Category Archives: Wanderings
Sea mice
also Painted Duck, Mountain Duck, Rock Duck, Lord and Lady, Squealer.
“Harlequin, well named! Fantastically decorated, but still a thing of beauty! Delightful in color, elegant in form, graceful in carriage, rightly are its little companies called the “Lords and Ladies” of the waters. This is the loveliest of the Sea Ducks, but its beauty is reserved mainly for the cold and inhospitable North and the wave-lashed rocks of isolated ledges in the wintry sea.”
–Edward Howe Forbush in Birds of America (1936)
Monmouth County Audubon’s annual frozen pilgrimage to see the Harlequins at Barnegat Light was last weekend. We had a very small group… probably due to the especially frigid temps.
It’s one of my favorite places in the world, but the walk out the jetty to see the Harlequins is not for the faint of heart. We were blessed that day with a gentle wind out of the right direction and a low tide… so the boulders that make up the mile long jetty were mostly dry and free of ice.
Still… I mostly walked along the sand beside the jetty… looking for Sparrows and Snow Buntings and Horned Larks and leaving the dangerous stuff for the foolhardy members of the group!
The jetty was constructed to protect the shoreline and prevent sand from filling in the inlet. It and a parallel jetty on the north side of the inlet are designed to keep the channel from the ocean to Barnegat Bay deep and navigable.
If you’re lucky, as we were, a couple Harlequins will be feeding in tranquil waters at the very beginning of the jetty where there’s a concrete walkway and a guardrail; oftentimes it’s necessary to walk the full length of it to the roiled waters and slippery rocks at the very end to find them.
We walked all the way out anyway because the jetty and its boulders attract a variety of marine growth (like mussels which the Harlequins feed on) and which otherwise attracts fish, which, in turn, attract more birds like Loons, Scoters, Eiders, Mergansers and Long-tailed Ducks. Purple Sandpipers, Dunlin, Ruddy Turnstones and Sanderling populate the mossy crevices of the jetty.
Even if there weren’t birds to look at, one could hardly be bored with the constant threat of a broken bone or a concussion with any misstep!
; )
I’d imagine the Harlequins to be something of a boon to the local beach communities which are otherwise mostly deserted in the winter. Someone has to serve chocolate-chip pancakes and hot cocoa to all us shivering birders!
Barnegat Light is, for those who love the sea and the immediate shore, a very special place.
Any ideas to explain the “Sea Mouse” name?
The paranoid poet
Between the poet and the grimacing woman
on a beat-up blue bicycle,
lies a blurred wasteland.
She hasn’t always been this person.
Her squalid apartment
the letters scrawled in mad ink
that fizz by themselves in my in-basket
the dreamy smile
that makes her look, suddenly, young.
Walking the tightrope with her
ignoring the drop of the past,
avoiding looking down
to recognize the loss
and spinning, headfirst
into dizzying sadness.
The fear that I, too, might unravel
and spin off into nothing.
– – – – – – – – – – –
CM is a published poet, a librarian in a past life and a client of mine. She recently admitted that she suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and fears that she’ll be evicted, now that her landlord knows the truth about her. She insists that her mental illness doesn’t affect her ability to write poetry.
I worry about her a lot, visit her often and get almost weekly letters from her. Once or twice a year, she’ll send me a poem. I treasure those.
The man with the “golden voice” has me thinking of such things… I imagine a government social worker, somewhere, cheering him on, knowing this was coming, all along.
– – – – – – – – – – –
Photo from the Howard Finster collection at the High Museum in Atlanta. I was there recently to see the Dalí exhibit and… wow!
I thought of you
There’s no better way to spend a day than to have your face kissed by the ocean’s gentle mist as you walk along the shore. Especially if your heart is full from a day packed with laughter and the presence of people who bring great joy. And especially if your heart is full from longing for family and friends whom you miss dearly, near and far.
I thought of you as I took this photo. I held you in my heart and imagined you were next to me. Yes, you. And you. And you, too.
You know who you are. And if you don’t, you should.
Bad bird photo of the week
Care to venture a guess?
: )
Lines across the sky
 |
| Bald Eagle over Forsythe NWR |
“He draws great lines across the sky; he sees the forests like a carpet beneath him; he sees the hills and valleys as folds and wrinkles in a many colored tapestry; he sees the river as a silver belt connecting remote horizons. We climb mountain peaks to get a glimpse of the spectacle that is hourly spread out beneath him. Dignity, elevation, repose, are his. I would have my thoughts take as wide a sweep. I would be as far removed from the petty cares and turmoils of this noisy and blustering world.“
-John Burroughs, Far and Near
I had my life Bald Eagle at Forsythe (Brig) many years ago… I can hardly go there today without remembering that first glimpse of this magical bird.
Where was your first?
Ternabout
For the longest time, I just didn’t “get” terns. Nowadays I can’t seem to get enough of them!
For the beginner, I think they’re hard to separate, but the more time I get to spend with them, the clearer the contrasts become.
Distinguishing Royal (foreground) from Caspian (background) had felt so abstract until I saw them on the beach together at Sapelo… even out of focus, the Caspians are burly by comparison and there’s no mistaking the red of their bill for that of a Royal.
Note: I’m catching up with posting some old photos that I hadn’t yet blogged… these from the beach in October are warming my chilly bones.
Remembering warmer days
 |
| Waiting for the ferry to Sapelo |
A spectacle in black and white, brown and blue
The promise of hundreds upon hundreds of Snow Geese drew me to Forsythe NWR this past weekend…
Their handsome white or shades of gray in the blue sky, the black wing feathers, pinkish bills and feet…
All delightful against the winter browns of the salt marsh.
It’s difficult to watch any one, as there are so many flying across the marsh from one impoundment to the next…
An Eagle on the horizon doesn’t cause the expected panic among them; they sit tight instead and travel across the marsh en masse, at their leisure and to my delight.
*The coastal marshes of NJ are a significant wintering ground for Snow Geese; their numbers will grow into the (hundreds?) of thousands before our waters freeze and they’re forced further south to warmer climes. I’m glad for the spectacle of them, here, now.
: )
Criers of the winter to come…
Tundra Swans over Cape May – October 2010