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April 26, 1999 |
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sideshow |
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April 26, 1999 Plum Island 5 common loons
Copyright © 1999, Janet I. Egan |
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I lucked out in getting the midday shift today. The guy I relieved said it was really cold this morning. By the time I came on duty, it was shirtsleeve weather. Bright, sunny, mildly breezy... and not very busy. I neither saw nor heard any piping plovers, but that's not unusual especially at the northern boundary where I was. Some years, the south plover wardens have all the luck and get to see parents and chicks, while the north plover wardens rarely see either and have a lot more visitor contact. The highlight of my shift was the red breasted mergansers. A flock of 10 put on quite a show. The males were displaying for the females, sometimes two males would display for the same female - one of them on either side of her. They point their beaks straight up at the sky and stretch their necks to their full length. Then they dip their chests into the water so their butts come up - kind of like a weird bowing motion - and lower and raise the neck a little with beaks open. I assume they were calling but I was too far away to hear them over the surf. I was watching through my binoculars and sometimes the scope. After the bowing, they swim past the female at warp speed. They look like they go into overdrive speeding up quite suddenly and swimming so fast their breasts come up out of the water and it looks almost like they're skimming along on the surface. I watched two males do this over and over again for the same female. She showed no interest whatsoever. An immature male - who, not having the spectacular breeding plumage looks pretty much like a female - tried to display and wasn't very good at it. He seemed to be copying the adult males but hadn't quite got the hang of it yet. The females ganged up and chased him away, pecking at him furiously. At one point all 5 males (4 mature, one immature) were displaying simultaneously. They seemed to be keying off each other and escalating it - trying to stretch the neck longer, bow lower, speed faster... Some visitors came by with lots of questions about the beach closure and the piping plovers, which I eagerly answered and then I showed them the red breasted mergansers who were still putting on their sideshow. The visitors loved it and thanked me. Since the plovers are so invisible it was nice to have a gaudy sideshow to point out. At some point I looked north and observed that Mt. Agamenticus and the Isles of Shoals had completely disappeared behind a solid mass of purple clouds. The wind changed suddenly and fiercely out of the west, practically sandblasting the back of my neck. I watched the storm develop for awhile and suddenly grasped the fact that it was moving really fast and likely to produce thunder and lightning. A few raindrops started to fall. I picked up the radio to notify the gatehouse I was packing up 15 minutes early but as I was picking it up it crackled: "Gatehouse to plover warden north, has it started to rain where you are?" I told him I was already packing up. By the time I got to the gatehouse it was definitely raining and it was clear that we were in for an intense thunderstorm. The thunder and lightning arrived as I drove into Newburyport darn glad I'd gotten off the beach. |
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