Category Archives: Wanderings

Snapshots, Wanderings, Whatever

Freedom

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When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.
You must learn one thing: the world was meant to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn that anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you…
~David Whyte

Lower range light at Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Snapshots, Wanderings

4/100

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I’ve sort of fallen off the bandwagon the last month or so with my stranger pics… probably I’ve lost my nerve for it, but this guy…

Hmm.

Everything about him wanted to be photographed, I think.

😉

I dashed up to him across the jetty, asked his permission, snapped the photo and dashed off… feeling really, really embarrassed.

I wonder what it is that makes a stranger feel approachable enough to me…

I wonder what it is that makes a stranger interesting enough…

I wonder why I haven’t had the nerve yet to approach a woman…

This photo is #4 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at Flickr 100 Strangers or www.100Strangers.com

Birds, Pastimes, Snapshots, Wanderings

Sea dog, jetty birds and the distance

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A return trip today to Barnegat Light with the Monmouth County Audubon Society was graced by many of the same species as last week’s visit, plus a new one!

This harbor seal had hauled itself up onto the rocks of a small jetty behind the lighthouse to rest and soak up some sun, much to our delight. They’re fairly common here in winter, but this is the closest I’ve ever seen one. They have small rounded heads and whiskered snouts, but it’s their huge and soulful eyes that establish the resemblance with a more blubbery version of man’s best friend.

Click for whisker views!

It was really sweet to watch it nearly tipping off the rocks as it napped! The seal seemed well aware of, yet unconcerned with the group of admirers that had gathered at the base of the lighthouse to watch it.

Many thanks to Steve for letting me use his big lens for these closer-up views.

High tide and a heavy surf had rearranged the sea ducks and shorebirds in new patterns. The jetty was impossibly dangerous today… so hardly any harlequins were within view, but the crashing waves beyond the jetty were black with ducks!

😉

There were big numbers of long-tails and lots of scoters (black and surf) close within the inlet, disappearing and reappearing behind the swells… a real treat! I also saw quite a few common eiders looking just like the field guides say they should… sweet!

(Of course there’s no pictures… I wasn’t about to climb up on the jetty and get soaking wet or worse.)

The purple sandpipers, dunlin, ruddy turnstones and a lone sanderling were mostly feeding on the lee side of the jetty… out of the wind and the crashing waves. They’re all so inconspicuous somehow, looking like nothing more than jetty rock, until you realize that the rocks are moving and alive with birds.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I often wonder why in the world I do this… why I stand out in the cold until my hands and lips are numb… just to see birds that I’ve seen any number of times before in much less awful conditions?

It’s mostly ritual, I think, like waiting for woodcock in an early spring dusk or estimating the number of swallows that might rise from the phragmites at North Pond on a late summer dawn.

What’s not often mentioned among birders is the time spent scanning the horizon, that distant magic place where sky and sea or sky and land converge to ignite the imagination. The time spent looking at nothing. You have to be patient when you look there. You might not see anything new… or see anything at all, but you have to look and wait, just in case.

Some people don’t ever want to look into that distance. Some people won’t tolerate the discomfort of it.

(Wimps!)

Sometimes the best thing I find while scanning that distance is inside me, anyway.

Birds, Snapshots, Travels with the flock, Wanderings

Images: Barnegat Light

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Some more pics that might’ve been included in yesterday’s post…

Beth and her friend Kathy traveled all the way from Pa. and had HAD ENOUGH by the time we met in the parking lot at midday. While the weather was beautiful… usually I think of Barnegat Light as the coldest place on earth… the brisk wind had brought out the apples on sweet Beth’s cheeks.

🙂

This would, I think, make a nice quiz photo for those, like me, who are terror-stricken by shorebirds. At least in wintertime, the possibilities are somewhat limited.

Sleepy dunlin (I think… though I was at first convinced they were purple sandpipers), an orange-legged ruddy turnstone, and a sweet spotty-flanked black-belly plover.

(Take all those ID’s with a grain of salt, of course.)

I love how tame shorebirds can be in winter and am amazed with how they find comfort together on these wind-swept jetties.

Harlequins… what sweet little sea ducks!

They weren’t close in to the lighthouse this time, like they usually are…

Instead they were feeding way out at the end of the jetty, with a happy group of photographers closeby.

(I was a wimp and walked along the sand, instead of on those treacherous rocks.)

Oldsquaw (long-tailed ducks) are a favorite… for their pink-tipped bills and their calls… nothing says winter to me like that sound echoing in the wind.

The day was ended near Manahawkin with hopes for short-eared owls hunting like butterflies over the marsh at dusk.

