at the tern barge

July 31, 2005

 

 

 
Nancy and I stopped by the tern barge (aka "rotting wooden structure", which we persist in calling a barge because the first time we heard about it at a Rhode Island Audubon conference the guy from RIDEM called the tern colony the "Providence Barge Colony") this afternoon while driving around among our favorite East Providence "attractions" and listening to Jon Papellbon's major league debut. Papellbon is darn good. Anyway, the terns. We saw them committing the sex act back in May -- fish-giving, mounting, flapping of wings, the whole thing -- and checked on them periodically during incubating and brooding. We figured there'd be chicks on the verge of flight if not already flying by now. Sure enough I spotted one chick, not fledged yet, begging for food from two adults. That's the only chick we saw. I don't know if the others all fledged already and flew off to Watchemocket Cove for better fishing or over to India Point Park for some kind of ethnic food festival or whatever. I shudder to think the black crowned night herons ate them all. On the other hand there are a way wicked lot of black crowned night herons in the general vicinity of Bold Point and common tern chicks are their favorite food. OK, I know the Buddha says all life is suffering, but I don't have to like it do I?

Among the other East Providence attractions we visited are, of course:

  • Dari-Bee with its coffee cabinet/frappe/shake perfect for a warm afternoon of listening to baseball on the radio.
  • Crescent Park where Nancy can't go on the carousel because she has a broken foot but we made up for it with great looks at the monk parakeets nesting on the electric pole -- apparently they've had babies too because there's a lot of begging behavior going on even though the ones doing the begging are able to fly.
  • The cove curiously empty of swans.

    Then it was back to Wayland Square for 2 more favorite attractions: Minerva's Pizza and Myopic Books. I've been trying not to buy any more books for awhile because I haven't read all the bird books of my latest binge. The Grail Bird fell down behind my mattress and slid under the slats of the bed where it remains trapped. It joined Bookmark Now and a copy of Yankee Magazine I was saving for some recipe I've now forgotten. Instead of taking the mattress off and disassembling the bed, I simply picked up The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron, one of the great travel classics, which Nancy had bought for me a couple of months ago at Myopic. After all, I know how The Grail Bird comes out -- spoiler alert :-) :-) they find the ivory-billed woodpecker. I suppose I know how The Road to Oxiana comes out too --- the British hack up the Middle East and nothing is ever right again and it's still dicey to travel to Afghanistan... but that's "how it comes out" in the long term not the term of the narrative. Anyway , I've got plenty to read but I can't stay away from Myopic Books and sure enough just when I think I will escape with nothing I spot a slender paperback with a painting of the Charles W. Morgan on the cover. Hmm, it's called The Charles W. Morgan and is published by Mystic Seaport, the possessors of New Bedford's pride and joy.

    I read aloud to Nancy from it at Minerva's -- lots about how it was preserved, moved to Mystic, restored, etc. etc. etc. After I got home tonight, I read more of it and got into the list of crew members of each voyage. I called Nancy and read aloud some of the names, noting when Japanese names started appearing in the crew lists, people who made more than one voyage, people who only had one name, and so on. There were some great names but my favorite was "Christ Christian". Do you suppose he was a new convert? And then there was a guy named "Jim Crow". Were the segregation laws named after him or him after the laws? Oh, and a guy named "Bread Fruit" who joined the crew in the Sandwich Islands someplace. Wonder what his given name was in Hawaiian.

    At this rate, I don't care when I fish The Grail Bird out from under the mattress.

 

Todays' Bird Sightings
Bold Point, East Providence, RI
American goldfinch 1
mourning dove 4
double crested cormorant 6
herring gull 7
common tern 12 adult, 1 chick
rock dove 4
mallard 1
song sparrow 1
mute swan 2
tree swallow 2
starling 2
northern mockingbird 1
Crescent Park, East Providence, RI
monk parakeet 9
house sparrow 1
mourning dove 1

Today's Reading
The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron, The Charles W. Morgan by John Leavitt

This Year's Reading
2005 Booklist

Today's Starting Pitcher
Jon Papellbon

 
 

Before

Journal Index

After

 

Home

Copyright © 2005, Janet I. Egan