HomeAugust 31, 1997
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power playThe power went out last night as I was on my way out the door to pick up Nancy at the bus station. I thought nothing of it, figuring it would be back on by the time I got home. We had a leisurely dinner at S & S Deli in Cambridge and headed back north. No power! I reset all the breakers. Nothing. I called Mass Electric. They called back and said it wasn't them and had I checked the breaker box? Yes? Well try again. So I flipped breakers while the nice lady from Mass Electric stayed on the line and coached me. Still nothing. She tells me to call my landlord - umm, this is a condo, no landlord, no building manager, no nothing - it's up to me. Call an electrician. By this time it's nearly 10:00 PM. Joan-east's husband, Paul, is an electrician. I call. Amazingly he says comes right over. Joan-east comes with in case I need somebody to keep Wilbur from dashing outside in the dark or something. We chat while Paul checks the breaker box and stuff. Then he checks outside where the meter is and where the electric service enters. He asks, cryptically, "you get along with everybody here?" The main breaker has been shut off. Not tripped by overload or something - shut all the way off. Much hammering and banging, which Wilbur does not enjoy. The lights come on! I thank Paul and Joan-east profusely and lay awake wondering who shut it off and why. I finally drift off to sleep realizing it must have been kids playing and it probably wasn't malicious. My doubts resurface in the morning for no reason and continue to plague me... but the power stays on. pelican questAfter all the talk about the pelican, I decide today's agenda has to be a trip to Plum Island to look for it. Well, we took just about the whole afternoon not finding the pelican and it was great fun. greater and lesser yellowlegsWe saw a flock of lesser yellowlegs and a few greater yellowlegs at the boat ramp. We got really close to them. Nancy could even identify them without binoculars. That's close. We watched them feed for awhile - they'd scatter when herring gulls and crows came by and then fly right back and start their feeding again. A herring gull caught a crab and broke open its shell with one powerful blow from its beak. It let go with an ear-splitting cry - beak full open - throat throbbing - and then ate the crab. It almost seemed proud of its accomplishment. mystery birdNext stop was the small parking lot under the bridge onto Plum Island. The tide was out and shorebirds galore were feeding in the muck of the salt marsh. Human kayakers galore were pulling their kayaks out and getting really dirty. Among all the semipalmated sandpipers I saw a bird I didn't recognize. It was feeding by moving its head up and down like a sewing machine needle, penetrating the muck with its bill almost until its head went under. One of the kayakers tried to tell me it was a tern. The kayakers are from New York, they told us proudly, and they come up here all the time and know the birds. These same people had moments ago told their daughter that the two herring gulls in the marsh were snowy egrets, but I tried to listen politely before I explained that I'd never seen a tern feed that way. Nancy was more direct - "that is not a tern". Anyway, my best guess was a juvenile short-billed dowitcher but I really couldn't tell. Field guides don't show how the birds look with mud on their heads :-) I compared and contrasted short-billed dowitchers, stilt sandpipers, and Hudsonian godwits on my National Audubon CD (which I've forgiven for crashing and destroying my life list now that I've reconstituted the list and made a paper backup) after we got back to my place but still didn't feel confident in my identification. Shorebirds are not easy - especially muddy ones on dark gray misty day... hellcatOn to Hellcat Swamp where the pelican was last seen. But first we stopped at the Salt Pannes to look at a great egret. Pretty big compared to a snowy. A couple more stops along the refuge road for other interesting sightings. Then a walk to the observation tower at the dike at Hellcat. No pelican. Normally kind of shy, I still manage to find it in me to ask everybody I meet: "seen the pelican?" "Nope, we're looking for it too." or "Nope, but it was here yesterday." I walk the boardwalk to the bird blind in the marsh. No pelican but lots of Australian tourists looking at a deer. By the time they leave the blind, the deer is gone from view. Back to the car. Retrace the route. No pelican. We decide Roberta has kidnapped the pelican and is even now driving it to Florida. Let's see if it was last seen yesterday, they're probably in Delaware by now. We picture them in a cheap motel somewhere in Delaware. Roberta and the pelican sharing a bed and watching a video. What kind of movie would a pelican rent? |
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