Normal birders, if that's not
an oxymoron, are out in the thickets looking for warblers
blown in on the southwest wind. I'm at the north end of
the PRNWR beach on Plum Island with the southwest wind
blowing directly into my right ear watching three
ring-billed gulls play with pieces of reed. They pick
them up, carry them around, drop them and catch them in
the air. A herring gull joins them and seems to think the
reed it has stolen from them is a clam because it flies
up and drops it expecting it to break open. It tries this
several times despite the fact that even if it were a
clam, it wouldn't break because it's dropping it onto the
soft dry sand. I keep expecting a couple of great black
backs to horn in on the action but they don't. One of the
ring bills tries to catch an oak leaf blowing by but
misses. Odd because I've seen ring bills catch
greenheads, which are much smaller than oak leaves, in
flight. Maybe not so odd because greenheads move far more
slowly than the southwest wind. Anyway, it's far too
early in the season to even think about greenheads. I
guess I just get caught up in trying to understand ring
billed gull behavior.
The southwest wind was supposed to
bring warm temperatures, which brings people to the beach
unless they're off looking for warblers, so I was geared
up for lots of visitors today. It may be warm inland but
end up keeping my jacket on for 3 1/2 hours of the 4 hour
shift because I'm shivering in the constant wind. The
wind just never stops. It keeps blowing and blowing. The
top layer of sand looks like it's alive because it's
constantly moving. The one sunbather who set up his
lounge chair and stripped down to his shorts at 8:30 AM
is piling on tons of articles of clothing from his
backpack by 9:00 AM. A couple of women arrive later and
set up their towels so that the dunes and the big "beach
closed" sign break the wind for them. They last a little
longer. Why do people still sunbathe anyway? Never mind
in the freezing cold wind. Wow, I get to try to
understand strange human behavior too.
Mostly today I seem to be a human
sign post. People look at the sign, look at me with my
all-important radio, and turn north away from the closed
area. I don't have to speak. I don't even have to look at
them. It has to be the radio.
Gannets start showing up in twos
and threes offshore, diving all over the place. They keep
moving in closer to shore so by mid-morning I can
identify them as gannets without using binoculars. At one
point there are 9 of them in sight at the same time and
four of them dive simultaneously. That makes quite a
splash. I love watching gannets dive. They're just soooo
cool looking. A couple of great black backs are swooping
in and out among the gannets but I don't see them grab
anything from them. A great cormorant flies by low over
the water all alone. I thought all the great cormorants
had gone back north already. This one's trajectory is
straight north so I guess it will get there eventually.
There's a loon bobbing on the waves near where the
gannets are diving, but it seems unbothered by all the
activity. It keeps rubbing its beak along its back. I
could watch this show all day.
A really big harbor seal watches me
watching the seabird show. It swims back and forth with
its head out of the water and eyes facing the shore
instead of the bird extravaganza. At one point, when it's
close enough, I can tell that it really is watching me as
I walk back and forth.
Not a single piping plover puts in
an appearance. In fact there are no shorebirds of any
kind within binocular range. This is a far more typical
plover warden day than the last two I had, in which the
invisi-birds actually appeared. It's back to taking their
existence on faith today.
The oddest bird sighting of the day
is a lone Canada goose flying straight into the wind so
low over my head that I can hear the whoosh of air
through its wings over the whoosh of the wind filling my
right ear. I can actually hear the wingbeats as it passes
directly over my head. Obviously a Canada goose is not an
unsual sighting. It's the direction and elevation that
strike me as odd. Into the wind and like 8 feet off the
ground? It finally goes up a little higher and over the
dunes, leaving me to study ring billed gulls, gannets,
seals, and humans.
