Journal of a Sabbatical

January 7, 2001

lists of boats (and birds) but not of firewood

Today's Bird Sightings:
Watchemoket Cove
mourning dove (1)
northern mockingbird (3)
American black duck (12)
American wigeon (42)
bufflehead (23)
herring gull (41)
mute swan (102)
red tailed hawk (1)
American crow (6 - mobbing the red tail)
mallard (20)
greater scaup (200+)
Canada goose (170)
canvasback (18)
red breasted merganser (7)
hooded merganser (4)
common goldeneye (2)
double-crested cormorant (2)
Other Sightings along the East Bay Bike Path:
Coast Guard assets (1)
tankers (3)

Sea Sparkle
Isomeria Douglas
Paulina

tug boats (2)

Reliance
Roger Williams

Today's Reading: Reminiscences of a Nonagenarian by Sarah Anna Emery

Evidently it snowed more here after I left last night. I glanced out the front window shortly after I got home tonight and saw these snow shapes. The one on the left kind of made me think of the monolith in 2001. Those kids who use my front door as a soccer goal must have been very busy with their bizarre idea of snowmen. Maybe busy enough that they gave my front door a rest.

Speaking of soccer, Nancy and I rented The Cup last night. Great movie. Funny, charming, warmhearted, in Tibetan with subtitles.

Miraculously, the sun was out today, so after breakfast at Rue de l'Espoir we headed immediately to the East Bay Bike Path for a walk. What a glorious day to walk by the water! Birds were everywhere.

A huge flock of greater scaup were diving and popping up and splashing around in Providence Harbor just at the entrance to the cove. Six crows were mobbing a red-tailed hawk over the bike path, making quite a fuss. Red-breasted mergansers frolicked in the water. That's the only word I can think of. The males were showing off for the females, something I don't usually see them do until February. Must be the change in the weather. A flock of wigeons flew overhead whistling... just everything alive and active!

There wasn't so much as a ripple on the water until a tanker named Isomeria Douglas entered the harbor accompanied by two tugs and a small Coast Guard boat. Even though it didn't have far to go to the tank farm dock and it wasn't going fast, it set up a good wake. I kind of liked the sound of waves splashing up against the old railroad embankment and running under the bridge into the cove. Mixed with the sounds of snow melt dripping into the cove, the crows cawing, mallards quacking, geese honking, sparrows chipping, and wigeons whistling it was like some kind of weird harborside symphony.

I love the cove. I just love it.

Besides the Isomeria Douglas, there were two other big tankers in the harbor, though they weren't moving and didn't seem to be actively unloading. For some reason, I decided to write down the names of all the boats along with the birds. I have been counting Coast Guard assets whether they were boats, planes, helicopters, or whatever since the time I watched them practicing rescue operations off Plum Island and they kept bringing in more and more and more types of vessels. I wondered what the collective term for those things was until I heard some Coast Guard guy on the news describing how many "Coast Guard assets" had been assigned to some search and rescue mission. Assets. That's the word. So I started keeping track of when I encountered assets belonging to the Coast Guard on my birding trips. Taxpayers' money at work or something.

Watching the tugs maneuvering the tanker into place I told Nancy I'd be too nervous to work on a tug boat. Too much responsibility. The thought did cross my mind that I should get some kind of job around boats, like maybe swabbing the decks or something. I haven't definitely crossed tug captain off the list of future careers like I have locksmith, but it is definitely near the bottom of that list.