reindeer moss

December 27, 2001

Today's Bird Sightings
Plum Island
northern harrier (1)
American tree sparrow (5)
northern mockingbird (1)
Canada goose (hordes)
mallard (a lot)
American black duck (a lot)

This Year's Bird Sightings
Plum Island Bird List

Today's Reading
The Origins of Fruit and Vegetables by Jonathan Roberts, Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes by Peter Matthiessen

This Year's Reading
2001 Book List

Photos:

Dunes and Sky

Reindeer Moss (which is a lichen, don't know why it's called "moss")

Astoundingly common plant I don't remember the name of

It's wicked cold, probably in the teens, and little miniature snow showers swirl around over the marsh while the sun shines on the dunes or vice versa. The snow showers move around faster than a harrier stooping on its prey hiding in the spartina grass. The tree sparrows refuse to be common redpolls and not even the best imagination can change that mockingbird to a northern shrike.

Ice on the salt pannes and the north pool looks new and fragile competing tentatively with the open water where Canada geese and mallards mill around close together. This sudden acute onset of winter seems to have taken the water itself by surprise. It has to remember how to be frozen.

The late afternoon light accentuates the abundance of reindeer moss. It makes it look like globs of complex tinsel strewn to decorate the dunes. It's suddenly the most noticeable thing along the roadside, like it sprang up overnight. Winter light does funny things like that, making a humble lichen look like it's illuminated from the inside. Tree sparrows disappear behind it then reappear on the fence as if they've always been there. All the while the huge white flakes in their tight squall move like one organism back and forth across the marsh. A flock of snowflakes.