edge in constant motion when I arrive. I kind of expected there'd be greenheads so I doused my entire body in insect repellent (with deet) before I even got dressed this morning. Doused my shorts, socks, and T-shirt too. I'm prepared. Or so I believe.

At first, the greenheads just fly around me annoyingly but don't bite. After about 45 minutes, they start to land but don't bite. After an hour they start biting and drawing blood. I spray more Cutter's on body and clothing. They stay a short distance away for about 20 minutes. I walk back and forth constantly.

I talk to 2 visitors. Most people have fled the beach under the greenhead onslaught. I sit down for a respite.

Then they bite in earnest - through the plastic mesh of the chair and my shorts! I spray the chair. They still bite through it. I stand up. The back and seat of the chair are decorated with blood spots. My blood spots. Yuck.

I smear holistic all-natural insect bite lotion on the bites and spray on more repellent.

Another visitor shows up and after greeting me with "you sure have the job from hell today" in what I thought was sympathy, proceeds to give me a hard time about the beach closure and argues that walking along the water line could not possibly do any harm to the piping plovers. After all, she tells me, the nests are up on the beach and the mothers dive bomb you if you get too close. Umm, I realize she's thinking about least terns. Least terns will set up a ruckus and dive bomb your head if you get anywhere close to the nest. I picture this nightmare of being bled dry by greenheads while the least terns peck holes in my head. What a thought! Anyway, despite the fact that talking to this visitor means I have to stand still and thus become easy prey for the greenheads, I explain that piping plover chicks feed at the water line and are so small and sandy colored that they're easy to step on never mind terrify if you're walking along the water line, and that the adults might leave the nest if they get spooked, and so on and so on.

Piping plovers are not at all like least terns in this respect. If a piping plover perceives a threat to itself or its young, it freezes and does that so-called "broken-wing" display, which may be to distract predators or may just be some kind of displacement behavior (can you tell I've been reading Tinbergen?) The chicks freeze and blend in with the sand if threatened, making it all the more likely that the threat won't see them. This works fine if the threat is a gull or other predator, but not so fine if the threat is a jogger pounding down the sand or an ATV or off-road vehicle, or even a clueless walker.

Besides all that, why on earth is anybody walking or jogging out here on the worst greenhead day of the season? People are fleeing the beach in droves as it gets to be afternoon. By 1:30, I realize I can't take it anymore either. I radio the gatehouse: "North plover warden to gatehouse. I officially can't take it anymore. I'm packing up." She is not surprised.

Meanwhile, the south plover warden has been entirely untroubled by greenheads. Apparently there's more of a breeze down there. Remind me to make a note of that for this time next year.

I briefly consider doing a drive-by birding pass to see if I can find some Hudsonian godwits or something, but once I turn in my report all I want to do is go home to shower and get all this deet off my skin - not to mention the streaks of blood that make me look like an accident victim.

I have to stop at the cat shelter on the way home to drop off some Rolodex cards of the latest batch of new volunteers, an updated schedule, and a hand soap dispenser. I'd forgotten to bring the hand soap dispenser yesterday and noticed we still didn't have one by the sink (the former dispenser migrated to the bathroom because the one in the bathroom vanished). So today I remembered. So did Kendra. So did Chris. We now have three soap dispensers!

Sandy, my new best friend, evidently is not Kendra's new best friend. He bit her! I guess he did not understand that sign he was reading the other day about cat bites requiring ten day quarantine. Boy is he gonna be pissed when he realizes he can't be lord of the big yellow bucket. Who knows what a cat's sense of cause and effect is? Who knows what a cat's sense of time is?

At last home and showered! I no longer smell like deet and feel like I'm coated in dried blood mixed with sand. It feels soooooo good to be clean and far away from greenheads.