It's hazy, hot, and humid at
the beach just like everywhere else around these parts.
The greenheads aren't too bad though. High tide is at
9:55 or something like that this morning so it's almost
all the way in when I get to the beach at lot 6. There
are no shorebirds except for one sanderling. A lone
sanderling? Alert the press. That's like man bites dog.
All the shorebirds, tons and tons of peeps, are at the
salt pannes. At least that's how it looked when I passed
by there. The haze creates this interesting effect of two
horizons: one close in where the water abrubptly and
uniformly changes to haze and one farther out where the
horizon would normally be but much higher up. That's the
only way I can describe it. There are two levels, one
where boats sail on water and the other where they sail
through the white sky. It's really weird. It's supposed
to clear up by noon.
There's one guy fishing as close to
the boundary as he can get. He's talkative and interested
in the piping plovers and surprisingly asks me about the
tern restoration project on the Isles of Shoals. Actually
what he asks is what bird it is they're trying to restore
on the Isles of Shoals -- which he seems to think is all
one island. I tell him what little I know about the
restoration of roseate and common terns. I have a t-shirt
I bought at Shoals Marine Lab that says Tern Restoration
Project on it, but I'm not wearing it. I'm wearing my
Life's a Beach for the Piping Plover PRNWR t-shirt.
Anyway, most of the fishermen I meet are genuinely
interested in the birds and very respectful of the beach
closure. The guy tells me some fish stories, including
one in which he caught a 38 inch bluefish last summer.
That's a mighty big bluefish. He says Jack helped him
haul it in and asks if I know Jack. Of course, everybody
on this beach knows Jack. He interrupts fishing only to
sleep or go to church. Seriously. And his luck in
catching them isn't just knowing the tides and the spots,
it's knowing how the fish think.
Visitors start streaming in but
surprisingly they can all read and they realize the signs
apply to them. They stop, read the sign, smile at me, and
head south with their beach gear. This is amazing. It's
unprecedented.
A few common terns and least terns
start fishing just to the north and I point them out to
the fisherman who was interested in terns. The
aforementioned Jack arrives with his fishing gear and he
gets to telling fish stories and teasing the other guy
about his very interesting shoes. I think they are
actually some kind of waterproof bootie that's supposed
to be worn inside something else, but I don't really
know. And they're a weird color.
Birdwise it's very quiet today.
There are some gulls sitting on the beach down in the
mystery zone but it's too hazy to sort them out. Ditto
for any terns that aren't close to shore -- white terns
in white haze are tricky IDs at best. Once the tide
starts to go out a little, a flock of sanderlings stops
by to join the loner -- he must feel ever so much better
now --- and a flock of semipalmated plovers flies by at
top plover speed clearly on a mission that does not
involve landing near here. There are no swallows despite
a reasonable supply of flies. Even my reliable kingbird
who perchs on the 5.d mile marker is AWOL today. A pair
of mourning doves puts in an appearance and fly so far
out over the water I wonder if they suddenly think they
are seabirds. Maybe they heard us talking about the Isles
of Shoals and they want to go there :-) Then there's a
seagoing cabbage white. No kidding: a little white
butterfly headed straight out to sea. I lose it in the
haze and don't know if it changes its mind or not. A
clouded sulfur floats by but it heads into the dunes,
altogether a better place for a butterfly to
be.
It's wicked humid. With the
humidity, the sunscreen, and the bug repellent I feel
like a sticky mess. The haze does start to burn off
around 11:00 AM and I start to get really hot. Good, so
now I'm a hot sticky mess. And I don't have a shower
waiting for me at home (see
here and here
If you're really interested in the state of my bathroom).
Jack and the other fisherman are
talking about the Democratic National Convention,
something about the freedom to fish, and how the
protestors really can't expect to be heard if they dress
like clowns. It's funny but just when their conversation
floated over to me I was thinking about how none of the
speechifying at the DNC mentioned piping plovers. Really
I was. Nobody mentioned any federally threatened species.
I guess now that we've got the bald eagle back and the
Republicans have co-opted the eagle there isn't much else
bird-wise for the politicians to be interested in. I
foolishly wrote to someone (who matters in these matters)
that what I want to accomplish is to make the piping
plover as popular and charismatic as the bald eagle, then
I scaled back and said well, maybe the osprey. Now, if
only I could figure out how saving the piping plover
relates to homeland security I'd be all set.
:-)
Maybe I'll dress up like a piping
plover and go to the Republican National Convention in
New York. It's gotta be better than dressing as a
clown.
