Western Sandpiper

 After a long day of work, sitting in front of a laptop, annoyed by the insular experience of being wedded to its artificial light, I end the day with a birding excursion to Pine Point in Scarborough, Maine. Shorebird season is heating up and I have not seen a Western Sandpiper this year. Do I need to see it? What drives me? Is it pure selfishness or curiosity? Who knows. All I know is I like finding birds in their natural habitat, knowing they've traveled hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles to migrate from a breeding location to a non-breeding location so they can be in a safe climate. Along the way they will stop at places like Pine Point, plunging their black bills into the mud at low tide until high tide pushes them to find other shelter. But for those few hours when they are exposed to predators on the shore they will feast in the mud. Sometimes they will take a quick nap, tucking their little heads behind their necks. This is when they are most vulnerable. If you're lucky you'll be on the beach and be able to get close enough to see them with binoculars, making out each one's particular shade of grey, brown, mixed mottled, and white bodies. If you're lucky you will find one among hundreds that has a couple of streaking bright cinnamon marks on its back, and a bill that appears to be just so ever slightly longer, droopy. A head and posture comparatively larger than the Semi-palmated Sandpipers around in droves. I saw this bird today, and in that time of looking, re-affirming what I thought I was seeing in my head, I forgot the whole rest of the day. And that is priceless in the most non-commercial, this-is-a-life-worth-living sort of moment. After getting lucky enough to take a few photos, a Cooper's Hawk comes flying through, and most the birds scatter and survive. Every moment felt perfectly imperfect, exceptional, and fleeting.  

Lifer at Black Point Wildlife Drive

I arrived to the park mediating upon the centipede-like movement of vehicles along the drive, the winding dirt road without boundaries, careful to not topple over my vehicle while watching for the movement of birds. I spotted shorebirds first. You can’t miss their mottled brown bodies, jerking heads, their love for low water and damp edges. Most of the mid-sized birds were dowitchers, needling the muddy water constantly, sewing deep breaths of air into nothing you can see. You go breathless just watching them; it almost feels like you can’t exhale 100 percent. I’m going through the Rolodex of shorebirds in my mind, identifying the rest, recording numbers and notes for as many as I can. But shorebirds were not my target species, even though these are my First of the Year sightings (FOYs), so I drove on. Normally I would have stayed longer, spent more time here. But time is an interesting proposition when you’re birding, especially for a new exciting bird you’ve never seen before; you balance yourself between wanting to find it as fast a possible, and moving slowly and methodically so as not to miss it. And when you find it, you simmer in the moment. You sip on life’s surprises and discoveries. 

I move forward trying to recall the notes from a birding internet site that divulged the exact location and habitat my target bird has lived in for the past few weeks. These scribed instructions stored in my head are my only talisman. “Second blind,” I remember it saying, but I only see placards numbered 1,2,3...and find not a blind nearby. Did I miss it somehow? Am I that bad with directions? Am I that bad of a birder? At the next pull off I get excited, lots of waterfowl here. I take out my binoculars and scan carefully. Northern Shoveler, Blue-winged Teal, more and more of the same, all amazing in their best plumage. The sure volume of them is impressive too, but I’d be more in awe of them if I weren’t in search of a cinnamon red, glossy duck with a jeweled-red eye. I drive up a little farther as I see a few stragglers hanging out in the back edge. I get out of the vehicle, which no one seems to do here. Everyone I’ve driven by stayed inside like it’s dangerous or against policy or will piss off the nature gods. Am I doing something wrong or improper, I think for a second, or a minute. I don’t know because time here in the bright sun melts and seeps into you like butter on bread. No, I decide this is a wildlife refuge, they want you to experience it on foot, not just from a vehicle. There are no signs pointing out any restrictions for pedestrian traffic. And “nature gods” don’t exist do they? This is when I catch myself, my mind cranking like a windmill that looks slow from a distance but is cranking fast if you could see it up close. I’m thinking too much, not enjoying the birds, the obvious beauty of this expansive place that my simple words can never adequately capture. 

Breathing in deeper now, breathing out through the mouth in an exaggerated way like my Physical Therapist taught me. Wow, look at those Northern Shovelers again, exhaling, paused to consume the moment and somehow digest it for later. Now, inhale now, now on repeat in my head. Exhale. I walk a little farther find what seems to be a blind (there it is, a blind!), and a second blind after that. I walk briskly, put my binoculars on some more ducks, more Blue-winged Teal closer than I’ve ever seen one. There must be at least fifty here. I walk a few more steps, about half-way to the second blind, and find another opening between a few bushes. Red! I see red, a crimson red, red duck! Cinnamon Teal, a male with that bold ruby eye, cinnamon body, gold streaking tail feathers, and black bill. Wow, gold I say to myself, those tail feathers are gold. That’s all I keep saying to myself, melting into the moment. My satisfied smile surprises me. I wasn’t thinking. I was just looking, smiling. Happiness. Wow. That’s all there is.

Vermivora cyanoptera - Follow the Buzz!

What’s that sound? Buzz-buzz? Beee-buzz-buzz? 

No, we’re not stalking bees here. Terez and I are walking the side of this narrow road, cars passing us, drivers wondering what we’re up to as we point binoculars towards bushes, trees, and houses that happened to be in the vicinity of the sound we seek. 

In a world where buzzing is mostly associated with cell phones, considered normal if one carries the buzzing device around in public spaces, the buzzing of a bird is contrarian, abnormal, an anomaly. 

And we are excited as anyone expecting a call on those buzzing phones, perhaps from a loved one or the bank with the good news we are approved for a loan, necessary evil for owning a house or car, a piece of the so-called American Dream. 

But no, we are here by the cracked pavement trying to drown out the noise of a passing sports car, its engine revving with the sound of human extravagance, to listen like dogs at the sound of a door opening, knowing this is their owner coming home. 

We can smell it. We would wag our tails if we had them. 

And there, suddenly, in the opening between two trees a flash of bright yellow where the beee-buzz-buzz came from, then silence, then a chip-note unlike any other. Across the street in a tree the Blue-Winged Warbler sits like a fidgety child on a branch, and very briefly our sense of sight confirms the ID:

Bright-yellow body

Black-eyeline

Black, pointy bill

Blue-gray wings

Two obvious wingbars

Lifer! 

Life is good in all its abnormal, unexpected rarity.

Field Study

Race Point Beach: Peanut-bunker Field Study

We well-educated students

repeated: beautiful, beautiful, 
as if one numbing, drumming

word summarized the experience.

  

We witnessed thousands of silver fish

synthesized in slashed waves -

orchestrating baited, beached breaths 

where we ate our sandwiches.

We wagered how many breaths 
they had left, without acknowledging 

our own, wondering how many answers 
go unlocked and the questioning jaws,

the all-consuming study of awe.

Beginning

In this blog I hope to post prose articles on my birding and naturalist adventures, and maybe a little poetry. Maybe it’s all poetry...who cares, who needs labels.