There were none, but that matters little, really. For all the frigid sunsets I’ve lingered in to spot one with no success… the couple times I have seen them in the low-slanted light of a winter afternoon serve my memory well enough that the hope of them keeps me coming back to wait, just in case.

Birds, Snapshots, Travels with the flock, Wanderings, Whatever

Moments: Barnegat Light

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Once past the terror of the jetty rocks, a rush of wind and an expanse of space… and ducks.

Birders caught in a quandry about the identity of the long-tailed (or are they pin-tailed?) ducks paddling and diving along the inlet at Old Barney’s feet.

(A good enough reason for me to continue calling them oldsquaw… politically incorrect or no…)

The oddly painted costume of the harlequin duck is distinct and well worth the hours long drive to see them.

Random teeterings and dawdlings of dunlin, turnstone and purple sandpiper.

Tears that come at the memory of another visit here, a lifetime ago. I turn around confounded by the wall of wind… heedless of how fast and far I’ve come.

I try to imagine this place in summer, as most would know it… waves glitter a thousand small suns, the long rhythm of the surf, a herring gull’s call like a rusty pulley, the clatter and crunch of periwinkles, scallops and skate egg casings, the sight of a black skimmer slitting the seam between two worlds.

– – – – – – – – – – –

See any good birds yourself this weekend?

😉

Oh… and I ran into Beth out ogling the harlequins! Small world…

Snapshots, Wanderings

The Night Traveler

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“Passing by, he could be anybody:
A thief, a tradesman, a doctor
On his way to a worried house.
But when he stops at your gate,
Under the room where you lie half-asleep,
You know it is not just anyone —
It is the Night Traveler.
You lean your arms on the sill
And stare down. But all you can see
Are bits of wilderness attached to him —
Twigs, loam and leaves,
Vines and blossoms. Among those
You feel his eyes, and his hands
Lifting something in the air.
He has a gift for you, but it has no name.
It is windy and woolly.
He holds it in the moonlight, and it sings
Like a newborn beast,
Like a child at Christmas,
Like your own heart as it tumbles
In love’s green bed.
You take it, and he is gone.
All night — and all your life, if you are willing —
It will nuzzle your face, cold-nosed,
Like a small white wolf;
It will curl in your palm
Like a hard blue stone;
It will liquefy into a cold pool
Which, when you dive into it,
Will hold you like a mossy jaw.
A bath of light. An answer.”
–Mary Oliver, Twelve Moons
I’m not sure how it’s even possible to love a poem so much that I barely understand, but I do…
🙂
Pic from last December at the Lakota Wolf Preserve
Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings, Whatever

How I spent my blog vacation

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trying to stay warm

giggling into pillows

treasuring the magic of snow and ice

buying the world’s most ridiculous bikini

reminiscing with shrinky-dinks and easy-bake ovens

waving back at colorful fish
sliding down snowy roads in my converse sneakers
feeling a little blue
spoiling other people’s dogs

trying out the big bed

witnessing the sun decorate the sky at dawn and dusk
grasping for words

(triple letter and double word scores)

searching for a cell signal in the mountains

counting crows

watching quietly as children opened gifts

puzzling over cryptic sparrows and wishing for a better lens

meeting friends and family

losing myself in diamond dust and the enormity of the night sky

scandalizing a couple sweet little girls

(nothing too serious… don’t worry!)

scoring an awesome set of horseshoes

celebrating the new year twice

(once with sparklers and banging pots and the next with kisses and hugs)

making wishes on a falling star

beating everyone at pool

soaking up the welcome heat of a fire

seeing someone i love look ridiculously happy

Birds, I like to make lists, Travels with the flock, Wanderings

Year in review: birds

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2009 was a good year for birds: I added twelve new species to my life list, give or take one or two that I’m probably making up or remembering wrong.

😉

I don’t believe that increasing one’s life list has anything much to do with skill; in fact, I’ve found that over the years as my skills have improved, I’ve whittled my list down by quite a few birds that were questionable in my memory. Did I really see that Baird’s Sandpiper or was I just part of a group that did? Would I know it when I saw it again?

Most certainly not.

So I don’t count the Goshawk that flew over our van in the Adirondacks years ago or half of the gulls I could. I’ve seen them, yeah, but I recognize now that I still don’t know them. I was probably a little too generous with myself as a beginner and my life list reflected that.

