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May 10, 1999 |
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whirling life |
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May 10, 1999 50 double-crested cormorants Reading: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West, Salt Tide by Curtis J. Badger
Copyright © 1999, Janet I. Egan |
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The sky and the ocean are both unbelievably blue and the sun is so bright the world seems huge. The beach seems to be the whole world, and the world is whirling with life. A flock of fifty some double-crested cormorants is feeding just offshore, diving every which way all in the same spot. Twenty five common terns join them and start their plunge dives, frantically calling keeeeer keeeeer keeeeer. Everywhere I look something is moving. Swallows swoop low over the beach. Flocks of sandpipers wheel in and out of this dimension, disappearing whenever they turn sideways in flight. Everything is moving so fast I feel like I can't quite catch it. Between bouts of watching unidentifiable birds fly too fast for me to watch, I had two non-English speaking visitors and a drunk visitor. The non-English speakers were German and one of them understood a little English. It turned out they could read English better than speaking/listening so I gave them a copy of the brochure explaining what you can do to save the piping plover. Remarkably, they got the idea. The drunk visitor smelled of alcohol. He had another huge can of Fosters Lager in his backpack in case he got thirsty from his hike on the beach. Silly me asked where he'd hiked from, figuring the north tip of the island. Nope: the public parking lot just outside the refuge. Impossible to work up much of a thirst walking that far even on a hot day. He said he'd offer me a beer but only had the one. I gave him a piping plover brochure to take to his daughter, and watched him wander back north along the beach out of my jurisdiction. The lone oldsquaw mystified me. Do oldsquaws travel in groups of less than a thousand? What is the sound of one oldsquaw squabbling? Is it like the sound of one hand clapping? When I saw two birds in almost the same spot later on I thought the oldsquaw had found a friend. But when I trained the scope on them, they turned out to be a pair of surf scoters. Lots of seals were around, swimming back and forth participating in the general whirling wheel of life. A big gray dappled one hung around for quite some time checking out life on shore. I didn't see or hear a single piping plover all day, but I know they're out there. |
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