Journal of a Sabbatical
The Plover Warden Diaries

April 19, 1999

horned grebe has horns

Plover count: 16

Bird list:

1 common loon
88 double-crested cormorants
1 horned grebe
2 great black-backed gulls
3 red-breasted mergansers

and 1 harbor seal

Today was a busy plover warden shift. When I came on duty two trespassers with an unleashed dog were already on the closed area of beach. I couldn't get their attention as they were too far away. I radioed the gatehouse for law enforcement before I even got set up. Law enforcement had to go in over the dunes to get them. As soon as he spoke to them they put the dog back on its leash and walked back out the way they came. When they passed me the dog tried to get off its leash and come over to play with me. I radioed the gatehouse that they'd left the refuge. They heard me and turned around to tell me they were sorry and hadn't seen the sign. The sign is huge and obvious, but they didn't see it. I hear that one at least once every season.

Today is a holiday in Massachusetts, Patriot's Day, and it's school vacation week, so loads of people were at the beach today. I spoke with dozens of visitors, describing the full life cycle of the piping plover to each. And a couple from the Midwest asked me about - of all things- quahogs. They'd heard them mentioned in some news story about a fishing boat sinking or something and didn't know what they were. I had to give them the biology of the northern quahog as best I understood it. I have had questions about greenheads, little skates, great black-backed gulls, cormorants, sand, seaweed, but never before about quahogs.

Today's birding highlight was a male horned grebe all decked out in his breeding finery. Nancy is always asking me how come the ones we see never have the "horns" described in the book - that's 'cause we usually see them in the winter and they don't have those cool looking tufts on their heads in winter. So it must be spring, 'cause the horned grebe has horns.

A harbor seal spent a good hour or so of the shift hanging around the spot where I sit. It was huge, so I figure it was a male. For long periods of time he rolled over on his back and floated on the waves with just his snout sticking out of the water. Sort of upside down body surfing. After watching him, I really wanted to get in there and swim too.