I'm not off to a great start
with blogging this season's piping plover news from
PRNWR.
Too many things to do and too little time. Looking back
over what I'd written about my shifts so far and trying
to finish the three unfinished entries for, it came to me
this morning that two themes kept cropping up: things
unseen and symbolic fencing. So, I said to myself "Self,
why not just do one entry on things unseen and symbolic
fencing?" So, here you go:
things unseen and
symbolic fencing
There's only so much I can
write about not seeing the invisi-birds. After all, what
plover wardens do is keep people and plovers apart. A lot
of my shifts have gotten rained out this season owing to
the insane weather pattern that has engulfed
Massachusetts. Like since when did the forecast include
the amount of rain in inches? Next thing you know
it will be in feet like snow.
My first scheduled shift on April 1
was rained out. I did go up to the refuge on the much
drier but significantly windy day after that. There was
no plover warden on duty at the south boundary and a
group of people were inside the closed area flying kites.
Despite my lack of radio and other symbols of authority I
bravely asked "Did you know it's against the law to fly
kites in the National Wildlife Refuge?" They didn't know
of course and once I told them that a)they were
trespassing and b) kites scare beach nesting birds off
their nests because they mistake them for avian predators
they were suitably contrite and moved on. Nancy and I
walked from the south boundary around to Sandy Point and
back along the road. We didn't see any piping plovers.
When we turned into the wind, I seriously regretted
having chosen this direction for our walk. But hey, it
was the first almost nice day of the almost
spring.
My first actual shift was on April
8 -- my birthday -- good day to not see piping plovers.
My notes, in addition to the list of birds,
say:
A middle aged
couple asks me if I've seen the snowy owl that's
been reported on the beach at Sandy Point.
An
old guy wants to know if I've seen any piping
plovers today. He says he's never seen one in all
his years of birding and he really wants to see
one. I tell him they're hard to see and there
aren't very many of them.
Every time I look northward
up the beach my hat blows off. The wind is out of
the northwest and it's cold. Very cold. I'm wearing
ear muffs -- well actually a headband that covers
my ears but ear muffs sounds so much more
frigid.
No, I did not see the snowy owl. I
did not see any pipling plovers. Neither had the old guy
when he came walking back from around the tip of Bar
Head.
A week later the same old guy came
back and wanted to know if I'd seen any piping plovers. I
told him the same thing: they're hard to see and there
aren't very many of them. He's in his 80s and really
wants to have a piping plover sighting on his life list.
Later on some birders came by and said they'd seen piping
plovers at Sandy Point. I didn't see any. The old guy was
already gone. A flock of brant came flying in over the
horizon low over the sparkling silver sea. A mockingbird
sitting on the 6.3 mile marker suddenly flew down to the
sand. I caught that out of the corner of my eye. The next
batch of visitors want to know if I've seen any chicks
yet. Serioulsy. They want a date when the beach will be
open. It's only April 15, right?
On my first shift I was wishing I
had more rope to string between the signs at low tide. I
was having to cover a lot of territory. Today there's
more rope and an additional sign but I'm still making a
symbolic fence with sticks jammed into the wet sand every
foot and a half or so. The rope is more like raffia and
frays as I'm trying to string it between the last sign
and the sticks. The only difference between this and
the
infamous pink raffia is
that it's orange. Somebody asks what they do to protect
the nests on Sandy Point if they find any, because that's
not part of the closed refuge beach. When I answer "Put
up predator exclosures and symbolic fencing," they ask
"What's symbolic fencing?" Last week Jean had a couple of
plover warden trainees who asked what symbolic fencing
was too. (Funny, nobody except my family ever asks
"What's a predator exclosure?") I point to my masterpiece
of signs, rope, and sticks and say "signs and rope like
that". "How does that keep people out?" "Same way yellow
caution tape does."
I didn't see any piping plovers. On
the way back I saw Gatehouse-Donald headed down to Sandy
Point to check on the piping plovers there. Unit 3 says
we might have a nest. I'll bet it's that pair that
Jim
Fenton photographed in the act.
A week later, the same old guy came
back asking if I'd seen any piping plovers. Nope. But I
tell him there is a pair nesting at Sandy Point that he
could see. He tells me again how he's never seen one in
his whole life and really wants to. I tell him again he
can see them at Sandy Point, just keep an eye out for the
symbolic fencing. "What's symbolic fencing?" "Signs and
rope." He takes a step toward Sandy Point then tells me
he's old and it's too far to walk. I feel so bad for him.
I want to help him but I can't. He walks back to the
parking lot again not having seen a piping plover. Awhile
later an even older guy comes by walking with trekking
poles. He tells me he's old and the poles help him walk
on sand. I wish the things unseen guy was stlll here so I
can tell him about the trekking poles. The trekking poles
guy heads off toward Sandy Point with two other elderly
birders.
And there you have the tale of
things unseen and symbolic fencing.
