Journal of a Sabbatical
The Plover Warden Diaries

July 26, 1999

some fog in coastal areas

July 26, 1999
Plum Island
Birds
1 great egret (at salt pannes)
1 cedar waxwing
9 mourning doves
87 sanderlings
3 double crested cormorants
5 herring gulls
5 ring-billed gulls
1 great black backed gull
3 Bonaparte's gulls
2 semipalmated sandpipers
1 black bellied plover
5 semipalmated plovers
1 eastern kingbird
2 least sandpipers
1 purple martin
2 piping plovers
Mammals
3 white-tailed deer
1 north plover warden looking for lot 2
7 visitors in the fog

Official Plover Count:
Adults: 16
Chicks: 13
Fledglings: 2

Today's Starting Pitcher: Red Sox are off today

Today's Reading: American Nature Writing 1999 (the first two essays in the collection)

One of the great things about being assigned to the south beach is that I get to drive past several of the prime birding spots on the way to my station. I pulled over twice before I got to lot 6: once to photograph this great egret standing so close to the road I couldn't pass up the photo-op, and once at lot 3 when I was flagged down by the north plover warden looking for lot 2 (it's easy to miss).

The walk from the parking lot to the beach is easier at lot 6 than at lot 2 also. There's a boardwalk so you're not sinking into soft sand with every step, and the dune isn't as steep. The boardwalk seems to be a real hangout for mourning doves. With every step I flushed another flock of mourning doves it seemed. I counted a total of 9, but I think I missed a few. A cedar waxwing singing away in a tree three feet from me didn't take off, but the doves, who were about 10 feet in front of me scattered in all directions.

The sanderlings are still out in force. They seemed oblivious to me. Semipalmated and least sandpipers got very bold too. One semipalmated sandpiper was chasing a sand hopper and came so close to me that I watched it catch and eat the sand hopper without binoculars. If I could see the sand hopper, you know I was close to the action. Maybe the fog made them bold.

It was another one of those days when the forecast was for hot and humid, possible thundershowers, and some fog in coastal areas. I wasn't quite prepared for how foggy it was. Cresting the dune, I felt like I had stepped off the planet. Everything shimmered in a silver-white gauzy cloud. I'm inside a cloud. Wow. The sanderlings running along the water line were only detectable when they moved. I heard some common terns calling but never saw a single one, even when they sounded like they were flying over my head.

The sun got hotter and hotter but never really burned off the fog. At one point some visitors came out of the fog and told me that the US had been sold to Mexico and the sky was clear blue over Sandy Point. Aliens could have landed at Sandy Point for all I knew. I think the gatehouse would have radioed me if the US had been sold to Mexico. :-)

The green heads weren't too bad. I only got one really painful bite.

The relative quiet gave me plenty of opportunity to watch the sanderlings, who were joined by several semipalmated plovers, semipalmated sandpipers, a couple of piping plovers and even a lone black bellied plover who towered over the rest of them.

The sanderlings and the semiplamated plovers were drawn to a pile of wrack near where I was sitting. They'd come one at a time and poke around in it. I didn't see any of them catch anything. That particular pile of wrack must have been really interesting because after awhile a kingbird landed on it, followed by a purple martin.