Quote of the Day: "Hey lady, don't you have a house?" - Steve to me at North Pool Overlook

Journal of a Sabbatical

December 3, 1998

gray sky and purple toe

Well, the weather dudes were half right. It's warm out there but the sky is completely pearl gray. It's a pretty color actually, but it makes me feel sleepy. At least my joints don't all ache the same way they did yesterday, or at least I notice it less. I stubbed my toe sometime in the early hours of this morning when I got up to go the the bathroom. I wasn't quite awake and I stumbled right into the door jamb. My right little toe is now totally purple. But at least I'm awake.

At Starbucks this morning I practically had the place to myself until R came in on the way to work from a doctor appointment for her sinus infection. She was stressed out from a fight with her girlfriend as well as the sinus infection and was quite talkative while waiting for her coffee. She says she doesn't like to hang out at Starbucks in the evening anymore because it's not relaxing: too many people talking about their problems. Personally, I find their problems amazingly interesting. But it is kind of distracting if you want to sit and read and chill out. Many of these people have way more interesting lives than you'd think at first look.

Despite my purple toe and general malaise, I was inexorably drawn to look for birds at Plum Island. There were some. There were many. Mostly black ducks and Canada geese, but also hordes of Northern pintails and some green-winged teal as well as the coots that have been there for over a week now. I thought I saw a Eurasian wigeon at the North Pool Overlook but I lost sight of it. Steve pulled into the parking lot in the refuge van and I told him about it, but neither of us could find it again. I told him I didn't hallucinate it. It really was there a minute ago, honest.

I had the Hellcat dike all to myself today. Not another human soul around. Lots of coots, pintails, black ducks, and mallards, but no people. Last night, I dreamed I was at the Hellcat dike and the water level gates had been opened to drain the impoundment but instead water was rushing in and the wind was blowing fiercely. All around me I could see water swirling in every direction. I remember saying "I can't tell if the tide is coming in or going out" and then looking over at the ocean and seeing huge waves breaking in two directions with white spray flying everywhere. The funny thing is you can't see the ocean from the dike unless you climb up the observation tower - you can't see over the dunes. But in this dream the ocean was like right there on the other side of Bill Forward Pool and a very angry ocean it was! Sitting there today and seeing flat,unrippled water all silvery gray and not moving, it was hard to imagine where that dream came from.

It was a day of "almost" and "maybe" sightings. Besides the vanishing Eurasian wigeon, I think I saw an immature Northern shrike. It was perched on a tree next to Parking Lot 7. It had that shrike kind of build and sort of the gray and white coloring but with a little brownish color (chestnut, I dunno) streaking on the body near its rear end kind of under the wings. I turned around to look at the book and it took off. I looked for it nearby in the thicket but all I found were two American tree sparrows. What is it with the tree sparrows? There have been tons of them around for some weeks now. Aren't they supposed to go somewhere other than here for the winter?