SCENIC SUNDAY - Pond Island Lighthouse, Phippsburg Maine

Pond Island Lighthouse, Popham Beach, Phippsburg, Maine
spring horseback riding

Northern Pintail - Northern Pinhead

Northern Pintail drake with American Black ducks, as seen across the marsh on Hermit Island, Phippsburg Maine, February 2012

Marsh grass frozen under tide water, Hermit Island, February 2012
Do you see any car keys here?

Northern Pintail drake with American Black Duck drake, Phippsburg, Maine February 2012

 Northern Pintails have narrow, long wings and slender necks.

Northern Pintails upending at the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Preserve in New Jersey, 2010. Notice their pointed tails.

 

This may be the only owl I find all winter. It is folk art that I found on a fence post at Popham while searching for a Snowy owl.

     At home, I have a title; I am known as The Queen of Find. This is because my people think I have magical powers to find anything anytime. This includes objects I don’t own nor had any reason to even lay my eyes upon.  There’s no real secret to this; It’s just a system. Sometimes it’s as simple as asking where was the person who used an item when they last had it. That’s a no-brainer which any reasonable person should employ before asking someone else, namely me, “Have you seen my……..you fill in the blank.”  Most of the time, I don’t think about it because, I can literally ‘see’ the object in my mind. In fact, thinking about it usually messes with my powers. 
     I was born with some degree of what is called a “photographic memory.” As a youngster, I learned to use this talent to keep my father from beating us kids. When he couldn’t find something he had usually misplaced himself, I quickly pre-empted his wrath by finding what he sought, thus saving one of us a thrashing. Back then, being the Queen of Find had strictly practical applications. As I got older though, I came to like feeling special. I'll admit that by now, I have probably fostered dependency in some of my loved ones for the sake of my own thrill. 
     I was also born with really great eye sight. In fact, until the past couple of years, I had 20/10 vision. Any object that most people need to be ten feet from to see clearly, I can see from twenty feet away. This gave me a hefty advantage for birding, too. My husband is amazed at the birds I see that he does not, until I point them out. Traveling together on any given stretch of road, I'll see six raptors in the trees where he sees none.  Many times I've heard "You've got such a great eye!" A splendid birder friend once told me that I had "birding mojo." He didn't know it, but he couldn't have given me a finer compliment. I felt magnificent! 
     I'm at the age now where many of these talents are failing me and it scares the snot out of me. I am not going gently into the good night of aging. Like a lot of  women, I have struggled with knowing that I'm no longer the hottest babe in the room. Maybe I could deal with that more gracefully if everything wasn't disintegrating at once. I want to keep a couple of my talents that have set me apart. Does aging have to be a slow slide into incapacities?
     I do understand that cosmic balance and fairness dictate that compromises be made. So, I easily gave up on the idea that I would become an Olympic figure skater. My modeling career tanked when I stopped growing at five feet tall. And, I surrendered my dream of becoming a nuclear physicist when I flunked high school algebra. Those were my compromises, God. So where's the fairness?
     Everybody said when my eye sight started going to hell that it would deteriorate to a point, then stop, but apparently that's not true. Though my house is littered, confetti-like, with colorful reading glasses, none of them seem strong enough. I can't see far away quite as clearly as I used to, either. And now, my birding magic is losing its twinkle, too.
     I've seen quite a few rare birds in my birding career. I've had a good eye for picking them out and I've put the time and effort into it, too. Just this past week, I've seen and photographed a rare, Red-headed woodpecker and a Northern Pintail duck. The duck isn't rare, but it IS rare to see one in Maine in February. Nonetheless, the prize I long for is a Snowy owl. I've gone hunting nearly every day for weeks, so my failure to get one isn't for lack of trying. It must be, that like my thickening waist and ankles, my wrinkling face and dulling vision, the blush is off my mojo.
     After one of my recent fruitless Snowy expeditions to Popham Beach, I stopped at Hermit Island on my way home. A sulking brat, I was feeling very sorry for myself and quite desperate. My eyes keenly scanned the salt marsh and clam flats. That's how I spotted the Northern Pintail drake amongst the American Black ducks, all dabbling along the mud line. Well, at least that was something!
