|
|
|||||||
|
June 13, 1999 |
|
open light |
|||||
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
June 13, 1999 2 willets Reading: Before the Dawn by Shimazaki Toson
Copyright © 1999, Janet I. Egan |
|
The lighthouse is small enough inside that walking up the stairs almost made me dizzy but not quite. I fit on the metal ladder with room to spare. I don't know how big I looked to the Friend of Plum Island Light, but a larger person could easily have fit. I needed help to get through the hatch but that was because I had my camera with me. I was thrilled to walk around the catwalk and wave to Nancy on the ground.
Foxes can be a problem with the piping plover nests because they try to dig underneath the predator exclosures. If they can't get into the exclosure, they sometimes hang around it enough that parents freak out and abandon the nest. These guys were well away from the beach, romping in the meadow just south of the North Pool Overlook. No plovers there for them to eat. Who knows what they were finding to prey on.
A piping plover walked right in front of me and proceeded to splash around in the tide pool for some time. I edged closer quietly so I wouldn't scare it. They get stressed out easily. I wonder if this is the single one - the unmated, unmarried, unpaired... of the 29. I stood still and it came really close. Close enough for a photo with the 10x zoom on the new digital camera. And it was in water with wet sand around it, so it was actually visible against the background. While I was standing there, two people walked by. The woman said to the man "Look at the beautiful shorebird." I turned and said "It's a piping plover," figuring they might like to know what the little bird all the big fuss is about looks like. She said to the man "Look at the beautiful piping plover." That was it. I took a ton of pictures and Nancy and I walked back from Sandy Point to the south refuge boundary barefoot in the water and wet sand. The water was warm. |
|||||
I've
always wanted to climb to the top of the Plum Island
Lighthouse and I've always wanted to photograph a piping
plover. Today I did both. At opposite ends of the island.
Going to extremes. The lighthouse is on the northern tip of
the island and the piping plover was at Sandy Point on the
southernmost point.
It
was open house - or open light - at the Plum Island Light
today sponsored by the Friends of Plum Island Light. This
incarnation of the light was built in 1898. There were other
lighthouses before it, and many many shipwrecks on Plum
Island. The current lighthouse is 45 feet tall and sort of
cone shaped. It gets narrower toward the top. A tight wooden
spiral staircase winds up the the inside to a metal ladder
leading to a hatch that takes you to the actual light. The
Friend of the Lighthouse I requested a pass from looked at
me like I was a giant and showed me a photo of the "narrow"
metal ladder, which she informed me I would not be able to
negotiate. I said I'd go up the stairs and simply turn back
if I didn't fit.
The
fog rolled in to the north end of the island with kind of
wispy edges. Rather than making things invisible, it made
them blurry and unreal. The view from the top of the
lighthouse on a clear day must be wonderful, but today I
couldn't see very far at all. Everything just sort of got
blurrier and blurrier until it was insubstantial.
Nancy
wanted to see the Wilson's phalaropes I saw on Friday. It
was pretty foggy at the salt pannes too. However, four
phalaropes were feeding in the shallow water near the
southeastern edges of the salt pannes so were visible from
the road despite the fog. They spin in tight circles when
they feed, like tops with long bills. When they're not
spinning, they swipe their bills side to side in the water
stirring up food. They're fun to watch. All that manic
spinning could make a spectator dizzy. Bet they could climb
a much skinnier lighthouse!
My
pictures of the phalaropes just look like gray blobs in gray
water. There just wasn't enough contrast. But at least we
could watch them through binoculars. A little further south
we saw a kingbird perched on a tree right on the edge of the
road. Neither of us needed binoculars to see it. I stopped
the car and used it as a bird blind.
As
we continued south we slowed for almost every bird. We
noticed some bicyclists stopped and gazing into the meadow.
I slowed down to look, assuming it was more egrets and
blurted out "Oh, look, predators!" Three red foxes stuck
their heads up out of the grass and gazed at the bicyclists,
who continued to gaze back.
I
don't know whether I really expected another close encounter
with a piping plover at Sandy Point after our glorious
encounter with one on Memorial Day weekend, but it might
have been in the back of my mind. We walked from the south
refuge boundary around the cliff where the bank swallows and
northern rough wings nest all the way over to Sandy Point. A
flock of about 30 Bonaparte's gulls was hanging out making
racket in a tide pool so I took off my shoes and socks and
waded in to see if I could get a picture of one with the
full black hood they have in breeding plumage. I'm used to
seeing Bonapartes in the winter at the cove, so I normally
see them in winter plumage. I got some nice gull pictures,
but I was distracted by a little shorebird the color of dry
sand.