The tide is coming in rapidly
so I keep moving my chair back up the beach. It's a
gorgeous day, one of those days people move here for.
Once again there's a purple finch singing its head off.
Goldfinches are chasing each other from shrub to shrub. A
line of cormorants skims by low over the water while
another line of them sails by much higher up. Both
contingents are making a beeline directly north.
Two sanderlings skittering along
the water line, which keeps moving inexorably toward the
dunes, do their synchronization thing and move together
every time the incoming tide gets too high for them. Not
only are they synchronized with each other but also with
the tide. They're joined by a lone piping plover walking
around closer to the wrack line. It keeps a respectable
distance between itself and the sanderlings. For awhile
it just stands there not doing anything. They all leave
at the same time, but not together.
A visitor from Boston asks me if
the purple sand is the reason it's named Plum Island. The
uninspired songwriter asked me that same question on my
last
shift. The purple sand is
concentrated at the south end of the beach. It's not like
the whole island is purple (that would be interesting,
wouldn't it?). The name comes from the beach plums
(Prunus maritima -- I like it when the books I'm
reading list the plant names so I'm trying to make sure
to do it in my writing -- this will last about 1 entry
I'm sure :-)). In colonial times (oh, probably Federalist
times too), the settlers would all come over here from
Ipswich, Rowley, and Newburyport in boats in the fall and
make festive time out of picking the beach plums. People
still pick them, but it's not a whole big community thing
anymore. Actually, not much of anything is communal
anymore. It's like the early settlers were more like
sanderlings and we're more like piping plovers. Anyway,
you can still buy beach plum jellies and jams on the
island and in the surrounding towns as a souvenir of
quaint New England.
Towards the end of the morning,
northern gannets start appearing, first one, then three,
then a group of eight, all plunge diving with big
splashes. There must be some really good fishing right
off Emerson rocks. The gannets move in closer as the tide
moves in closer so I get really good looks at them. I
could watch the gannet show all day, but my relief
arrives and I need to fetch the coffee formerly known as
Fowle's from Middle Street Foods and listen to Curt
Schilling mow down Yankees on the radio.
Well,actually he's mowing down The
Pinstriped Ones in Fenway Park not literally on the radio
-- how many Pinstripes of Evil can dance on a portable
radio? I'm listening to it on the radio. English is such
a weird language. Anyway, after that quintessential
baseball moment last night when Tim Wakefield struck out
A-Rod and made him look foolish in the process. I called
Nancy on the phone seconds after that and asked "Did you
see that?!?". She said she knew I would call. It's
the moment Red Sox fans fantasized about all winter. OK,
so I fantasize about baseball approximately as much as I
fantasize about birds, maybe more.
Going two for two in seeing piping
plovers during my plover warden shifts is approximately
as satisfying as seeing Tim Wakefield strike out A-Rod,
maybe more.
