I am at the beach being a
human signpost instead of at home attempting/pretending
to be a tech writer, web developer, grant writer, and
scientific editor all at the same time. It's shaping up
to being one of those gorgeous days that people move here
for.
There are more double-crested
cormorants than I've ever seen before flying back and
forth low over the water or drying their wings on the
rocks. I stopped counting them and just watched them. The
tide was coming in and I watched one cormorant who
stubbornly stayed, wings outstretched, on a rock until
the rock was entirely underwater and it looked for all
the world like the cormorant was perched on the surface
of the water.
Many many many scoter shaped beings
drift way offshore. Between the angle of the sun, the
slight remaining morning haze, and the distance, it's
impossible to tell one species from another. Some larger
duck shaped beings fly by even further out. Judging from
the size and they way they fly they might be eiders. I
envy people who can definitiviely identify birds that far
away. Eventually as the tide comes in, a few of the
scoters come in closer and I can pick out a white-winged,
a black, and two surf scoters. The rest of them remain an
undifferentiated mob of scoter-kind.
I'm having trouble with the radio,
at least I think I am. The gatehouse called me and I
responded that I heard her. No response about what she
wanted. I tried a few more times and finally got an
answer from her that yes, the radio worked. I guess she
forgot that she had initiated the dialog. Later she
informed me there would be biologists on the beach.
Almost three hours go by and I have
the beach all to myself. I'd have thought there'd be tons
of visitors on a day like this. I have plenty of time to
watch two crows working the wrack line for food and
nesting material. They leapfrog each other and keep a the
same distance apart until one of them offers some tasty
morsel to the other or one flies off into the dunes with
beach grass straw in its beak and comes back without it
to resume the progression up the beach. At one point
there's something moving in the wrack between them. When
I get focused on it, I'm surprised to see a song sparrow.
It blends in pretty well with the salt grass detritus and
seaweed. I don't think I've ever seen a song sparrow in
the wrack before.
I hear the peep-lo call of the
piping plover somewhere to my right so start scanning
with the binoculars in the general direction of the
sound. I don't see anything except the two crows, the
song sparrow, and a loon in close to the rocks. No
shorebirds of any kind within sight. The sound is
amazingly haunting. Thoreau wrote about it in Cape
Cod:
But if I were required to
name a sound, the remembrance of which most perfectly
revives the impression which the beach has made, it
would be the dreary peep of the piping plover
(Charadrius melodus), which haunts there. Their
voices, too, are heard as a fugacious part in the
dirge, which is ever played along the shore for those
mariners who have been lost in the deep since first it
was created. But through all this dreariness we seemed
to have a pure and unqualified strain of eternal
melody, for always the same strain which is a dirge to
one household is a morning song of rejoicing to
another. -- Thoreau, Cape Cod
I don't know if I find it dreary,
just extremely resonant. I know I wrote about the peep-lo
call before (here)
and I'm not sure I have anything new to say about it
except that I feel it deep in my bones in a way I don't
feel other bird sounds. It fills me with some undefined
longing, kind of like the Basho haiku about the
hototogisu (Cuculus
poliocephalus)...
Even in Kyoto
I long for Kyoto
When I hear the hototogisu
Even on Plum Island, I long for
Plum Island when I hear the piping plover.
When refuge biological staff (Deb)
arrives on the ATV, she asks if I've seen any piping
plovers today I answer "no, but I heard one". How long
ago? In what direction? Half an hour. South. She updates
me on her survey. There are 8 pairs on the refuge and 2
at Sandy Point. The first egg has been laid on the town
beach (plovers can't read so don't know they're
"supposed" to nest in the closed area :-)). It's
happening. We work hard and cross our fingers for good
luck in reproduction this year. I can't imagine the beach
without the sound of the piping plover. Actually I can
imagine it but I don't want to to. That's just too
dreary.
I'm watching the beach when a man
in a green jacket appears around the bend in the closed
area. I radio the gatehouse who seems to think it's some
"guy from the state" who has business there and that I
should approach him. As I'm watching him, he notices me
watching him and leaves the beach at lot 7. I radio the
gatehouse that he left. Again she tells me he's probably
the "guy from the state" checking on the plover
situtation and I should have been informed. Hmm,
biologist on the beach means refuge staff not guy from
the state without even binoculars. Meanwhile, the north
warden radios the gatehouse that she has a dog at the
north end. The gatehouse radios me that Unit 61 is on his
way. I respond that the guy is gone already.
I'm watching the scoters, still
trying to sort them by species though most of them are
still too far away, when the gatehouse radios me and asks
if I chastised the people with the dog. Huh? I respond
that it was the north warden who had the dog. I had the
trespasser. More radio confusion ensues. Apparently the
gatehouse can't tell north from south or something. I
know I didn't call in a dog. There ain't no dog down
here. It would be darn hard for a dog to get to the south
end without being intercepted unless it swam over from
Ipswich or it got a ride from the north end.
When my shift is nearly over I pack
up a little early because I really need to use the rest
room. I meet Unit 61 in the parking lot. We discuss the
guy in the green jacket. 61 doesn't know what the
gatehouse was talking about either. He points out that a
state employee would have come in through the state beach
not materialized on the refuge beach. Oh well, the guy is
long gone.
It's a gorgeous day so I take my
time driving back north to the gatehouse, checking out
the birds along the way. Then it's off to Middle Street
Foods for lunch and the coffee formerly known as
Fowle's.
