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November 9, 1998 |
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yellow rumped warbler | |||||
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Copyright © 1998, Janet I. Egan |
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Once I got myself out of bed, dropped off the laundry, had some breakfast and coffee, I resolved to spend all the remaining daylight hours outdoors. I headed up to Plum Island to see what ducks I might find there. First stop was the Newburyport boat ramp where there are usually a lot of eiders. No eiders. Lots of ring bill gulls. A couple in a pickup truck pulled up and the guy asked me "Where are all the birds? We came from Jacksonville, Florida and they told us there'd be a lot of birds here." "Oh, yeah, there's 75,000 eiders right out there but they're hiding," I joked. I suggested a couple of the usual spots on the refuge, which they'd already heard about, and the area around Butler's Toothpick and the campground at Salisbury Beach, which they hadn't heard about. I went off to the refuge and so did they but our paths didn't cross again. All told on Plum Island today, I saw:
The yellow rumped warblers were chasing each other from tree to tree near Hellcat and I got several really good looks at them. I'm terrible at identifying warblers but they made it easy by staying still long enough for me to note most of the field marks. I spent a long time on the dike sitting on a bench just watching the hordes of Northern pintails. There were more than the 16 I listed I think, but most of them were too far away for me to be sure. They had the gestalt (some birders who like jargon call it "jizz") of Northern pintails though. It was pretty cold sitting out there on the dike but it was too beautiful to miss. The golden color of the Spartina, especially as it got closer to sunset, against the blue of the water was just amazing. Along the road I spotted a skunk, which had the good sense to run into the bushes when my car slowed down near it. Unlike the skunk I saw on the beach a couple of weeks ago, this one seemed to be aware of dangers. Down at the southern tip of the island, I parked my car at Sandy Point and walked along the beach from one end to the other. I finally did see some eiders. A flock of 6 flew by. Six? I didn't know eiders could travel in flocks of less than a thousand! I saw two sets of deer tracks in the sand but didn't see any deer. The beach was littered with lots of small green crabs, razor clam shells, and fragments of sand dollars. I never bothered to notice whether the shells that wash up vary in number by season. I think I might start keeping track of that. I also found a nearly intact sea urchin shell, of which I haven't seen many this year. The sunset was stunning. I kept having to stop to turn around and look at it as I walked northeast along the beach. The deep orange and pale peach surrounded by pale blue clouds made me want to paint a watercolor of it. Too bad I don't really know how to paint. I did photograph it, so when I finish this roll I'll see how well it captured the colors. | |||||
