Journal of a Sabbatical

November 7, 1999

in which i leap out of the car yelling "snow buntings!"

Today's bird list:
Plum Island

30 black ducks
3 American golden plovers
6 snow geese
6 gadwalls
some number of Lapland longspurs
some number of snow buntings
100 Canada geese
about a million starlings

Today's Reading: Pieces of White Shell by Terry Tempest Williams

The plan for today was to head for the Museum of Fine Arts to see the exhibition of Martin Johnson Heade, known for paintings of Newburyport/Plum Island salt marsh scenes. We didn't do any better with today's plan than yesterday's. The trouble with this plan is it's way too nice a day to look at paintings of salt marshes when you can go to the actual salt marsh. So we did.

The wind was blowing so hard we didn't encounter many birds, but we lucked into three golden plovers just sitting in the field at the North Pool overlook. We weren't looking for them, they were just there. Many people came and went looking for them all afternoon at each place they'd been reported. The snow buntings and Lapland longspurs were all over the place moving around so much it was impossible to count them or even be sure we weren't seeing the same ones over and over again.

We took a walk on the beach, for which we weren't really dressed warmly enough. I kind of like the sensation of being cold, at least for a little while. The sand was blowing in little eddies making the beach look like it had currents competing with the water's currents. We finally got to be too cold to stay out, so went to watch the sunset over the salt pannes.

I think Martin Johnson Heade would have approved of our decision.

I couldn't sleep for awhile last night so I stayed up and read most of Pieces of White Shell. This morning I read aloud some of the Navajo creation stories from it for Nancy. We both love Terry Tempest Williams' way of telling her own stories in An Unspoken Hunger and Refuge. Reading her retelling of Navajo stories interwoven with stories of her own experiences in Navajo country is a treat. It reminded me of my New Mexico trips with Joan-west particularly the Chaco Canyon trip. I could visualize the desert vividly.

I finally remembered to look up Rhode Island Tree Council on the web to see if they are going to do a calendar this year. There's no clue about that on their site. I asked about it at Books on the Square in Providence last weekend and they didn't have it in stock but the clerk thought maybe they would get some in November.