plover lovers' picnic

October 14, 2001

Adopt these cats at Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island
double crested cormorant
red breasted nuthatch
dark-eyed junco
American tree sparrow
song sparrow
American black duck
herring gull
mute swan
great egret
northern harrier

This Year's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island Year List

Today's Reading:
Autumn Across America by Edwin Way Teale, The Gilgit Game by John Keay

This Year's Reading:
2001 Book List

Photos:

Anthony

Ash

Beauty

Callie

From the leaves, I'd say periwinkle but the flower is so shriveled up, your guess is as good as mine.

Evening primrose

Three ways of looking at lance-leaved goldenrod

The Strut for the Strays, the plover warden picnic and who knows what else are all happening at the same time today. In the drismal rain. Drismal is a portmanteau word - like slithy or mimsy - it's a combination of drizzle and dismal. Not that I have a license to make up words or anything. The weather today reminds me of Nova Scotia. It reminds me of plover warden shifts in April when it's so damp and foggy you wonder why you, or any sane human being, would be on the beach - the kind of day when an inordinate number of visitors decide to assert their claim to walk anywhere they darn well please because after all it's miserable out and surely they won't bother the plovers... or something like that. That kind of day.

I sink deeper into my flannel shirt as I get out of the car at the cat shelter. Fall is in the air all right. I promise myself a large dark roast coffee from Fowle's when I've finished photographing new cats and on my way to the plover warden picnic.

Anthony and Ash were left in a box on the doorstep. Not good weather for being left on the doorstep. They are so cute together, all wrapped around each other like much younger kittens. They move around so much, rubbing against each other and me, grooming each other (but not me), batting at things real and imagined, and sniffing at the camera. It takes me several tries to get halfway decent pictures of them.

I'm on the floor, crawling on my belly trying to get a picture of Beauty. I don't even feel ridiculous anymore. Beauty is only interested in playing and in hissing at other cats. I follow her around. I can crawl surprisingly fast, but not fast enough to catch her actually facing the camera. Dawna finds one of those stick toys with a feather on the end to distract her. It holds her attention for a fraction of a second so I finally get a shot that shows her adorable face. That was only the 6th try.

Someone, Dawna I suppose, has put a picture of Jaguar on the bulletin board next to the one of Miss Newburyport. I want to cry but I don't.

There's still time left to get that coffee, even though I'm not cold anymore. Chasing Beauty around on the floor warmed me right up.

Thousands of cormorants fly in long lines low over the Merrimack River. I do mean thousands. It's like a whole 'nother current flowing along just a few feet above the surface. They're there when I cross the bridge into Newburyport from Salisbury. They are still streaming by after I've gotten my coffee and am winding my way toward Plum Island along Water Street. At the Plum Island Turnpike a couple thousand of them turn south and fly directly across the road, still pretty low. The cormorants just keep coming.

At the refuge headquarters, staff members cook outside in the drizzle at the grill. Volunteers wait inside the carpenter shop for the meat. I make some comment about this being plover warden weather. Everybody nods. Someone adds that it's not quite as cold as April on the beach. The mood is decidedly upbeat. We're celebrating a terrific year: 26 chicks fledged (from 13 pairs - truly fantastic). It's nice feeling like we actually make a difference.

Jean dashes in and out with reports on the cooking status of the meat forms. The chicken meat form is the first one ready. About the third of fourth meat status report reminds her she bought garden burgers for me. After that, she follows each meat status report with a report on the garden burgers. The garden burgers take a long time to cook. Apparently I'm the only vegetarian plover warden. Garden burgers with all the fixings work for me.

There are awards, door prizes, applause, laughter, and cake. There are plover warden stories and bird talk - somebody tells a story of seeing the northern wheatear and a Couch's kingbird on the same day. (I'm so jealous of that Couch's kingbird.) My "Wild Things" sweatshirt looks very cozy.

So here I am on Plum Island. I'm fortified with garden burgers and loaded down with loot - the aforementioned sweatshirt, a Life's a Beach for the Piping Plover T-shirt, a USFWS T-shirt, a car window sunshade, a beautiful drinking glass with the USFWS goose on it, a portfolio of bird prints and whatever I'm forgetting. There's a whole rainy afternoon ahead of me. I've done the plover warden thing in weather like this. Why let a little rain stop me from birding? I don't get here enough anymore, so I'd better take advantage of being here.

The drizzle penetrates my clothes, coats my glasses and binoculars with a thick opaque mist, defies the windshield wipers on my car, but makes the goldenrod and asters sparkle against the deep reds of sumac, poison ivy, and Virginia creeper. The colors seem more saturated. The birds are less identifiable though. It gets harder and harder to see them. I keep wiping both glasses and binoculars with my shirt, but that becomes less and less effective.

Red-breasted nuthatches are all over the place. I've never seen a red-breasted nuthatch on the refuge before and today they seem to be having an event. One very wet, bedraggled, red-breasted nuthatch explores the nooks and crannies of the fence at parking lot 2 allowing me a good look at him. His colors seem more saturated too.

Dark-eyed juncos, tree sparrows, song sparrows, and, I think, chipping sparrows form a huge mixed flock pecking around in the grass and weeds at the side of the road. They barely even move for cars.

Plenty of fall wildflowers are still in bloom. I guess there hasn't been a frost here yet although we've had it further inland. I like the way the rain highlights everything, like it's polished, all shined up.

The rain seems to get more penetrating the further south I go. How many extra T-shirts can I layer? Should've brought rain gear. I finally decide to turn around at Hellcat and head home to settle in with hot tea and a book.

As I drive back along the PI turnpike, I watch two northern harriers attack something in the grass next to the airport. They both keep coming up empty-taloned.