     I had barely stopped the car before I was shooting pictures out of the open window. I needed to be closer, so I pulled over. So as not to alarm them, I left the door open and slipped around the back of the car. Creeping across the muddy flat, I hunkered down to keep a low profile. I imagined myself like a sleek, Arctic fox slinking across the marsh. 
     Northern Pintails are a fairly large duck. Long and slender with narrow wings, they are fast and graceful fliers, sometimes called the “Greyhound of The Air.” The drakes sport a long, pointed tail which gives them the nickname “sprig.” When in breeding plumage, the tail accounts for a quarter of the full length of the bird! They aren't rare, though their populations have been in slow decline. Hybridization with invasive Mallards in the western and midwestern United States may be one reason. Predation by foxes, Bobcats and other large carnivores, disease, habitat loss and hunting are all contributing causes to their decline.
     Sprigs are dabbling ducks that eat mostly plants and insects from the bottom. Upending in shallow water, their long necks enable them to reach further down than other ducks. Usually eating in the evening or at night, they rest during the day. They breed in the northern areas of the planet. Highly migratory, they winter south of their breeding range to the equator. 
     The thermometer in the car said it was seventeen degrees. A biting wind cut across the flats from the west. As I stalked the ducks and waded through the icy tide water, I was mindful of where I stepped. In that cold, I couldn’t afford to stumble into a hole. Amber marsh grass, flattened and trapped in ice, lay in elegant whorls at my feet. Suddenly, the ducks flushed and the whirring wings raised them skyward and away. I was freezing!    
      When I got back to the car, I could not find my keys anywhere. I am compulsive about not leaving my keys in the car because I am paranoid about locking them in. I always put my keys into my right, front pants pocket. I check and double check them.  For me to lose car keys was unheard of! I couldn’t freaking believe it! I traced and retraced my steps through the frozen marsh at least a dozen times. After about the sixth pass, my feet went from throbbing to numb. I passed over and over the same beer bottle, rubber lobster claw band and wad of balloon ribbon, but could not find the keys. I grabbed fistfuls of my own hair and screeched at the sky, "Where they hell are they!" I screamed at no one. From far across the cove, a loon cried back.
     I searched the car, knowing they weren't there. The tide was creeping in as I walked the marsh again. I thought about frost bite. I didn't have a cell phone; coverage here is spotty at best. I was miles from a phone or occupied home.  I had left the car door open and window down to sneak up on the now, long gone ducks. I had thousands of dollars of camera equipment in the car, more than I could carry and more than I could abandon. Panic was setting in and panic is not my style. The Queen of Find was going to die empty handed and without ceremony on a clam flat. When I started to cry the tears froze on my face.
     As I was triaging which pieces of equipment to carry with me for the long trek ahead, a pick-up truck came barreling along. The driver named John, had a cell phone which mercifully had enough bars that I was able to call my husband to come with spare keys. I was exhausted and embarrassed.
     The next day, I went back and looked again, to no avail. Why would I look for keys lost in mud on a tidal flat, you ask? Because to have lost them was so unlike me, and to not be able to find them, less like me still. The Queen of Find had been summarily dethroned in the cold mud. 
     On the second day, David rustled up a metal detector that he had procured from the town dump. He put fresh batteries into it, then said "Let's go try for the car keys." It was stupid really because the tide had cycled in and out several times. Ice chunks had scoured the grass clean of even my footprints. For over an hour we wandered in circles on the mudflats like lunatics looking at our shoes. We found the same beer bottle, rubber lobster claw band and the wad of balloon ribbon, but not the keys. After an hour, David said he could totally appreciate my frustration. "If they were out here, we would have found them by now." He did find a quarter with the salvaged metal detector.
     Then, he found the keys on the floor of the car under the driver's seat. Just shoot me now, God.

