June 22: Sunset

summer solstice

silhouettes of gulls 

fly into the sunset

December 8: If wishes

Diversionary tactics. 

Trying to wish gulls

into Snowy Owls.

July 25: Camden Harbor

Busy harborfront park--

much for the Laughing Gulls

to find amusing.

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June 29: Monhegan House

From my island room:

shifting cloud and light show,

gull on a near chimney.

 

 

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June 22: Library

At the author event--

gull's wings lit by sun

out the library window.

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September 22: Burnt Head

Above sea swirl

gulls pause head under wing

oblivious to chaos.

 

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July 17: Eastern Egg Rock

Yesterday my husband and I were fortunate enough to be able to go along on an outing to Eastern Egg Rock in Muscongus Bay. Normally the island is off-limits to visitors, as it's a protected seabird nesting site--most noted for being the island where Project Puffin, a National Audubon program that has restored Atlantic Puffins to Maine waters, originated. But we (and several others) were accompanying Project Puffin founder Steve Kress for this special trip, and thus got to spend almost two hours on the island observing the birds and learning from the five summer interns about their work and lives there.

Being in the blinds so we could watch the birds was a thrilling experience, but even more moving was witnessing the hopeful signs of new young life on the island: nests with eggs and fuzzy chicks of several species, including Laughing Gull, Common Tern, Black Guillemot. (Puffins nest in not-very-accessible burrows underground, so we couldn't see those.) While the interns report good nest success so far, the real challenge for the parent birds is getting enough food into their chicks for them to fledge and reach adulthood. Climate change has affected offshore patterns of the fish that terns and puffins feed their chicks, so food availability is the critical issue for these birds right now. Only time will tell how many survive this summer. But when you touch a fat, wriggling fuzzy butterball of a chick, hope is tangible thing.

Eastern Egg Rock--

seabirds swirl and clamor,

my heart a fixed point of joy.

Gulls and terns overhead. The buildings are the interns' community space and their outhouse.

Atlantic Puffins, as observed from a study blind

Laughing Gull nest with eggs and chick

Black Guillemot chick held by island intern

Atlantic Puffin, adult

Black Guillemots, puffin and Laughing Gull. The red numbers mark puffin burrows.

Common Tern and its whining chick

Project Puffin founder Steve Kress shows us a Laughing Gull egg

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November 16: White as a gull's sunlit belly

In the right light

backdrop of clouds, gull in flight

makes me think angel.

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September 25: Sunset celebration

cannon fired at sunset

scares up all the harbor gulls

their wings glowing

 

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May 30: Morning fog

heavy scent of lilacs

cries of gulls, nostalgia

lifting with the fog

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February 20: Birthday

The Chinese Year of the Sheep began yesterday, and today I begin a new turn around the sun. The way a new year begins always feels auspicious. I have a good feeling about this one. We celebrated Chinese New Year with tea and dumplings in a sunny Portland cafe yesterday, and again last night with more dumplings (and cocktails) with good friends at Empire. This morning began with breakfast on the go from Standard Baking Co., which I ate while tromping around the frigid Portland waterfront looking for white-winged gulls with a birder friend--an outing puncuated by calls from my mother and sister singing "Happy Birthday." The white wings of Iceland Gulls shone in the sun, seals surfaced nearby, crows chased a Red-tailed Hawk overhead, a Peregrine stood sentinel on the Casco Bay Bridge, and all is right in my world.

A new year starts well:

coffee and croissant,

gulls along the snowy pier.

Update: And my birthday closed with a brilliant conjunction of the young Moon, Venus, and Mars in the southwest sky... All signs point to yes.

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October 14: My grandfather would be 99 today

Opalescent sky
He wanted to be a gull
in his next life

September 24: Sunset

Sunset on Monhegan--

the gulls don't notice

what's happening to the sky.

 

 

 

 

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September 22: Bluster

Friends shelter from gusts,

gulls spreading overhead--

stiff winds, cocktails.

 

 

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July 15: Night gulls in Portland

After the rainstorm

pale forms of gulls flit

above Longfellow Square.

 

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May 16: On island

Robin's song, cries of gulls,

cold wind and crashing waves--

island twilight.

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March 2: Portland, from the fish piers

You don't notice

the cold so much

with that many gulls to watch.

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February 22: Sunset

Gull catches fire

over my car as I drive

into the sunset.

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