Feb. 17, 1852 - ... If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. ... - Henry D. Thoreau

Journal of a Sabbatical

February 17, 1999

the middle of the afternoon

February 17

Newburyport boat ramp
5 buffleheads
Plum Island
84 black ducks
20 Canada geese
24 mallards
1 northern pintail
3 white-tailed deer
Salisbury Beach
2 short-eared owls
Chain Bridge
2 crows sounding like a cast of thousands

Cubby has ringworm now too. So it's Cubby and Moses in the isolation room. Moses' nose should be healed soon and he'll be out. Blackjack is out of rabies quarantine (yay!) and having trouble adjusting to being out in the main room. He just seems a little confused is all. Things are really pretty calm and quiet today.

The door opens. A woman stands there for at least a minute, possibly longer. Just standing there in the doorway with the door open. Joey makes a break for freedom. He's off like a shot down the stairs, racing around. Kendra locks the outside door lest he escape outside into the marsh the next visitor we have.

The woman who let him out into the hallway stands inside the main room oblivious. Finally Bob asks her what she wants. He tells her where Star is. She stops in the middle of the room, impatiently asks me "where?" and I tell her again. She gets even more impatient.

Kendra returns with Joey and informs the woman that Star bit somebody last night and has to be quarantined for 10 days. That just means he can't be let out when other cats are out - can still go in socialization room for exercise. The woman acts weird . Even weirder than she's been so far. She asks if she can see Crow instead. Kendra explains that she can hold Star, she just has to do it in the socialization room and Kendra has to put the other cats in their cages first.

The woman announces she doesn't want to bond with Star in case something happens. Nothing is going to happen. This is just routine. She wanders around for awhile and then leaves. We're careful she doesn't let Joey out.

Meanwhile on Salisbury Beach, Mr. H catches a tiny feral kitten. He arrives with the kitten tucked under his jacket. No cat carrier. No nothin'. Kendra scrambles to find a carrier to put it in and get an appointment with the vet to check it out before we can take it in. This is the last of the litter of beach kittens Mr. H. has been trying to catch, and it is positively adorable. Cute gray tabby face with a little white on it, longish hair, kittenish expression.

Even with all the excitement of Joey's attempted escape and Mr. H's arrival with the feral kitten, I was done by 11:45. I was turning spacy from not having eaten breakfast or had coffee before I came in, so I took myself out to breakfast/lunch at Angie's Diner.

Since I'm already up here, I may as well look for birds, right?

I wasn't really looking for anything in particular. As I was driving in the entrance road to Salisbury Beach I saw a short-eared owl flapping low over the marsh. I was surprised because it wasn't even 2:00 PM yet and the owls normally come out at dusk. In the campground I spotted another short-eared owl.

It's the middle of the afternoon. Why are the short-eared owls active? The tide is in and it's very high. Also, the sky is extremely overcast, positively dark despite the hour. Maybe the things the owls like to eat are out and about now. Mice and voles and stuff do tend to come out of the marsh at high tide. There's a cat on Plum Island who has learned to wait at the edge of the marsh at high tide to catch voles. The guy who gave the slide show I went to awhile back calls the cat "the high tide indicator" he's so reliable.

The short-eared owls are small, tawny colored, floppy flyers. Neither of the two that I saw caught anything while I was watching. One ended up perched on top of a tree and the other one on the osprey platform. Both highly conspicuous places. So much for owls being secretive.

On the way home I stopped at the Chain Bridge. Two crows were making quite a ruckus way above me. They were cawing up a storm and swooping down at something I couldn't see. Then I heard a bald eagle's scream. I guess the crows must have been mobbing the eagle. I searched the tree tops and walked toward the sounds but I never did see the eagle.