FLYday - Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Ruby Throated hummingbird, female feeding at Impatiens

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

Fire In The Fall - Inaba Shidare, Family And Friends

Inaba Shidare in my garden

This Japanese maple is by our kitchen door. It rewards us with this fire every November. We rescued Inaba Shidare from a big box store at the end of the season several years ago. Languishing in a gallon pot and all but dead, it had suffered a season of being under watered and over watered. Many of its branches had been snapped and torn, so it was also badly miss-shaped. It was a homely wreck of a struggling tree. 'Shidare' means cascade in Japanese, but there was no cascading going on there. Had we not spent  the five dollars, it was headed to the dumpster that night. This variety of Japanese maple has been cultivated in Yokohama since the early 1800s. Inaba Shidare won the prestigious Award Of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society. A dumpster would have been an unceremonious end.

Inaba Shidare is unique amongst the Japanese maples as it is an upright grower. They reach between five and seven feet in height. Ours is about six feet now.

My husband gave this fountain to me for my fiftieth birthday. My daughter dubbed it "The Puking Fish."

The Puking Fish and Inaba Shidare greet visitors at our front door. I see them from the kitchen, too.

These Japanese maple leaves are from a different tree in our yard. Unlike Inaba Shidare, it has a horizontal form. It was also a rescue from the brink of death and destruction. One August, we dug it up from a property where it was hours from being bulldozed. I don't know what variety it is, nor do I care. It thanks us every fall with this outrageous crimson. Ferns grow at its feet and this Pulmonaria volunteered amongst them. Who could blame the Lung Wort for wanting to be with them? 

The iron pagoda was given to my husband by a dear, elderly friend, Louise. Louise died. She was ninety five and had lived a rich, bawdy life. We loved her and she loved us. Louise would have loved being in the middle of this riot of fall color. The Japanese Painted ferns by the pagoda, the dwarf, false cypress and the hostas were also end-of-season, big box cast offs.

Japanese maples do well here in agricultural zone five. They like humidity, of which we have plenty on the coast. These trees thrive in the conditions that make your hair frizz. They do not do well in wind, nor too much sun. The leaves dry out very easily, so they must be protected. We have seven of them on our postage stamp sized property, each tucked into a protective nook with afternoon shade. Every one of them is a rescue, nursed from the brink of death to the glory that was intended for them. 

      I am a gardener. It's a hobby to which I have been deeply devoted for decades. For money, I garden for other people in the summer. I call it "Weeding For Dollars."  I am also, by license and education, a Registered Nurse. I don't work in health care anymore, though I still have a license. I'll probably always have it. It was a hard won token and nurses don't give it up easily. For more than half of my life, it was part of what defined me.

     You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out that I am a nurturing, caring person. I have such a bad case of helping hands that I spent three years in the Peace Corps! I was twenty-two and thought I could save the world!  And, I did save a couple of people. But in the end, most of my energy was spent on trying to save myself. I was profoundly depressed and physically, seriously ill more than once. It took a lot of work simply to survive that experience.

     I've always felt guilty about that, too. Somewhere in my dark, little heart I've believed that I should have been able to do more, to save everybody. That didn't go away with the Peace Corp, either. All my life I have been driven by a fix it force from deep within. It would lead me to marry a physically and emotionally abusive man, a destructive force with whom I stayed for eighteen years. I clung to the belief that I could repair his life.

     It has inclined me to collect friends who are wounded, crippled people. The weak light coming from their little planets gets sucked right into my orbit. Then, we are stuck with each other forever, spinning around in anguished, late night phone conversations. We huddle on each other's sofas, deep into bottles of wine and tales of despair. We clutch cups of coffee in each other's kitchens, the crying kitchens.

     I love my friends as deeply as I have loved my sisters, most of whom have had horrific problems in their lives. I've been drawn into their pain as if it were my own. But while listening to their stories, I have been strategizing solutions. Though I've listened to them, in the back of my mind a play has been going on. On the stage, I am the heroine who saves them all. 

     When I was young, I believed the screen play ending. But as I've gotten older, I've learned that there's damned little I can fix and less that I can save. The most that I've got for anybody is listening to them with a lid kept on the advice - a windless nook with shade. I wish for us all it was as easy as the little broken trees.

FLYday- Red-Tailed Hawk

Red-Tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicenis, Phippsburg, Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Juvenile Bald Eagle

Juvenile, Bald eagle, Phippsburg, Maine

(I took this photograph while wearing my bathrobe!)

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

So Hot the Deer Are Swimming! White-tailed Deer

White-tailed deer swimming in the Atlantic ocean.

