blood, sweat, and battery lifeJuly 29, 2006
Gatehouse is a new guy today. He tells me I can have my choice of north or south and most people choose north. Hmm, I'm pretty sure Bob is scheduled for north. So I ask if Bob isn't already there and I head south anyway. I'm slow getting onto the beach because I stop at Hellcat to use the outhouse. A group of birders flags me down. Their leader asks: "Are you birding?" Huh? Well I suppose every minute I'm awake I'm birding, but that isn't my purpose at Hellcat. OK, he's not asking a philosophical question. "I'm the south plover warden." "Have you seen the black-tailed godwit today?" "No I have not." "Have you talked to anybody who has?" Now, I've only talked to Gatehouse so far today, and he didn't mention it, so I have to say "No." The poor guy looks desperate. I point him in the direction of the salt pannes.
I'm on top of the dune at lot 6 when the radio crackles "North plover warden to south plover warden." I answer: "South plover warden," wondering what on earth he wants. "North plover warden to south plover warden, this is Bob ..." "Hi Bob." No contact. I don't think he hears me. Hmm, Gatehouse must've told him I was looking for him. I try the radio again when I get down onto the beach but he doesn't hear me.
Greenheads begin chowing down on my right ankle immediately. What is it with my right ankle? My pants leg is spotted with blood within minutes. My coffee is really good though. Plum Island Coffee Roasters has outdone themselves with the dark roast of the day, a Colombian. I'm watching a small group of sandpipers probing in the mud in the intertidal zone. Ther's a thin layer of water over the sand there making it shiny and they kind of splash a little as they probe. I can't see what they're eating but there appears to be plenty of it. As I'm watching them a piping plover lands a little ways north of them and starts its zigzag feeding patrol. Forget semipalmated sandpipers and sanderlings, I focus in on the piping plover and try to see what it's eating. I think I need a far more powerful scope to identify tiny intertidal invertebrates at a distance. A second piping plover joins this one. It's a tiny bit smaller and kind of scruffy and smudgy looking. A fledgling. It starts doing the foot trembling thing with its right foot. Classic plover behavior. The thin layer of water swirls around it and it jabs at unseen invertebrates it has stirred up. Both of them are doing foot trembling now. Must be good pickings in the mud. They keep their distance from the semipalmated sandpipers and sanderlings. I watch them feeding until they fly off further north beyond binocular range. Birders appear in search of the invisibirds shortly thereafter. "You just missed them."
One of the birders is wearing a Chaco Canyon t-shirt, so I ask if they are from New Mexico. Nope, western Massachusetts -- here for the black-tailed godwit. Another birder tells me he's from Oregon and he's just seen his first piping plover of the year. He lives in snowy plover country. I work up a sweat walking back and forth to the low tide line to intercept people so intent on walking or jogging that the don't notice the signs or don't care about the beach closure. Two very determined teenage girls trespass into the closed area. They don't want to hear about how the chicks need protection while they eat and grow and get ready to migrate. I resort to looking intimidating and reduce my speech to "Beach is closed. I mean it." They glare at me. I follow them until they've left the closed area. And so it goes all morning -- birders, birds, trespassers, passersby...
A third piping plover flies in from the vicinity of Sandy Point and starts feeding at the same spot where the other two were. A little gull does a fly-by; presumably the same one I saw last week. It's not hanging with any Bonaparte's gulls, just all by itself.
From the staticky snippets of radio chatter I gather that North has some kind of problem with a trespaser and Unit 61 is trying to get more information. I don't hear North, just 61, then barely him, and definitely not Gatehouse. The radio seems to be losing battery charge even though Gatehouse took it fresh from the charger when he gave it to me. Maybe it wasn't fully charged to begin with. Another day of blood, sweat, and low battery life in the land of gulls and radios winds down and I never do contact Bob but I do hear that Unit 61 gave his trespasser a ticket .
Plum Island
eastern
kingbird 4
semipalmated sandpiper 34
sanderling 7
tree swallow 15
ringbilled gull 3
piping plover 3
great black backed gull 3
double crested cormorant 4
herring gull 2
little gull 1
semipalmated plover 1
gray catbird 6
American robin 3
northern mockingbird 2
mourning dove 1
redwinged blackbird 1
Today's Reading
The Danube: A river guide by Rod Heikell
2006 Booklist
Ignore this thing below if you are reading the Plover Warden Diaries.
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Copyright © 2006, Janet I. Egan