Journal of a Sabbatical

November 23, 1999

pearl gray calm
without crossbills

Today's Bird Sightings
Plum Island
465 American black ducks
30 Canada geese
6 mallards
2 northern shovelers
7 northern pintails
2 American crows
1 great blue heron
12 snow buntings
10 sanderlings
80 herring gulls
5 ring billed gulls
2 great black back gulls

Mammals
11 white tailed deer
no coyotes

Today's Reading: Woman Alone: A Farmhouse Journal by Carol Burdick, Wild Fruits by Henry David Thoreau, Writings and Drawings by John James Audubon

The unseasonably warm weather continues. I can't justify spending time indoors with the temperature close to 70F.

The universe is trying to communicate to me that I must stop procrastinating on replacing my stolen scope. I've replaced the car, the binoculars, the bird book, but not the scope. So there I am at the salt pannes staring out across a marsh full of black ducks at a white blob. The blob looks sort of owl shaped. The blob could well be a snowy owl. I stare and stare and fiddle with the binoculars but I know it's too far away. I look longingly, hoping somebody with a scope will appear and let me have a look. That doesn't happen.

The water is so still it looks like glass. There are hundreds of black ducks feeding but not a ripple on the water's surface. The black ducks look like clumps of salt meadow hay. The sky is overcast and the air is still and thick with humidity, giving everything a pearly gray color - all soft and shiny.

Two northern shovelers at Hellcat leave V-shaped wakes as they swim away from me. That's the only movement on the water. A group of pintails remain upended so long I start to wonder if they can breathe underwater. Their heads finally come up without even a ripple. It's like the cloud cover is flattening every potential movement before it can start. A pearl gray calm covers the whole marsh.

Loads of people are walking on the beach. A woman with both hands full of sand dollars strides purposefully onto the boardwalk focused so intently on some distant goal that she almost walks into me. Her stylish yellow glasses frames just don't go with either the intense stare or the fistfuls of sand dollars. I suddenly get this idea that she is going to spray paint them gold and hang them on a Christmas tree, having gotten the idea from Martha Stewart. Two more women pass me on the beach with fistfuls of quahog shells and sand dollars. This has got to be a Martha Stewart thing.

The beach is littered with fragments of freshly opened sea urchin shells surrounded by gull tracks. Sea urchins are very popular in Japan. So much so that they import them from Maine in addition to the Pacific Northwest. The gulls' feast would have cost a pretty penny at a sushi bar in Tokyo.

The sun is starting to go down and the refuge closes at sunset, so I have to leave the beach even though I could have cheerfully walked for another hour. It's slow going on the way back because deer are all over the place. I counted a total of 11 in groups of twos or threes. Every car slows down for the obligatory gawk at them. Kids in minivans with disposable flash cameras attempt to photograph every one of them. Further on I have to stop for 2 deer crossing the road. They pay no attention to the car.

By the time I get back into Newburyport it's dark already. It feels way later than it is. I remember the load of laundry in the trunk, which I didn't do this morning. I've been doing frequent washes in hot water to avoid spreading ringworm. The village tub or whatever they call it is big, clean, and well-lighted and has the advantage of being within walking distance of plenty of places to grab a bite to eat and/or browse at books. Might was well do it here instead of that dismal Park N' Wash in North Andover where I spent most of my day yesterday.

While the laundry spun around in the washer, I had a Mexican rice salad at The Tannery Cafe and then browsed at Jabberwocky. I hadn't intended to buy anything, but there in front of me was Writings and Drawings by John James Audubon, which Nancy was browsing at heavily at the Brown Bookstore last week. Feeling rich because my stock had just hit a record high, I splurged on the Audubon book. Back at the laundry I read Audubon while the dryer spun around. By the time my clothes were dry, Audubon's boat had run aground three times on the Mississippi.