Journal of a Sabbatical

February 14, 2001

still life with short-eared owl

Adopt these cats at Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society

Today's Bird Sightings:
Water St. Boat Ramp
great cormorant (1)
common goldeneye (2)
bufflehead (6)
red throated loon (1)
American crow (2)
all the usual gull suspects in large numbers
Plum Island
Canada goose (102)
snow bunting (31)
American tree sparrow (8)
northern pintail (7)
mallard (4)
American black duck (98)
short-eared owl (1)
herring gull (7)
American crow (1)
common eider (8)
red breasted merganser (1)
white-winged scoter (1)
horned grebe (4)
Joppa Flats
gadwall (2)
bufflehead (22)
great black-backed gull (12)
herring gull (a lot)
bald eagle (1 immature)
Salisbury Beach
American black duck (18)
common goldeneye (2)
great black-backed gull (1)
ring-billed gull (1)
northern harrier (1)
red breasted merganser (9)
oldsquaw (1)
common loon (1)
red throated loon (1)
common eider (100+)
American tree sparrow (1)
black-capped chickadee (1)
northern mockingbird (1)

Mammals: 2 raccoons at Plum Island

Today's Reading: In Audubon's Labrador by Charles Wendell Townsend

Today's Starting Pitcher: Pitchers and catchers report on Saturday!

With Stormy gone to a loving home and Savannah in 10 day bite quarantine, nobody is challenging Sandy for top cat. He has undisputed possession of the bucket, the dryer, and any other spot he wants. It makes for a relatively quiet morning.

Somebody drew a little thunderstorm next to Stormy's name on the adoptions board. There was already a smiley face there last week. The list for February is filling up with Magic, Maggie, Grady, Mikey, Bear, Marmaduke, and Madeline. Madeline wasn't here long at all. I'm so glad Marmaduke found a home. He looked sort of disconsolate when his litter mates got adopted and he didn't. I always thought he was adorable. Of course I'm very partial to orange males.

Two newbies got their pictures taken today for the all-important web site: Blue and Fluffy. Blue is a 6 to 8 month old short-haired male. He's a former feral. He's a bit timid and will need patience. Blue would prefer a quiet home with adults, and must be an indoor cat. Fluffy is a 1 1/2 year old female with medium length hair who was surrendered to us. She is timid but enjoys being petted if you approach her slowly. Fluffy does not like to be held. She'll need a little patience at first. Fluffy must be an indoor cat and would prefer a quiet home with adults.

Roy is not in today and despite the fact that Louise and Cynthia are helping with the dishes I had one of my attacks of "this will never be done". Then I looked at the clock. It was only 10:15. Time must have slowed down. I swear I'd been washing dishes for three or four hours, not an hour and 15 minutes. Things got better when I discovered that not one of the community litter boxes had been used. There wasn't so much as a footprint, let alone a body fluid, in any of them. Since they're big and hard to wash in that sink, I was greatly relieved.

After lunch at Angie's Food and coffee from Fowle's, I decided to spend the entire afternoon systematically birding every spot on the refuge - parking at each of the seven parking lots (eight if you count Sandy Point) and walking the boardwalk to the beach. This was motivated by a note on the whiteboard at the gate house listing a recent sighting of American pipits on the beach near lot 6. Of course just because pipits were there yesterday does not mean they're there today. But it's worth a try.

A noisy flock of about 30 snow buntings whirled over the salt pannes, landed, took off whirling again, and so on repeating the pattern for several minutes over the same spot. I love snow buntings. They're so joyous. That's the only word I can think of. Joyous. While they were putting on their show, a flock of Canada geese sat on the ice doing nothing. They paid no attention to the snow buntings. They just sat there.

On the way south I spotted a short-eared owl hunting over Cross Farm Hill, flying low over the grass methodically scanning the whole area. It seemed to have a definite pattern. I watched it for awhile but it didn't catch anything while I was there.

The platform at lot 7 revealed several sea ducks (common eiders, red-breasted mergansers, scoters...), but still no king eider. I walked on the beach for awhile then went back to the car and moved north to lot 6. The boardwalk to the beach from there is a beautiful walk a lot longer than the short boardwalk at lot 7. The snow is mostly melted from the dunes except in a few low shady places. On the beach, no pipit. I heard a snow bunting and looked in the direction of the sound. One single solitary snow bunting was foraging in the wrack. It looked at me and started walking toward me. I mean it came really close. This is not usual snow bunting behavior. They're usually in flocks and usually easily spooked. I got long detailed looks at this bird and it never took off. I must have been there 10 minutes, and I was the one to leave. When has that ever happened? Usually the bird in question calls it off first.

Passing Cross Hill Farm again I had to stop because a small pickup truck was parked in the middle of the road. A vehicle stopped in the middle of the road usually means a "good bird" (OK sometimes it means a deer is standing in front of it, but it's usually a bird). I scanned to see what the truck occupants were looking at. The short-eared owl was perched stock still on the fence next to the road. It didn't budge for several minutes and neither did the pickup truck or I. I would have had to drive around the pickup on the side where the owl was to get a picture out the driver's side window if I didn't scare the owl off by doing that. That's being a really bad idea, I took my chances with taking the picture through the dirty windshield. Black and white mode was in order because I didn't want the blue haze from the windshield. So here we have "Still Life with Short-Eared Owl".