Journal of a Sabbatical

December 5, 1999

yeah, they're ducks

Today's Bird Sightings:
Salisbury Beach
more scoters (of all three species) than you can shake a stick at

Today's Reading: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, Autumn from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake

Before you go crazy trying to find this in your field guide to marine life of the north Atlantic (which all readers of these pages posses, I'm sure), this starfish came from Israel 30-something years ago. The legend is my Dad brought it back from Eilat. My mother has been going through the attic lately and coming up with all kinds of weird and wonderful things, some of which, including the starfish, she brought to the Kevin/Thomas/Billy birthday dinner today at Donald & Michael's. Andrea took the starfish picture with my digital camera.

What a beautiful beach day! The tide was just starting to go out when we got there. The guys were debating whether that huge flock of something on the ocean was ducks. I entered the kitchen just as Donald was saying "Janet will probably tell us they're not ducks at all..." So before I even had a cup of coffee or anything I was out on the deck peering at the black streak on the water. It was scoters, all three kinds. Probably some other species too - I think I saw at least a couple of buffleheads. Most of them were too far away for me to identify with binoculars. I prevailed upon Donald to get out the telescope, which he did, only to find that the tripod at its lowest adjustment is too high for me to look into the eyepiece. I gotta break down and get me a new scope. Anyway, I couldn't give an accurate count of individuals and species but the majority were definitely white-winged scoters. So,yeah, they're ducks.

I didn't spend as much time walking on the beach as I normally do, but the kids were outside getting their feet wet and acquiring treasures every minute that we weren't actually eating. Andrea brought me the top of a beer can - the rim with a little metal still clinging to it and, unaccountably, the tab still attached. She presented it to me as if it were a great gift: "I just want you to have this." I think it was her way of communicating to me that she's heard my ranting and ravings about trash on the beach posing a danger to birds. I told her I'd make a Christmas ornament out of it.

Dinner, birthday cake, presents, and suddenly it was sunset and low tide. The sunsets over the salt marsh are like this every night. :-) The kids ran up to the sunset porch for a better view. Yes, there's a sunset porch. The major deck looks out over the ocean and a smaller one on the other side of the house looks out over the salt marsh. I took this picture from the stairwell.

Andrea and Lizzy decided it would be very funny to pretend to be polite and well behaved while Lizzy's friend Marissa took pictures of them with my camera. Their idea of polite is fascinating. They all had lots of fun taking silly pictures of each other while I hoped nothing bad would happen to the camera.

I told Andrea I'm reading The Golden Compass. She says she gave it to her teacher to read. Andrea's still reading the second book, The Subtle Knife, but it'll be a long wait for the third book to come out in May. She gave The Golden Compass to her teacher to read. She's much more excited about these books than Harry Potter, which she's read all three of. Last time I saw her so into a series was when she was reading Lord of the Rings.

The hero of The Golden Compass is a girl about Lizzy's age who is caught up in some global destiny. She's smart and clever and daring and she has to save the world. Definitely Andrea's kind of story.