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Journal of a Sabbatical |
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April 6, 2000 |
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hail? |
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Today's Bird Sightings: Today's Reading: Early Spring in Massachusetts: from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H. G. O. Blake Today's Starting Pitcher: Plum Island Bird List
Copyright © 2000, Janet I. Egan |
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Check in at the gatehouse. Pass the hawkwatch guy in the parking lot. Someday I should actually talk to the hawkwatch guy. Climb over the fence. Walk down to the beach passing a bird skull in the sand. A gull skull. It looks like it's a great black back - too big to be a herring gull. Greet the morning shift plover warden, who is huddled in the lee of the dunes wearing every available article of clothing he brought. Yup. He's cold. Nope. He's seen no people, dogs, or piping plovers all day. Get radio, clipboard, vest, and new badge from him. This year we have two badges: the regular name badge like we've always had, and a new round button with a picture of a piping plover and the words "plover warden". Gee, with the hat, vest, and two badges I feel so official.
Look South. Cape Ann is visible. It looks like there's
some streaks of rain coming No people. No dogs. No plovers. Four horned grebes paddle in close to shore. The males look exceptionally fine with their bright "horns" and their deep brown (russet? chestnut?) necks. The two gulls land on the water a short distance from the grebes and float together on the waves. A flock of oldsquaws that's been floating on the water just at the limit of binocular range comes in closer. They're joined by another pair who land noisily. A flock of 7 horned grebes lands near the oldsquaws. Everybody is diving and popping up all over the place. I think there are even more horned grebes and oldsquaws further out, but they look like black dots in my binoculars. I do spot a common loon bobbing out there still in winter plumage. Flocks of dark shapes fly by on the horizon. The oldsquaws start splashing and squawking furiously, churning up the water before they take off in a great noisy commotion and fly a couple of hundred yards south. Hard rain drops patter against my jacket. Wait, not raindrops, tiny bits of ice. Snow? Hail? The bits of ice get a little bigger. They remind me of the small hailstones accumulating on the sasa leaves when I climbed Mt. Dairoku. My mind ranges to Hokkaido's forests in early winter. Hailstones interrupt my reverie. They're big enough to be called hailstones now. "North Plover Warden to Gatehouse." "Gatehouse. Go ahead." "The hailstones are getting bigger. I'm coming in to wait this out." "Hail?" "OK" Pack up stuff. Resist temptation to unpack camera and photograph gull skull amid hail. Return to parking lot. The hawkwatch guy is sitting in his car. It's warmer on this side of the dunes. The gate attendant doesn't know how long this is supposed to last. He asks if there has been anybody on the beach. Nope. Call it a day after only 2 hours. Across the bridge on the mainland it's raining raindrops instead of ice balls. Go figure. |
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Look
north. Mt. Agamenticus is visible, but barely. A gray shadow
mass. No sign of the Isles of Shoals. Just a long gray wall
of clouds. Beach empty.
from the clouds way out on the horizon. Beach empty except
for two great black back gulls. They appear to be a pair
displaying to each other, taking off and landing together
several times.