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March 5, 1999 |
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storm watch |
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March 5, 1999 Newburyport boat ramp
Copyright © 1999, Janet I. Egan |
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The past tense of the verb "to sublime" is "sublimed". The meaning of the verb "to sublimate" that relates to this is "to purify by subliming". So, the ice in question sublimed rather than sublimated. [Feb. 28] Oh, and how could I have forgotten herring in my list of fish beginning with h? Haddock, halibut, hake, and herring. There must be more. There is no evidence that Jonathan Plummer sold herring door to door. And if he did, he would have called them alewives anyway. [Jan. 28] I think there's also something called a hagfish, but I'm not sure about that one. It's supposed to snow tomorrow and the weathermen are dancing around the forecast with unusual slickness. Nobody wants to commit to timing or accumulation. It changes with every report I hear. The temperature is dropping from our wonderful spring temps to more wintry ones. I got that "this is the last nice day there's ever gonna be" feeling, so despite all the tons of things I need to do 'round the old condo unit, I suddenly found myself at the beach. Well, actually at the boat ramp first. I keep trying to find that one Barrow's goldeneye in a sea of common goldeneyes (a river of common goldeneyes?). I never succeed. Today was no different. There were however a whole mess of old squaws, which are my candidate for the oddest looking species of duck. They're just funny looking to me. Probably they don't look at all funny to each other. Anyway, there's this guy standing on the boat ramp with a scope who is really excited by the old squaws. Turns out he has just driven down from the Adirondacks to look for coastal birds. He wants to know where to find a Barrow's goldeneye. I tell him I'd like to know that too. People keep telling me there are three here, but they don't seem to be here when I am. He's also looking for Iceland gulls, so I point him to the parking lot at Salisbury Beach. He wants to know what else is around so I tell him about the short-eared owls and bald eagles. He says he can see bald eagles at home so he's much more excited about the old squaws. What a difference a bioregion makes! Old squaws are a dime a dozen here but a bald eagle is an event. I continued on my rounds and crossed paths with the guy a couple more times. I pointed out some common eiders to him since he doesn't get those at home either. By the time it was getting to be near sunset, I saw people setting up scopes in places where short-eared owls had been reported. I don't just mean one or two people. I mean lines of cars. On the refuge road, and in the Salisbury Beach parking lot. Was this National Short-eared Owl Day or something? My big sighting of the day was the first redwing blackbirds of spring. Once the redwings are back, it's undeniably spring (well, that and listening to the broadcast of the Red Sox first spring training game on the radio...). There were four of them trilling away on top of the bare trees. So who cares how much it snows tomorrow. |
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