This is the view from our house, looking south out to sea. See the deer near the mooring ball? The deer could swim straight to Morocco from here.

Deer have such fragile looking legs, it's hard to imagine them clambering on slick, sea weed covered rocks.

Deer swim like dogs. When they get out of the water, they shake like dogs do, too.

    This has been a hot, sultry summer with record breaking heat. That's not news to anyone in Texas, but we Mainer's aren't used to it. My husband installed an air conditioner in our bedroom. I was skeptical about the need for what seemed like a decorating monstrosity. Here on the coast, it's usually ten degrees or more cooler than inland and we have steady breeze off the water. However, we had enough days of ninety degree weather strung together to claim a heat wave and I had to eat crow. Even the deer took to the water!

     Deer swim well, but it doesn't look natural to me. They swim to escape predators and to find new territories for food and mates. In the photo above, the land mass on the left is the tip of Hermit Island.  "The Hermit" is over run with White-tailed deer as no hunting is allowed there. This was not the first time I've seen deer swimming the mile or so across the cove.  Hermit Island has more than 200 camp sites. Perhaps the deer object to the camper's noise, or choices in music. I start feeling a little crowded with summer people, too. I'm much too lazy to swim that far, though. Deer sometimes get into swimming pools, too which can be a disaster. Their sharp hooves tear up liners and if they can't get out, they drown. White-tailed deer weigh between 125 and 300 pounds. That would be a lot of dead weight to haul from a pool. Deer may seek relief in cool water from skin parasites, like ticks, Deer flies  and mosquitos. Or, they may swim just for the pure joy of it, like we do. This particular deer swam across the cove, got out, then turned around and swam back. To date, I've never seen a deer wearing ear plugs nor a bathing cap and, they swim in the nude. 

      Soon enough, before we even realize summer is really over, it will be cold and snowing. We'll be complaining about shovelling instead of the heat. The air conditioner will be gone and frost will coat the windows. I'll scratch a hole through the frost to look outside and shiver at the falling snow. Maybe I'll see a deer ice skating or skiing. I'll let you know.


(This post was chosen as Editor's Pick for Open Salon at http://salon.com. It is the ninth of my works selected as Editor's Pick.)

FLYday - Red-tailed Hawk And Ravens

Red-tailed Hawk harrassed by Ravens, Phippsburg, Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered freiends do best, fly.

WAITING ON THE SUPER MOON - Scenic Sunday

March 19, 2011 Waiting On The Super Moon, Popham Beach State Park, Phippsburg, Maine

"AUK! It's Raining Dovekies!" - Darling Dovekie

Whenever we have a big weather event, there are those of us who look forward to the aftermath, as long as our properties have not been smashed to bits. Interesting things get blown to the ground from the trees and in from the ocean onto the shores. Big seas can turn over rubble and debris on the beaches revealing things that were previously buried. I found this pristine arrow head on Popham Beach in February 2009 after a brutal storm. It was on the sand just as you see it here, looking like a little Christmas tree. That storm produced devastating coastal erosion. Vast chunks of beach were lost when the ocean carved it's way into the land clawing sand away from the roots of trees. Near where I found this artifact is an ancient Pitch Pine Maritime Forest. I imagine that centuries ago, an Abanaki Indian pulled back his bow, then let his arrow fly at a rabbit, missing the rabbit, and losing his bow. This arrow head had probably been buried ever since, until that storm revealed it. 

    Though there was a lot of junk scattered on the sand, my eye caught the shape of the arrow head right away. I have developed a good eye for picking out shapes that are out of sync from their surroundings - birds sitting in trees or in the sky, foxes in the bushes, or deer dancing on a distant beach. "How do you see this stuff?!" My husband and friends often remark. "She doesn't miss anything," my husband likes to brag. The truth is, I miss plenty. But, apparently, I also see much more than most of the people I know. I see layers and details in the same scene that my friends completely miss. This talent can be annoying. My visual world is akin to looking at a painting and seeing all the pointillist's dots rather than the impressionistic scene, Seurat surreal. Sometimes, I'm rewarded though, as in this pointed find.

