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June 22,1998
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Today's bird list: 6 common terns |
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The beach is pretty well socked in with fog this morning. It's supposed to lift, but the weather forecasters have been a bit off lately. At least it's not as hot and humid as it was over the weekend. The fog keeps people off the beach. There's one guy fishing just north of the closed area of beach but it doesn't look like he's catching anything. Could he see it if he did? A half dozen or so terns are zipping around and diving right in front of me but the fog is so impenetrable I can't be sure what kind they are. From their calls and their franticness I figure they must be leasts. They're far too chatty and social to be commons. A couple of great black backed gulls land on the beach just south of me and sit. They just sit. For an hour. To the south of them ring billed gulls, herring gulls and double crested cormorants are sitting on the sand clustered around a very small area with lots of wrack. I try to make out the details with binoculars but the fog thickens and rolls in closer to the dunes. The closest predator exclosure (for the plover nests) shimmers like a mirage in the haze. A big blue plastic barrel has washed up on shore. It looks like a chemical drum or one of those buckets that fishing boats use to keep ice in. There's a lot of smaller blue plastic things of indeterminate shape and size. There's also a green aluminum stairway with the black vinyl stair treads still intact. It's bent into a contorted squiggle but still recognizable. A couple of visitors ask me about the plovers and I give the abbreviated version of their nesting behavior. The visitors want to know why they can't see the nests from here - never mind you couldn't see much of anything in the fog. I tell them the birds are the same color as sand. The eggs are the same color as sand. Even if you're looking for them, it's hard to find the nests. The refuge biological staff has been particularly frustrated with identifying and exclosing nests this year because we've had way too many foggy days. I would not want to be driving down the beach in an ATV looking for sand colored eggs in a sand nest on a day like this. Then the visitors want to know what the big blue thing is. Does it have to do with the plover nests? It's just something that washed up. Lots of things have washed ashore lately. The visitors go into this long explanation of how the flooding in the Merrimack is clearly what brought all this stuff onto the beach. I notice they are wearing brass rats (MIT rings) and realize they are compelled to find a complex scientific explanation for what they're seeing. They wander back north discussing their scientific analysis of the arrival of the blue plastic barrel. After a long quiet interval I notice two dogs running on the beach. They're still on the public, open part of the beach but they're not leashed and don't seem to be with any people. I start watching them, ready for them to try to run onto the closed beach. One is a big golden retriever, the other a grayish dog with brown spots. The golden has a collar with tags. I can't tell if the other one does. Sure enough, they head for the fence and I try to head them off. At first, I think I've succeeded. They reverse direction and run along the fence toward the dunes but still outside the protected area. Suddenly they reverse direction again and go right by me. I chase them a little way and realize I can't catch them. I radio for law enforcement help. I give him a detailed description and location. I try to keep them in sight but even though the fog has finally started to burn off, the visibility is still not good. I last see them just north of the first exclosed nest. I report their location again. Law enforcement and the biologist with the ATV are out there looking for them I can see the ATV blurrily in the fog but no dogs. It's like they vanished. By the time my shift is over, the fog has lifted enough that I can see both law enforcement and the ATV on the beach. Two jet skis land on the beach just to the south of where they're looking for the dogs. I radio the gatehouse, but neither of us can reach the law enforcement officer on the beach. Fortunately, the jet skis leave after a few minutes. I feel bad leaving when the dogs are still out there but there's nothing else I can do. |
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