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July 9, 1999 |
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ruff - not |
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July 9, 1999 Birds round 1 - seen during plover warden shift at north beach boundary 1 brown thrasher Birds round 2 - after shift
Hellcat Butterflies Mammals Official Plover Count: 17 adults, 7 chicks, 4 active nests Yesterday's Starting Pitcher: Brian Rose (no wonder I couldn't remember it yesterday) Score: Devil Rays 3, Red Sox 2 Today's Starting Pitcher: Bret Saberhagen Today's Reading: Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds by Scott Weidensaul
Copyright © 1999, Janet I. Egan |
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I parked at lot 2 and walked over the dunes on the off-road vehicle access road again. A brown thrasher flew up from a poison ivy/beach plum thicket just ahead of me. It was so close I was a bit startled. Several species of butterflies were lighting on flowers in the low part between the dunes and mosquitos were lighting on me. I heard the work crew hammering and sawing on the new boardwalk from lot 2 to the beach. It's about time they started on that. I could see the workmen's hard hats gleaming bright yellow once I got up higher on the dune. Once over the dune and on the beach I realized it was several degrees cooler and a whole lot windier. I was grateful for the wind because it keeps the greenheads away. But taking no chances, I sprayed every bit of exposed skin with Deep Woods Off. I sprayed my pants too, especially the seat and thighs. Some people walking on the beach watched me do this and probably thought I was crazy but greenheads bite through clothing and they like to fly under warm mammalian bodies and bite from underneath. They confuse a butt in a beach chair with a delicious ox or cow. They're not real bright. That's why those low black four-legged boxes baited with ox breath scent work to trap them. Whenever the wind died down for even a minute greenheads, deerflies, and things to small to see swarmed around me and tried to land. I thought about making a life list of everything that's ever bitten me. Nothing munched me the entire shift, though a few things came close. The beach was pretty quiet. I only spoke with 6 visitors - all nice. Terns caught fish all over the place. Bonaparte's gulls sat in the sand and refused to be common black-headed gulls. Two great black backed gulls shared a really big green crab and then flew off together. Later I saw them floating together on the waves. The common terns landed en masse near the Bonaparte's gulls and milled around for awhile. Three great black-backed gulls chased a purple martin who then started chasing them. I watched the biological staff's ATV advance along the beach checking on each nest. When she got to my station she stopped and we talked. There are still four nests left to hatch. A couple of nests got washed over in an unusually high tide a couple of weeks ago and the pairs didn't re-nest. While we were talking, she spotted a piping plover just to the north of us. I whipped out my binoculars and followed it as it flew out over the water but I kept losing it. She took off on the ATV to investigate whether it was an adult or a fledgling. It was nice to have someone to talk to. I tried to pick up the plover in my binoculars again but couldn't find it, so went back to watching for visitors and trying to turn the Bonaparte's gulls into common black-headed gulls. A glossy ibis and a great egret flew over my head and south along the edge of the water. I followed them until they were out of sight. The wind died down and the clouds started to part and let the sun in, so it got quite hot relatively quickly. The bugs swarmed but didn't bite. I was beginning to think Deep Woods Off really works, but I was to learn otherwise later. After I turned in my report at the gatehouse, I pulled a U-turn to go to the salt pannes to look for an American avocet that had been reported earlier in the day. The gatehouse attendant assured me it was still being seen around there. I set up my scope and started scanning the salt pannes for the avocet. All I could see was a couple of gadwalls and the usual snowy egrets and great egrets. As I was methodically panning the scope, a car headed north stopped in the middle of the road and the driver yelled out "There's a ruff at Hellcat! ... And a Virginia rail and a king rail." I asked if he'd seen the avocet but he hadn't. A chance to see a ruff is not to be missed, so I folded up the scope still mounted on the tripod and jumped back in the car. By this time I really had to stop at the outhouse once I pulled into the Hellcat parking lot - thinking the whole time that all the birds could leave in the time it took me. I met a couple who were just leaving and asked them if the ruff and rails were gone. They assured me the Virginia rail was still around as was the ruff. And the Virginia rail has three chicks. Sure enough, I found the adult Virginia rail no problem - more brightly colored than the clapper rail if you can call a rail brightly colored. It only had one chick with it that I could see, a black ball of feathers perched on impossibly long legs. On to the ruff. I set up the scope on the dike, as close to where the ruff was reported as possible without going into a closed area. I panned methodically and came up with a plethora of lesser yellowlegs, killdeer, cormorants, gulls of all kinds. By this time the wind had picked up and my scope was jumping all over the place. It was shaking so much I couldn't tell a gadwall from a teal - and they were close to me. I saw something that was larger than a yellowlegs and mostly black. It could have been a ruff. As I upped the magnification on the scope, the shaking made it even harder to see with the narrowed field of view. The wind picked up more. I thought if there's a ruff out there I'm never going to see it. I and my scope climbed up the observation tower for a better view. The wind died down for about 30 seconds and the greenheads swarmed. One bit my arm and one bit me on the thigh, the inner thigh perilously close to you know where. It hurt worse than the one on my arm, which I watched swell right before my eyes. Grrr. At the top of the tower, the wind was worse than ever. Everything that wasn't a gull or a cormorant started to look like a ruff. I started wishing for a better scope and better insect repellent. My bites itched, and the idea of a life list of things I've been bitten by started to seem rational and logical. I left without seeing the ruff. On the way back to the car, I saw all three of the baby Virginia rails. Never did see the king rail. On the way back to the gate, I stopped at the salt pannes again and found the avocet immediately. |
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