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Journal of a Sabbatical |
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May 9, 2001 |
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kingbird days |
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Adopt these cats at Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society Today's
Bird Sightings: Today's Reading: Fresh Air Fiend by Paul Theroux Today's Starting Pitcher: Frank Castillo Plum Island Bird List |
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Ever since I've been back, the sky has been alarmingly blue, that Hokkaido naked eyeball blue that Haruki Murakami described in Wild Sheep Chase: "The sky was appallingly clear. A sky from a prewar expressionist movie. Utterly cloudless, like a monumental eye with the eyelid cut off." The trees stand out in such perfect relief against the dry clear sky that I'm half convinced I'm commuting on a diorama of I-495 instead of the real 495 through a diorama of the Merrimack Valley with every leaf edge so sharp it might even hurt to touch it. The very idea of a cloud is not allowed inside this dry bubble. What a change! I suppose it's possible that I'm in a prewar expressionist movie, but I kind of doubt it. For one thing, there are far too many Dunkin' Donuts around. I may not be fully in this time zone yet, but I am fully in the Merrimack Valley. I woke up really early because of that time zone thing, but that gave me time to have breakfast and coffee before I got to the cat shelter. I was gonna say I got there before Roy except Roy was not in today - some kind of leg injury - I checked with Kendra to make sure it was nothing caused by Savannah who has it in for Roy.
Chester is a real love. Chester is a long-haired male who came to us as a stray. He came to us covered with mats and infested with fleas and ticks so we've had to cut his long fur and he looks a little like a shaved muppet from the side. Chester is a real lap cat, good with children, affectionate/friendly, loves being patted, and is OK with dogs. At last night's Purrfect Companions meeting, Gail told me she took Chester to Country Manor and he was loving and patient especially with the people in the Alzheimer's ward. Apparently he's a natural as a therapy pet. He actually enjoyed the experience. Wonder if we can convince one of the nursing homes to take him. Oh, wait, I'm still feeling burnt from the Buddy disaster. Far be it from me to try to place a cat in a nursing home any time soon. Chester is a natural for it though.
Another returnee is Red Head, a 1 1/2
year old male total lap cat. He loves to play and enjoys
being patted. Red Head is a real love who enjoys being held.
Red Head must be an indoor cat and prefers a quiet home with
adults and no other cats or dogs. I gather he got beat up by
some other cats and is now a fraidy cat. He's not afraid of
people Speaking of subject-verb-object writing style (see yesterday's entry), I have noticed that I have more to say about cats I know well or who relate well than about strays and ferals who shy away from me and about whom I have little data. Chester was all over me last night and today, plus Gail told me all about his visit to the nursing home so I had something to go on. And Red Head I remember from before and there was a note on his card about his cat-phobia so I had something to go on. But with Jude, who was scared to have her picture taken, I just transcribed what it says on the card. Ditto for Murray and Gabriel although they weren't scared of me. Murray was so unmemorable to me that when I sat down to write the biographies, I couldn't remember which one he was. Thank goodness I take good notes.
Gabriel is a male coon cat who came to us as a stray. He's affectionate and friendly and enjoys being petted. Gabriel likes to play. Gabriel would prefer a home without dogs. Jude is a short-haired female who came
to us as a stray. She's timid and Murray is a short-haired male who came to us as a stray. We think he's about a year old. See what I mean? Nothing to say. But he has such a cute face. Please adopt him. Please adopt them all.
