at the chain bridge

March 7, 2003


Somehow reading Spring in Washington over a cup of coffee at Starbucks hoping some of my friends will show up isn't quite satisfying me. I'm loving the description of the flight of the ring-billed gull as the perfect example of gull flight, especially since ring-billed gulls are probably my favorite gull species. However, the abundance of bald eagles in Halle's descriptions of spring unfolding in the nation's capitol in 1945 gets me restless. Never mind sitting drinking coffee and reading. Real 2003 bald eagles are better than literary 1945 ones. I'm powerless over the call to the Chain Bridge.

I drive along the river hoping to see some ducks displaying, but there's still a lot of ice between Lawrence/Haverhill and Amesbury. I half expect to see some eagles along the way but none of them show themselves.

I spot two immature bald eagles flying in circles low over the river when I first arrive at the bridge. I'm not even out of the car yet and it's already a great day. Everything is alive and active. It's this concentrated spectacle of bird life in a relatively small area.

A great cormorant catches a catfish, works it with the beak to position it or something, and finally swallows it whole. Remarkably this cormorant has no hassles. For the rest of the afternoon, every time a cormorant catches a fish four or five other cormorants chase after it trying to get the fish and a great black backed gull swoops down off the light post and circles over the cormorant fracas looking for an opportunity to grab the fish. The cormorants steal the fish from each other until one finally ends up with it or most of it. The great black back never gets a bite at least while I'm watching.

The two immature bald eagles continue to fly low, at one point so low over the bridge that I feel a draft when it passes over my head. I hear a whole lot of crows cawing and then a wild, blood-stirring bald eagle scream. Looking in the direction of the caws and screams I see an adult bald eagle with full white head and tail sitting on a branch eating something that looks mammalian. The crows back off and head elsewhere.

A great blue heron lands on an ice floe and three great cormorants converge on it. I can't see whether the heron has a fish or not. Can it fish from that small ice floe? One of the cormorants has a fish already so I'm not sure what the want from the heron. The heron makes a loud noise, kind of a very deep squawk, and takes off after the cormorants then flies back to the bridge. I can't remember ever hearing a great blue heron vocalize before. The great blue flies to another ice floe and stands there as it floats downriver.

Three common merganser drakes start displaying madly with their chests up out of the water and suddenly accelerating with feet paddling unbelievably fast. They zip around like that at top speed while the rest of the common mergansers catch small silvery fish that I can't identify except to note that they aren't catfish. All the while they're vocalizing too. It's not a quack like a mallard. It's more like a croak. A deep croak. A group of the cormorants comes toward the mergansers and they start making some kind of guttural noise too. Great sounds effects today.

A single ring-billed gull flies overhead and I get a chance to compare its flight to the great black back's. The ring-billed's flight looks effortless and buoyant, almost like a tern but even more graceful. It makes the great black back look ungainly. Would I have paid this much attention to the difference if I hadn't been reading Spring in Washington this morning? I don't know. I do know that I have seen a ring-billed gull flycatching (granted greenheads are slow, but still...) and I've never ever seen a great black back do that!

While I've been watching the heron/cormorant/merganser/gull show, one of the immature bald eagles has landed on the same tree as the adult. I hear some more screams, but weak and muted like the eagle is not really into it. The other immature eagle flies over, puts its legs down with talons open, folds its wings into a kind of parachute, and descends to a higher branch of the tree. There are now three bald eagles perched on one tree.

Just beyond the eagle tree about 20 great cormorants roost on the underside of the I-95 bridge invisible to the traffic going by on the highway. In fact the people in cars on I-95 probably can't see the eagles either even though they are very close to the bridge and prominent on the bare tree branches because the people in cars on I-95 don't know they're there. The Chain Bridge/Merrimack Essex Bridge and the I-95 bridge may as well be in separate universes. Maybe they are in separate universes.

Today's Bird Sightings
Chain Bridge
bald eagle (3)
great cormorant (34)
common merganser (13)
great blue heron (2)
American crow (13)
great black backed gull (2)
ring billed gull (1)
Canada goose (1)

Plum Island
northern shrike (1)
American tree sparrow (6)
black capped chickadee (1)
northern harrier (1)

Angelina's
red tailed hawk (1)

Today's Reading
Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn by Elizabeth Bisland, Spring in Washington by Louis J. Halle

This Year's Reading
2003 Book List


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Copyright © 2003, Janet I. Egan