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Today's bird list:
78 ring billed gulls
2 black backed gulls
2 least terns
10 sanderlings
1 double crested cormorant
oodles of purple martins
1 semipalmated plover
1 semipalmated sandpiper
possibly 2 juvenile piping plovers
1 juvenile black backed gull - first year
Today's butterfly list:
1 cabbage white
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It's been a long time since I've had the AM shift. |
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Usually I've been doing either midday or PM. But there I was. |
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The beach was empty of both people and greenheads. |
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To the south, there were hordes of shorebirds. |
The shorebirds were mostly too far away to identify with any degree of certainty. I saw two chicks of some species or other but I was not sure they were piping plovers. The official count written on the white board by the gatehouse still read 12 chicks and 7 fledglings. I would have thought the remaining chicks would have fledged this week.
I contacted only 4 visitors during my entire shift. I also got no greenhead bites until I was leaving after my relief came. A day with only 4 visitors and 1 greenhead bite is pretty rare.
As I was walking back up the beach to turn in my report and head home, I saw a group of people, children and adults, run out of the water in panic. I went over to see what the problem was. The children were screaming "Stingray! Stingray! Eeeee! Stingray!" The way they were running, I expected to hear the theme music from Jaws!
A fisherman had caught a small skate. He removed it from the line and threw it back into the water. A small boy screamed that he wasn't going back in the water because the stingray might get him. At first I thought the kids were joking, but they and a blonde-haired woman were genuinely frightened. The skate in question was really little, maybe the size of two fists. Certainly not a sea monster! Besides that, they don't just swim up to you and sting. To get hurt by a skate you basically have to step directly on it.
I told the kids it was safe to go back into the water, but the blonde woman was still skeptical about letting them swim. "What if it brushes up against them?" she asked. I explained again that they'd have to step on it, which if it was swimming about would be pretty hard to do. I gave this explanation about three times. The fisherman who had caught it came over and told the woman the same thing. Finally, she said: "We're from the Midwest. We're not used to the ocean." I reassured her one more time and continued on my way.
I guess I am so used to the beach and the ocean that I take it for granted. Not that I have no fear. It's more like a healthy fear. I'm not so oblivious to danger that I would walk out on the jetty at the mouth of the Merrimack, or swim too far out from shore. The undertow, a rogue wave, a fierce storm, stinging jellyfish, the cold cold cold water... those are things to be afraid of, or at least cautious about. We don't get too many sharks, but I suppose I have a healthy fear of sharks too. And of course the relentless burning midday sun - that's a thing not to be taken lightly.
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