"Little Auk" is another name for Dovekie         

     A week ago, we had an enormous storm with sixty mile an hour wind gusts. For two days afterward, the seas were eight feet high in front of our pier. On the horizon line, we could see waves twenty to thirty feet high, towering like buildings. This Dovekie was blown in to our cove from off shore. Dovekies are the smallest of the Auks, or Puffin type birds. It's about 7 1/2 inches long, smaller than a Mourning Dove. It's hard for me to fathom a being this small living out on the Atlantic Ocean riding on those immense waves, but they do. Dovekies are chubby, adorable little birds with stumpy, Sparrow-like bills. I especially liked its feet which reminded me of a duckling. There was something very innocent and endearing about this bird, though it was dead.
     Dovekies breed and nest in Greenland. There are huge colonies there estimated at 30 million birds. In the winter, they come slightly south, sometimes along the New England coast. That's their idea of southern migration. They float in giant rafts out to sea feeding on small fish by diving. Storms that last for days, like the one we just had with sustained easterly winds, make feeding conditions unsuitable. Massive wrecks of starving birds can be driven landward. In the winter of 1932-33, the largest wreck recorded in North America saw Dovekies raining down on the streets of New York city. Large numbers washed up on the eastern seaboard from Florida to Nova Scotia. The visual of hundreds of the darling, diminutive Dovekies falling from the sky is a thing of nightmares! It has changed things for me forever. From now on, when we have torrential rains, I will declare "It's raining dogs and Dovekies out there!" Unlike "It's raining cats and dogs," raining Dovekies makes sense.
Thanks to wikipedia.com, allaboutbirds.com and whatbird.com for some of the information.
And:
•Montevecchi, W. A., and I. J. Stenhouse. 2002. Dovekie (Alle alle). In The Birds of North America, No. 701 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Scenic Sunday

View South of Newbury Point, Phippsburg, Maine

Pileated Paradise- Woodpecker Espionage

One of my sources tipped me off to this Pileated Woodpecker nest. I went there at 7:30 this morning and as many of you know, I'm not a morning person. I'm not a grumpy person in the morning; I'm just slow to start. I am awake between 6:30 and 7, but I frequently don't get out of my bathrobe until after ten. As a gardener, photographer, and birder, this poses numerous challenges. Many of my preferred subjects have left the fields, forests and fens for the mall by the time I'm ready to engage. Also, the light is usually better in the morning for some things, like landscapes and close ups of flowers. I can assure you, too that the later it gets in the day the hotter it gets which makes gardening more rigorous than it might otherwise be. But, much as I don't love the early hours, I do love a challenge. Bring on the heat of the day, the mosquitoes, the already well fed birds and beasts and crumby lighting! I'm your girl. The reasons I went so early today were two-fold. One reason was that I had an appointment with a service person at my house and had to beat them back to my place. The other reason, I'm not terribly ashamed to admit, was because I  fully intended to trespass to get these images. Stealth would hopefully serve where discretion clearly would not. I am discreet enough that I'm not going to say where this was, but not so decent a person that I would have stayed home rather than lurk around at the crack of dawn behind someone's outbuilding. Solid espionage requires calculated risk and a low moral standard, or at least, a very skewed moral standard. Perhaps, a double moral standard, which is no moral standard at all. Did you follow that? That is going to be my argument in court, should I get caught. My plan is that it will be so confusing that the judge will demand, "Counselors, approach the bench!" Since I'll be defending myself, that will be me. The judge will be in a hopeless bind when he suggests to me  that I try a psychiatric defense. I'm going to pull wildly at my own hair and while hopping up and down bellow "Blame the woodpeckers!"

And who will be able to blame me after they see these photos, my defense exhibits? Look how cute they are! There are three of them. Pileateds usually have between three and five eggs. The chicks are developed enough, that I can see at least one of them is male. His little red cheeks are beginning to show.

I did not see the male, only this female feeding them. I learned the identification differences between males and females after my previous Pileated post where I erred about the gender. She does not have red cheeks. Neither do I, as I am without shame. Pileated woodpeckers only use the nest cavity, excavated by the male in April, for one season. Then, they abandon it. The chicks fledge about a month after hatching. I'm guessing they aren't too far from leaving. So, for me, it was now or never. Both parents raise the young. They feed them insects and especially like Carpenter ants. The bad news is that I only saw two chicks poke out of the hole for feeding. That does not bode well for the less aggressive of the bunch. Two of them will grow up to be trespassers; one will not.