As usual, at about 10:30 I looked at the clock convinced I'd never have the dishes done by 11:00, but miraculously I did. Some of the community litter boxes were pretty bad. One had a hissing cat in it when I tried to pick it up so I have no idea how clean or dirty it was. That one will have to wait 'til next week. Anyway, Jacqui took over drying the dishes in Roy's absence and we chatted about Jaguar who lives with her now. I want to do a Jaguar update for the newsletter as many people ask about him. Miraculously , he is still alive. Jacqui says he gets kind of sad looking but still loves his favorite chair, demands wet food, loves to go outside, and is capable of stalking ferrets. Doesn't sound like he's a death's door to me. I made arrangements to visit him tomorrow to see for myself and take some pictures. There's still a huge piece of me that loves Jaguar to pieces. I just do. I think a lot of the long time volunteers feel that way. He's been so much a part of the history and life of the shelter since practically the beginning. I made sure to get directions to Jacqui's place and set them under my Perfecto's coffee cup so I wouldn't forget when I left. Then I did the pictures, made notes from the cage cards, checked my mailbox and went to go back out into the alarmingly blue day. OK, one false start because I accidentally let Gizmo out of the office into the stairwell. Brought Gizmo back. Another false start. I got to the car and realized the coffee cup and the directions were still next to the sink. Back up the stairs to fetch them, more good-byes this time without letting Gizmo out. Then, no matter how tired I feel, this summer day calls for a birding expedition. This sudden onset summer has produced a week of days that are more like early June than early May. Kind of amazing given the long snowy winter. I saw my first eastern kingbird of the day this afternoon and was immediately reminded of a line from Thoreau's journal: "Are these not kingbird days, - these clearer first June days, full of light, when this aerial, twittering bird flutters from willow to willow, and swings on the twigs, showing his white-edged tail?" -- Henry David Thoreau, June 2, 1854 Kingbird days indeed. I checked my notebook from last year and discovered I spotted my first eastern kingbird on May 7, so presumably the kingbirds were around on Monday if I hadn't been too jet-lagged to go look for them. The stark light made it hard to sort out the shorebirds at the salt pannes, all I was sure of was the hordes of least sandpipers (leasties as the cutesy birders call them). In addition to my first kingbird of the year, I spotted some catbirds, and a white-crowned sparrow. I think that was the first white-crowned sparrow I've seen on the refuge. I'll have to check my list. Anyway, the place was mobbed with birders, especially at the salt pannes. Many high-powered even famous birders. Is it just that it's a nice day or is there some rarity I'm not aware of? Not that I'm having any luck at the salt pannes today anyway. Even if the light were better, my brain is stuck on European birds - a little known consequence of jet lag I guess. Not only does it take some time to readjust to the time zone but to the avifauna as well. Flora-wise I'm in better shape. That
spot where the lone bluet flowered I could have listed a lot more birds and photographed a lot more spring wildflowers but jet lag caught up with me again and I was unbelievably tired, besides that I'd promised Gyöngyi I'd come to Framingham to see why the computer has refused to start up since Zsolt left for Budapest. Fowle's coffee fueled the trip to Framingham, but alas restarting in Safe Mode and trying step by step process of elimination on the startup files gave me no clue and after an hour and a half of work it was still getting "Windows protection error. System halted." Grrr. Back at home I figured I'd try to think through the thickening fog of fatigue and browse the Meecrosoft knowledge base for possible solutions, but instead I checked the Massbird archive for today and found out that all those high-powered birders at the salt pannes were looking for a long-toed stint that had been reported. If this is true it's the first Massachusetts record of long-toed stint. Apparently the high-powered guys didn't find it so it won't make the record books yet. Who needs a rarity, though? These are kingbird days! |
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Copyright © 2001, Janet I. Egan |
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We've
got new cats galore, and a couple of old ones have returned,
sigh. 
Duchess
is back. She's a short-haired female who was surrendered.
Duchess gives affection on her own terms and may need a
little patience. She loves to play. She would prefer a quiet
home with adults. 
though, just cats. He's as sweet as he can be with
people.
There
are more new cats than I was able to take pictures of before
I got too tired, hungry, and sneezy - not from the cats from
the tree pollen although it didn't help that I inhaled about
half of Chester's remaining fur.
needs to be approached slowly. She'll require a little
patience. 
Other
than the huge number of new cats, things are pretty much the
same. Sandy and Savannah alternate control of the big yellow
bucket. Sandy is not so interested in the sink today because
Roy is not here. Miss Newburyport is sleeping on top of the
dryer with one eye open as usual. Sandy has found a new spot
for when he's not playing king of the bucket: next to the
laundry room window underneath the dryer vent hose.
well into November is covered with bluets. Bluets as far as
the eye can see. At least now I'm convinced that that loner
really was a bluet, as unseasonable as it seemed. Must be
time to continue with my weeds of Parker River National
Wildlife Refuge project.