and I’d thought I was awkward-looking as a teenager!
😉
Skimmers give no hint of their grace on the wing as they pass the hours between tides on a late October beach in NJ.
They’re somewhere far south now, somewhere far warmer than here.
Yet I can see the loveliness, come summer, as improbable as the bird itself, and as improbable as any lanky teenager, staring at herself in the mirror, waiting and willing her own summer come.
It is such a good thing, to be able to realize the beauty that is to come. It keeps us going, doesn’t it?
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that bird. Now a vulture, that’s one ugly animal.
For what it’s worth, and although I’m not a “her” or a bird, my summer never arrived either. Or perhaps it’s just very, very late…
“Yet I can see the loveliness, come summer, as improbable as the bird itself, and as improbable as any lanky teenager, staring at herself in the mirror, waiting and willing her own summer come.”
Again Laura, your writing gave me goosebumps.
Dr. Know- I beg to differ. Turkey Vultures are not ugly. They are BEAUTIFUL.
I knew the vulture remark would ruffle Lynne’s feathers (tee hee).
Anyway, with skimmers you figure all that wing span has to go somewhere when the birds are on the beach.
Amazing that such a graceful bird in flight should look so awkward on the sand. She does look as if she is waiting for her summer to come.
Lynne – I was thinking of Old World Vultures more than the American variety. Yet all vultures are fair by candlelight.
Well .. for a moment I thought it was a shot captured by one of the Mars Rovers … or, maybe those Rovers are not REALLY on Mars – they are just on a secluded, private stretch of New Jersey beach and this is one of the shots that had to be cut. Sort of like the old “Not really on the Moon” rumor