 Thanks to  Wikipedia for some of the information. Some of it, I made up, honest, Your Honor.

Battle Serendipity - Red-tailed Hawk and Crows

Yesterday, I actually got to a job without being too distracted. However, while Weeding For Dollars, I was admittedly taking photographs and prepared to do so at the drop of a bird poop from the trees. Or, my hat, as it were. And let me tell you, Mister Man! It was a good thing I was or this whole event would have been lost to the history of mankind. This is a Red-tailed hawk being mightily harassed by a few crows. The one on the right that looks bigger might be a Raven. This battle went on for a few minutes as the hawk dodged and weaved and dove to try to shed the pesky varmints from its tail. As far as I know, RTs aren't nest robbers, so I'm not sure what this was about. Maybe crows just don't like any other dude on their corner for any reason. I was in Phippsburg when I took these shots. When I came home, I read my e mail as I usually do while waiting for my aching back to calm down. There's always lots of stuff from the Audubon List Serve bird reporters going at this time of year. Everyone's having palpitations about the warblers and everyone wants to be the first to report something rare. I must admit to some of the ego driven competitiveness myself. Plus, there is just the thrill of seeing the twitterers everywhere, rare or common. I didn't see anything rare yesterday. But I did catch this battle royal and lots of Baltimore Orioles and a lovely White-crowned sparrow. I'll share those in a separate post. Here is an unauthorized excerpt of one of the list serve e mails I read:
" Greetings, birding friends. Is it still called "birding" if there are no birds present? That was basically the deal on the Maine Audubon walk at Evergreen Cemetery this morning. Whew, it was dead. Deader than roadkill. We're talking slooooooooooow. And what few birds our group encountered, we couldn't see. They taunted us from the treetops or from deep in the scrub. The few birds we could hear, we couldn't quite identify. Their vocalizations were unfamiliar and possibly new to science. Until the wind picked up and we couldn't hear them anymore. By then, thankfully, it was time to say goodbye, sell my binoculars on eBay, and take up gardening."

I had to laugh as I saw what I did while gardening and captured it for everybody else. Tomorrow, I have a date with a fellow birder to go to Evergreen Cemetery. I bet I'll photograph something, anything, even if it's an interesting head stone. If I don't photograph something interesting, it will be because I'm not gardening.

 

This isn't an escort service. The Crow had dodged ahead of the hawk and doubled back on it.

