the heat of the dayJune 11, 2005
Hot. Humid. Hazy. Lots and lots of sand fleas. No dead whale.With today's heat and humidity, it's a darn good thing the remains of that dead whale have gotten reburied by the sand. That chest-deep pool with current has been replaced by beach too. You can't walk on the same beach twice. Ever.
The heat and humidity have brought out tons and tons of visitors, all trying to squeeze themselves into the small part of the refuge's north beach that's open. The density of people in between the closed area and the refuge boundary has got to be 5 times what it is on the town beach just steps to the north. A school group from Acton-Boxborough wants to be allowed to set up their badminton/volleyball net on the closed area of beach. The kids are very insistent that they want to go where there are no people. I finally find a teacher or chaperone and explain that the beach is closed to protect nesting piping plovers and yes a bunch of teenagers playing badminton and volleyball would disturb them. I finally get through to them when I say "The parents will freak out and abandon the nests if there are too many people around them."
Other visitors get it immediately. A family from Florida says: "Oh, yes, we have beach closures for the nesting loggerhead turtles!" They're very supportive. As usual the fishermen are cooperative. Really the Acton-Boxborough kids were the only hard sell and they weren't nasty about it, just disbelieving.
Six of the piping plover pairs on refuge re-nested since last week. Jean tells me there are also two nests on Sandy Point and two on the town beach. So maybe the third time's the charm and these eggs will hatch.
Speaking of scrapes in the sand, I asked Jean if she'd heard whether the guy who wanted to scrape his marriage proposal in the sand last week had gotten a yes. When I was leaving last week's shift, Jean was just starting to work with the guy to find a place where she could escort him and he wouldn't disturb any nesting plovers. She said he'd promised to email her with the results but she hadn't heard from him. Apparently he did say he was 90% certain she would accept. It still strikes me as amazingly plover-like, although the female plovers aren't evaluating the scrapes from an airplane. :-)
It's a slow birding day from this part of the beach. I don't know if the birds are grounded by the oppressive humidity, the heat, or the crowds or all of the above. You'd think the mass quantities of sand fleas would at least bring out all kinds of swallows and purple martins but there are only two purple martins taking advantage of this flying buffet. People keep asking for bug repellant, of which there isn't any in the plover warden backpack today. My shirt is covered with the little black midge-like sand flea type things but they are not biting me. The just seem to like landing on my (formerly) crisp white shirt. One woman refers to them as mingies (or minjies, I can't tell how she'd spell it), which I never heard of. My relief seemed to know they were called mingies also. That's a new word for me. I tried googling it just now and got nothing with either spelling. If some PI denizen out there can explain the etymology and the entomology of mingies, I'll acknowledge you in these pages.
Todays'
Bird Sightings
Plum Island
common tern 14
ring billed gull 4
great black backed gull 2
herring gull 3
purple martin 2
double crested cormorant 4
common loon 1
Mammals
refuge staff & visitors -- no dead
whales
Coast
Guard Assets
none
Today's
Reading
The King's English by Betsy Burton
This
Year's Reading
2005 Booklist
Today's
Starting Pitcher
Wade Miller
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Copyright © 2005, Janet I. Egan