Category Archives: In the neighborhood

Birds, In the neighborhood, Snapshots

Occupied

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Sandy Hook…

where every platform

and every chimney is occupied!

A couple hours this afternoon at the SHBO Migration Watch platform provided plenty of close looks at osprey – there are four active nests visible from the watch site alone – plus nice looks at some merlins and a couple sharpies. Turkey vultures were circling, hesitant to cross the bay. Plenty of gannets were flying close to the beach, as well. Some early butterflies were out, which along with airplanes overhead, provided ID challenges when the birds were slow.
😉
Our counter this year, John VanDort, maintains a well-written blog about his sightings at the Hook (and elsewhere) that I’ve enjoyed reading since discovering it. Have a look!
Birds, In the neighborhood, Seasons

Hope, muted

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Winter just got a little sand-colored, orange-legged, breast-banded stake driven through its icy heart.*

I made my March pilgrimage this weekend to greet the newly-arrived Piping Plover at Sandy Hook, where it felt very gray and wet and winter-like, but hopeful, still. Woodcock are next, if it’ll ever stop raining and blowing!

*C. Vogel, quoted without permission from Jersey Birds, on his find of a Piping Plover at Cape May yesterday.

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, I like to make lists, In the neighborhood

34

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A ritual walk on the sand, the brittle night and the wide blue sky of Winter boundless above us. With frozen lips I named the couple stars I’ve managed to learn and wondered why I didn’t choose to learn the warmer summer sky.

😉

I’m tempted to start my naming with the Big Dipper and its arrow to Polaris; the Big Dipper being the only constellation I’d learned as a child and which I’ve since learned (thanks to Steve) is, instead, an asterism.

I turn my back to the chill wind and its view of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor to start instead with conspicuous Orion, whose belt (another asterism and don’t I sound smart?) points the way to Sirius and Canis Major and Canis Minor… in that general area, too, someone’s imagined a rabbit, but I don’t see it.

A couple spins (I did a lot of spinning to reorient myself in the sky and avoid the wind) and high in the sky I find the almost familiar “W” of Cassiopeia, whose name I can’t pronounce correctly, especially not with such numb lips. From the corner of my eye, a new one, the Pleiades, overhead.

That’s five at least, isn’t it? Have I learned my quota, can I get back in my car and out of this relentless cold, please?

The dark and the hush deepen, all a part of the beauty that touches the quick of understanding. We came for the night, as well as the stars, and it was there all around us. When at last my stiff fingers had thawed and I was on my way home again, the magic was still there. It’s more than the stars; it’s the cold and the wind, and the old, old stories across the sky.

34 in my 39 by 40.

Half-finished ramblings, In the neighborhood, Remembering

64 steps

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Standing at the bottom of the
circular staircase, there are just 64 steps to the top and a couple of landings in between where you can look out. Sandy Hook and Manhattan lie to the far left, that maze of a new bridge crosses the river down below and leads to the sea, home is somewhere in the estuary to the right. Medieval in its feel, the brownstone building is eight-sided; not a perfect twin to its square southern sister who’s never been open to climb. I remember kissing a red-haired boy with my hands on the top railing during a class trip in the 7th grade. The teacher sent a note home to my dad the next day. It’s all at the bottom landing that I remember this, that cramped space that gives no hint of the view 64 steps up. There’s a restaurant at the bottom of the hill, under the old bridge, where you can eat steamed clams and mussels, tho I never did. I used to take the bus to Sandy Hook, hitchhike on the long road out with a friend to our favorite beach and come home with the sea in my hair. The salt from an afternoon swim still on my skin. The waves against my body, the caress of the sea, the embrace… that stayed with me back at home. I worked in a restaurant on the bay for a while and ate clam broth every night that tasted of the sea. I liked the potatoes but the clams slid down rough. I haven’t yet learned to like the texture of clams. There are 11 steps to go. This could be any place, this circle of stairs, but as soon as I think it, I know it’s not true. Nowhere feels quite like this. It stays with me and rises on the wings of a gray and white gull. It follows the boats through the green-marked channel below. Sea Bright isn’t far… where I would go to watch fishermen and plovers. Stand in the dunes and tall grass at the end of Surf Street. Watch the tide rush and the flow of the moon, let go to the arms of the sea. When I climb back down I’ll run for the sea, eager for its lick on my legs. I’ll wait for dark, maybe, look up from the sand to the moon on my skin, to the beam from this clamshell-shaped lens as it circles the sea and finds me, lost in remembering.

In the neighborhood, PSA

A hero for the coast

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Dery Bennett passed away yesterday.

If you know Sandy Hook, you most certainly knew Dery.

The American Littoral Society, a coastal preservation organization which he directed for some 35 years, is located next to the bird observatory on Sandy Hook Bay. It lobbies on coastal land use, development and water quality issues; works to protect water quality, habitat and wildlife, and runs educational and research programs, including the largest volunteer fish-tagging program in the country.

Bennett most recently was the organization’s director of special projects, after relinquishing the directorship a couple years back. But for many, me included, he WAS the American Littoral Society – its conscience and guiding light. Dery was probably one of the best advocates the coast and ocean has ever known… he fought for public beach access and against developers and lobbyists. He edited the society’s newsletter and led beach walks on New Year’s Day. He was a fisherman and a wisecracker and a genuinely good guy.

I’ll miss crossing paths with him at North Beach… miss that shock of white hair and his friendly wave across the dunes.

“He talks about the ocean as if it is more important than the economic viability of the state.“
— Hal Bozarth, a lobbyist for the Chemistry Council of New Jersey

Photo of Dery, in a wetsuit and presumably on a surfboard, from The Newark Star Ledger. He was 79.