Singing "Happy Birthday!" Song sparrow

Yesterday, March 22nd I photographed this Song sparrow nearly singing its head off. I think I heard it singing "Happy Birthday." It was David's birthday, so that would make sense. Our good friend, Ted was also celebrating his birthday. I happened to speak to Ted on the phone, otherwise, I would not have realized it was his birthday as well. When it came to light that the guys  shared a birthday, I was dumbfounded that I didn't already know this. After all, we are good friends with Ted and his wife and have been for years. The second I finished the phone conversation with our friend, I reached for a notebook in which I make note of birthdays, anniversaries and the like. I also keep the paper handouts distributed at funerals we attend.  Sometimes, I have it in my head that people are still alive when they are not, which can be socially a little dicey. This way, I can check. It's the kind of information that, once upon a time, people kept  in a family bible. I knew if I waited to enter this significant data that I would forget, so I did it immediately. And low and behold, I was stunned to find that I had put Ted's birthday in there some time before and even made note with a jolly exclamation point that the boy's shared the day! It unnerved me that, nonetheless, when I talked to Ted, I had no recollection of this at all. As if this wasn't bad enough, I discovered on the same day that for a year, I've been lying about my age. David is nine years, eleven months and two weeks older than I am. For the two weeks between our birthdays, I lord it over him that he is ten years, an entire decade, older than I am. This year, I couldn't make sense of this mathematically. The numbers didn't come out right when I subtracted 53 from 64 (which is eleven, in case you are looking for a pencil). I thought, "Oh my god! All this time he's really been eleven years older than I am for that two weeks!" How could it be that we've thought all along that he was nine years older than I am? I had this queasy feeling like I was experiencing a tear in the universe. Now, this had my full attention; I had to figure it out right then and there. I mumbled to myself, "If he was born in '46 and I was born in '55, then.........." And that's when the truth came crashing inward, like a meteor busting through the atmosphere and slamming into the earth's crust - in two weeks, I will be fifty five! For a year, I've been telling everyone that I'm fifty-three! It's not that I have been deliberately lying about my age. If I had been going to do that, I would have picked a good old block of time, at least five years, not one. How stupid is that? I have actually had it in my head somehow that I didn't age 365 days last year. Last night, I confessed this to David. It seemed only right since every year, I've given him a ration of crap, albeit good natured, about his being a decade older than I am. He told me he had known for quite some time that I was telling people I was fifty-three, not fifty-four. Shocked, I asked, "Why didn't you tell me?" He said he didn't think it was important. "What difference does it make? I didn't want to embarrass you. I love you no matter how old you are," he said.  I wondered, "Is this what happens to people when they are fifty-five?" The mind begins to go, one lapse at a time, and no one tells you. You keep records to remind yourself of things, but don't remember to look at the records. You make grocery lists, but forget to take them with you, lists of lists which you then can't find. You watch the same T.V. show several times because you don't remember that you've seen it until you're into the third commercial break. You spill food on your clothes and people let it go. And so it goes - you slip down the rope, one knot at a time, spelunking into the abyss of blankness. This scares the snot right out of me, I'm telling you. I've watched this happen to people I've known and loved. In fact, almost everyone I know has a family member that's struggling with this. My ninety-nine year old grandmother started out like that until today there's nothing left of her mind at all. She has to be fed because she can't cognitively connect the dots between hunger and getting  food to her mouth anymore. I'm not sure I really want to know if this is what's happening to my brain. Or, I'll just keep getting younger every year, as I've been claiming, so I won't be effected. I've read that there is virtually no dementia in Liechtenstein or Macau, so maybe I'll just move, if only I can find my keys.......

"Happy birthday to you,"

"Happy birthday to you!"

"You look like a monkey,

"And you smell like one, toooooooo!"

.........................................................................................................................

Dementia Darling

"Where are my keys,"

You asked of me

Once, twice, three.

Weary, I repeated

"Wherever you left,"

What happened to you?

Trying to get home,

You lost your way.

Button your shirt,

Zip your fly,

On your chin- breakfast dirt.

You've become

Someone unknown.

I saw your look,

When you lost my name,

I hoped it was a game.

You're not pretending

As you're slipping

Each day toward the ending.

We are both so angry

You with disconnected rages,

The doctors say

just one of the phases.

                                                  

                                                                                      Robin Riley Robinson

Rare, Pink Thunderbird, Black Guillemot And Turkey Vultures

There has been so very little for bird action around here that I'm getting desperate. So, I'm driven to show this grill from a pink Thunderbird for lack of the avian kind. Can you guess what year?  I had hoped that after the Big Storm on February 25th that something would blow in, but no such luck. I went birding for five hours in Phippsburg a few days ago and came up with nothing, mysteriously, not even the usual suspects (another birding term for the birds that are always around)! Luckily, the tarp covering the Thunderbird had blown back revealing my only lucky bird.

The closest I came to the avian kind was this Black Guillemot. It's molting into its summer plumage, which will be mostly white. We don't usually see them in this close as they are ocean birds or what birders call "Pelagics." The pelagic zone of the ocean is anything further out than the low tide line but not on the bottom. Black Guillemots have bright red feet matched by the inside of their mouths. I sent these photos to the Maine Audubon List Serve with a query about its identification since I have only seen one or two of them in my life. If it had only opened its mouth, I would nonetheless, have known immediately what it was as the red mouth is a striking feature. Oh, if only, if only! That's a common birder's lament. Black Guillemots aren't rare here, but I had to make do with that. Birders are reporting that the Turkey Vultures have returned for the season. I haven't seen any here in Totman Cove, yet. They are criss-crossing Route 295 just south of here, so they will be here shortly. In spite of having the most hideous heads, they are beautiful birds. They are magnificent, graceful fliers that rival the majesty and power of Bald eagles. Do you suppose they are jealous of eagles and think that they put on airs?