As it stands, the number hovers a few over 300, which is respectable, I think, considering that I hadn’t traveled much to see birds until this past year. Adding new life birds at this point is about money and travel and getting up the courage to do a pelagic trip. Considering how close I am to the ocean, it’s almost shameful that I don’t know shorebirds well or have many seabirds. Gulls are still beyond me and that’s still a point of pride that I’m not prepared to surrender, yet.

😉

My first life bird of 2009 was close to home; a sweet Orange-Crowned Warbler that I saw with a sweet friend at Sandy Hook in January.

April’s trip with The Flock to the New River Birding and Nature Festival netted me three warblers: Swainson’s, Cerulean and Yellow-Throated. I most wanted Cerulean on that trip and was glad to get it, though the light was horrible and rainy and I still hope to see one whose color matches the sky like they say it does.

Late June found me, on a whim, in Michigan for Kirtland’s Warbler. Most would consider this a once-in-a-lifetime bird and I was lucky enough to stand among a small group of them singing and feeding young on a summer day.

Wow.

October at the Colonial Coast Birding Festival brought many wonders and six new birds.

I spent a couple days with crazy dream birds, like this Roseate Spoonbill, flying over my head while I wondered how anyone could possibly concentrate on anything else!

Huge pink birds with ridiculously-shaped bills… just crazy.

Mind you, there was a Spoonbill here in NJ at about the same time, but nothing could’ve compared to the sight of groups of them, mixed with Wood Storks and White Ibis floating over in the unbearable heat.

The Brown Pelicans on that trip nearly drove me to distraction, too. And fits of uncontrollable laughter.

😉

There was also a less-than-satisfying look at a Loggerhead Shrike and what I remember to be a Common Moorhen.

Probably I’m making that last one up, though I do somehow remember a purplish bird that reminded me of a chicken.

Probably I shouldn’t count that one yet, right?

The last life bird of the year was sort of a nemesis bird for me: a Golden Eagle. There’d been a couple speck sightings of them through the years, mostly at the hawkwatch at Cape May, but nothing I ever felt really comfortable counting. This one, flying over the road in late October I’ll count for now, until I spot one out west somewhere, perched close enough that I can see the wash of gold across its shoulders.

So… what birds did you add to your life list last year? Which are you hoping to add in 2010?

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Snapshots, Wanderings

3/100

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This is Will. I don’t know much about him, but we met that day among the photographers at Conowingo. He has a couple galleries on SmugMug… some nice pics there.

I anticipated being able to take a fair number of *easy* stranger pics that day, but found the prospect of approaching other photographers much more daunting than I’d expected it to be. At some point during the day, with a false sense of bravado, I set out to find the guy with the most intimidating camera gear and the least approachable face. I walked up and down the line of people spread out along the shore below the dam and just couldn’t make myself do it.

😉

Will didn’t have a very big lens, but he also isn’t very friendly-looking… until you get to his eyes… there’s the faintest hint of a smile brewing there, I think. I like that it’s obvious on his face… in those wrinkles… that he spends a lot of time outdoors.

This photo is #3 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at Flickr 100 Strangers or www.100Strangers.com

Books, Seasons, Snapshots, Wanderings, Wildflowers

Winter color

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“The color, we say, is gone, remembering vivid October and verdant May. What we really mean is that the spectacular color has passed and we now have the quiet tones of Winter around us, the browns, the tans, a narrower range of greens, with only an occasional accent in the lingering Winter berries. But the color isn’t really gone.
The meadow is sere tan, but that is a tan of a dozen different shades from gold to russet. The fallen leaves have been leached of their reds and yellows, but theirs is no monotone by any means. The bronze curve of the goldenrod stem emphasizes the ruddy exclamation point of the cattail. The rough brown bark of the oak makes the trunk of the sugar maple appear armored in rusty iron. The thorny stalk of the thistle stands beside the cinnamon seed head of the pungent bee balm. Dark eyes stare from the white parentheses of the stark birches, bronze tufts of one-winged seeds tassel the box elder, miniature “cones” adorn the black-brown alders at the swamp’s edge.
In the woods, the insistent green of Christmas fern and partridgeberry leaf compete with the creeping ancients, ground cedar and running pine. Hemlock, spruce and pine trees cling to their own shades of green, individual as the trees themselves. And on their trunks are paint patches of the ancient lichen, tan and red and blue and green, like faint reflections of vanished floral color.
The color is still there, though its spectrum has somewhat narrowed. Perhaps it takes a Winter eye to see it, an eye that can forget October and not yearn for May too soon.”
-Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons
(still my favorite book in the world!)
I love the way this author makes me stop to notice or puts a name to the things that grab my attention. Always there’s something to learn from Borland’s observations.
Anyway…
Anyone recognize the flower in this pic?