Journal of a Sabbatical

April 20, 2000

clearing skies

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island
10 common grackles
3 purple martins
2 American crows
2 brant
6 double crested cormorants
3 herring gulls
200 sanderlings

north plover warden
midday shift
visitors contacted: 0
dogs: 1
piping plovers sighted: 0
number of hawk watchers in parking lot: 4

Today's Reading: Thoreau's Country by David R. Foster, today's journal entries for 1855-1861 from the Thoreau Home Page

Today's Starting Pitcher:
rained out in Detroit

Here's that gull skull I mentioned 2 weeks ago. It was still there this morning, considerably more weathered after some strong winds, high tides, and getting run over by the ATV. I smoothed out the ATV tracks for the sake of "art". Any ornithologists out there want to confirm it's a great black back?

The tide is very high and still coming in when I arrive. I keep moving my chair further up toward the dunes. I would not want to be a piping plover trying to choose a nest site on this beach. There just ain't that much beach.

The crashing of the waves is so loud I can't hear anything else, even the herring gull until it's right on top of me. The guy who had the early shift described today as loud. It only gets louder as the tide comes in.

The sky is heavily overcast and the beach is still a bit foggy at the beginning of my shift. I can't see very far in either direction until a little after noon when the sky begins to clear. What's weird is that the sky is clearing from the north and west but there's a southeast wind coming off the water. The cold wet southeast wind and salt spray feels just all wrong when I look up at the sky and see the clouds moving the wrong way. There's two separate wind streams and two separate weathers going on.

Not much bird life is in the water or the lower air stream. A few herring gulls check me out to see if I am edible or have edibles in my pack. A pair of purple martins comes in low over the dune, skims over the wrack as if looking for something specific, and then heads back over the dunes. I don't blame them. It's about 10 degrees warmer on the other side of the dunes.

Later, biological staff comes in over the dunes on their ATVs to do the piping plover survey. The visibility has improved greatly. Not that piping plovers are all that easy to see anyway, but it sure helps if you're not looking for them in the mist. The biologists don't have any new numbers for me, 'cause they haven't done the survey yet. By the time they get done I will be gone, so will have to wait 'til next week for statistics.

Even when the sun finally comes out and it's a gorgeous day, there is nobody on the beach. And it's still cold. I'm wearing my glover liners because my fingers are cold. It comes as a shock when I climb back over the dune and over the fence into parking lot 1 and discover the hawk watchers are down to their shirtsleeves! The guy at the gatehouse is surprised when I say I had no visitors 'cause "It's such a nice day". Yeah, a nice day in the gatehouse and the parking lot maybe. The beach was wicked cold all day. Even when a few teens ventured onto the public beach to the north, they quickly turned around and left shivering.

So, no I did not see any piping plovers today, nor any visitors asking about them.