Look at the muscle in those shoulders! Were Thunderbirds considered muscle cars? Probably not, and this one is pink! By the way, it is a 1963 TBird. 

 

Red-shouldered Hawk

"Red Rover, Red Rover,"
"Send Robin On Over!"

     I hated that game. Played on hot summer nights with neighborhood kids, I always felt like I was on the wrong side. Helpless, tossed, given up; I felt like a loser. I don't remember what the rules were, something about being called out of a group to physically break through a line of opposing kids. I distinctly recall the red-faced panicky feeling. I could never break through the line which was why I was always called. My head swam and my heart raced as I was flung from one side to the other, kids shouting, me nearly falling down when whipped across the line. I was not an athletic child. I was scrawny with tangled hair and huge, chipped beaverish front teeth. I didn't get breasts or my first period until I was  nearly forty. I was a geek before there were geeks!
     I liked science and could name the organisms floating in pond water under the microscope, a gift from my father. Knowing things was how I got a charge and often times, was how I was used by other kids. I was rarely invited to birthday parties or sleep overs but regularly asked to give the answers to tests or homework assignments. Knowing the answers to things was the one thing I could do that gave me an edge. But these days, when I see something like this hawk, I feel like a winner. Seeing it was exhilarating! I was driving home from the post office when out of the corner of my eye, I saw this beast on the utility line. I conducted a U turn on Route 209, camera on the passenger's seat, at the ready, and wound down the window. I knew right away that this was not a hawk I was familiar with.
    At first, when I looked at the photos, I couldn't believe that what it looked like could possibly be true. My palms started to sweat. I recognized right away what it was, but then did not trust my gut. I'm not the most experienced birder, plus I lack confidence in what I do know. I second guess myself. When it comes to hawks especially, I've fallen and I can't get up! In the world of birding it's important to pay attention to details and not jump the gun on identification; credibility is at stake. After all, when making bird identifications there's rarely DNA available. It's what the birder sees that counts. In my case, I'm a photographer as well, which gives me an edge, but not proof positive. When and where the photo was taken is as important as the subject itself.
    I poured through The Sibley Guide To Birds, The Audubon Society Field Guide To North American Birds, Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide To Birds East Of The Rockies, then consulted the web sites Whatbird and Allaboutbirds. My head was spinning! "Red Rover, Red Rover........." I could hear them screaming and feel myself falling as I churned the pages. Still not confident, I sent the photos to CHIT, my top secret, crack, hawk identification team. When I e mailed the photos, I held my breath and committed that  I thought it was a juvenile, Red-shouldered hawk, highly unusual in Maine in winter. I gulped, pulling the neck of my shirt away from my throat. "Oh God, I'm going to look like a total idiot," I feared. I thought I was going to pass out! Give me a mean spirited kids game over birding any day! At least kids grow out of it.



Red-shouldered hawk with suicidal Chickadee      Juvenile, Red-shouldered hawk - I broke through the line!

All photographs used in this blog are the work of Robin R Robinson.

First Snow

Every year, the first really cold days of winter seem too soon. I always think, "I'm not ready," as if  there could possibly be a good time for it. This year, we haven't had much cold weather at all. There are still flowers in my yard to prove that. As of Saturday, they are buried under the first snow fall. Here in Phippsburg, we got a solid seven inches and it's here to stay. More is forecast for Wednesday. When the snow comes early enough, the apples haven't all fallen from the trees. Apples in snow are especially beautiful. The red ones shown here are crab apples. The yellow ones are some heirloom type in the yard of an antique cape in Parker Head. The house dates to the seventeen hundreds and I'm sure the apple tree is at least a hundred years old. The ducks are American Black ducks hanging around in the west side of Atkins Bay by Popham. They seemed to be enjoying themselves even though ice was forming there. By this time of year, the Great Blue Herons have migrated. It is unusual to see them now. They require open water to fish. This one was at the end of the Sam Day Hill road working a small pond. You can see in the photo that its fishing was successful. 

Cat O' Nine Tails in the snow

American Black Duck

Great Blue Heron fishing