in which i prove i am an idiotJuly 8, 2006
Just when I think there is nothing new to say about spending a day at the beach not seeing piping plovers, I do something I have never done before. Well, OK, there are other proofs that I am an idiot but not in the plover warden context. Must be the heat, haze, and humidity (hhh as the weatherman calls it.)I know they adjust the boundaries of the closed beach area in July depending on who has hatched and fledged. Last week, at the beginning of July, I remembered to ask if the south boundary had changed. No, it hadn't because there were some unfledged chicks between lots 6 and 7. Today I was on auto-pilot on account of not yet having taken so much as a sip of the fabulous dark roast of the day from Plum Island Coffee Roasters, which I'd just bought. I always warn my bosses and co-workers in high-tech-land that I have never hired anybody I've interviewed before 9:00 AM and in general I'm not real useful until fully caffeinated -- so we have the before 9:00 AM syndrome and the lack of caffeine syndrome as well as another one of those hhh days this summer seems to throw at us when it's not raining. Somehow I get the idea in my head that the boundary has changed to lot 7. I don't ask, I just auto-pilot on down there.
There's no place to park at lot 7. Hmmm. I'll just park at Sandy Point and walk. I start walking. I get to the boardwalk from lot 7 and it finally dawns on me that the boundary is at lot 6. Here is where the idiot factor comes in. I decide to keep walking. It is approximately 6 tenths of a mile from the border between Sandy Point State Reservation and PRNWR to lot 6. This might have been OK had I not been carrying my beach chair, the plover warden backpack, my own little tote bag with my binoculars/camera/bug spray/sunscreen, and ... pause dramatically for effect ... my precious cup of coffee. I'm walking in soft sand with greenheads buzzing around me. Suddenly I am on my knees in wet sand, spilling coffee onto my shirt, pants, tote bag and whatever while a greenhead gets a good bloody grip on the tender part of my hand between the thumb and forefinger. The same hand that is holding the coffee. Now I've got coffee and blood running down my hand onto my clothes and equipment. I take a sip of the coffee. It's still hot and there's still plenty left. I get up without spilling anymore coffee. Thankfully there is no blood in the coffee.
Only now do I radio the gatehouse that I am only 2/3 of the way to lot 6 from Sandy Point and am parked at Sandy Point. I do not reveal the rest of the story. Unit 61 tells me I have a perfectly good assigned parking space at lot 6. I point out that it is silly for me to walk back to Sandy Point given how close I am to lot 6 so I'll keep going. Unit 3 offers to give me a ride back to my car when I'm done. i feel like a complete idiot. I am a complete idiot.
So, I get to where I'm supposed to be and have the least busy shift I've had so far all season. This is even less busy than the freezing cold days in April. I've covered myself with bug spray but the greenheads bite me anyway. They concentrate on my right ankle for some reason. Dozens of them. My ankle is not only bloody but sore and swollen. Weird. Guess I'm gonna need that ride back.
I watch people do the dance of the greenheads. I watch two women attempt to eat their beach snack of a fruit plate while half submerged in the water to avoid the greenheads. I watch slices of watermelon fallen from the fruit plate move back and forth on the waves. I watch two adult great black back gulls chase off an immature great black back who keeps begging them for food while they completely ignore a Bonaparte's gull and a herring gull that are even closer to their precious prey than the immature great black back -- but they aren't begging for food. All this I watch as greenheads gnaw my ankle.
At the end of my shift, I radio for a ride. Unit 61 says he's right at lot 6, so he'll give me a lift back to Sandy Point. When we get back to my car I open the trunk for 61 to put my beach chair in. There are a few of those cardboard bands that Plum Island Coffee Roasters puts on the cups to keep you from burning your hand scattered in my trunk having fallen off various cups. Unit 61 says "I see you like the Roasters' coffee too!"
Plum Island
northern
mockingbird 1
killdeer 1
short billed dowitcher 5
eastern kingbird 4
bobolink 2
redwinged blackbird 2
brown thrasher 3
double crested cormorant 5
sanderling 5
Bonaparte's gull 7
ringbilled gull 3
common tern 3
tree swallow 4
great black back gull 4
herring gull 5
least tern 1
Today's Reading
The Bird of Light by John Hay
2006 Booklist
Ignore this thing below if you are reading the Plover Warden Diaries.
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Copyright © 2006, Janet I. Egan