December 6: Host

After the rain stops

white-winged host of gulls

descending on the lawns

November 19: Trespassers

Flock of gulls grazing

in the rain-soaked field

“No Hunting No Trespassing”

August 29: Riptides

The tides of Cobscook Bay in Down East Maine are big and ferocious, punctuated by a boiling mass of whirlpools called the Old Sow. Gulls feed in a frenzy here as the churning waters swirl fresh food through the bay.

Old Sow boils over

Appetites of tides, gulls

We want to see it all

Posted with Blogsy

February 9: Gulls

What better way to spend a sunny winter's day along the waterfront than by observing gulls with birder friends, punctuated by lunch at a good Vietnamese restaurant.

Distracted by birds
we don't notice we're cold
until we're slurping hot pho.

January 21: Gulls at the dump

Spent a perfect morning birding with a friend at Reid State Park. Cold, but little wind, bright sun, blue skies, birds bobbing in the waves. I even saw a longed-for life bird, a Dovekie, actively feeding very close to shore.

But no day of birding is complete without a stop at the local dump. So after our beach outing, the natural next stop was the Bath Landfill--to study gulls, of course. Thanks to a couple of nearby eagles, the gulls were all aswirl. Watching hundreds of white birds circling en masse above my head was a truly mesmerizing experience, akin to watching a snow storm in car headlights. Look closely at this photo. At a cursory glance, it looks like empty blue sky, but see all those tiny white specks? Those are gulls!

A dump worker referred to them as "dump ducks" and probably thought we were crazy. But there's no better place to observe gulls. Despite the great numbers of birds, we only picked out two unusual gulls amid the swirling swarm: a Glaucous and an Iceland Gull, both white-winged species. But standing there watching all those moving, shifting birds, I felt a true awe--similar to the feeling of looking up at a night sky strewn with stars.

Mesmerized by gulls. Photo by Derek Lovitch.

Gulls at the dump--
surprised to feel such awe
while surrounded by trash.

January 1, 2013: First birds

At the start of each new year, I like to keep track of the first birds I see. When I got up, a crow flew through the backyard, sweeping past like a shadow against the snow. Nothing new there. Later, on a long snowshoe hike at the Ducktrap River Preserve, through sheltering hemlocks whose snowy boughs filtered sunlight onto snow patterned with snowshoe hare tracks, we only had one new species: Black-capped Chickadee. Back home, a swirl of Herring Gulls. And one goldfinch singing unseen in the neighbor's arbor vitae. And that was all. (It probably didn't help that my little window feeders were soaking in the sink, awaiting a cleaning and refill.)

If I'd really been trying, I'd have headed for the harbor or some other open water. Several birders posted observations of ducks on the Maine birding list-serv today. But I like to see what comes to me for the first day of the year, as some kind of portent. To see/hear those familiar birds might be auspicious for a year ahead full of good friends, for example. Or perhaps sustained pleasure of what I enjoyed in the year newly past.

Year's first birds appear
in stark black and white:
crows against snow, chickadees.

Ducktrap River from the Backcountry Ski Trail

November 27: First ice

In Belfast there's a tiny, city-owned pond called The Muck that sometimes hosts ducks or a heron--or skaters when it's frozen. As I drove by today, several gulls stood around in a loose group atop a thin skin of ice skimming the pond's surface. The ice is still so tenuous it probably wouldn't yet hold anything heavier than a bird. But it was perfect for a small gathering of gulls.

As if waiting all year
for this--gulls
balanced on new ice.

September 15: Road race

This morning was Coastal Mountains Land Trust's 4th annual Run for the Hills 10K road race in Belfast. As I was helping to register runners, a small falcon--probably a merlin--flew overhead. A bird known for its speed seemed particularly auspicious.

The finish line was on the Belfast Footbridge over the harbor. While I was there helping the timers, seagulls perched atop a nearby waterfront building kept flying up in big scattered flocks against the backdrop of blue sky--like a scene from "The Birds" but without the scary, "they're attacking us" part.

Fanfare of feathers
greets runners after six miles.
And, ah, the harbor!

February 28: White wings

Gulls were unusually active around my office this afternoon. We're only a mile from the ocean, so seeing a gull is an everyday occurrence. But we don't often get quite the visitation we had today. Every time I glanced out the window I saw a flash of white wings dipping over the trees. Gulls soared over the dam. At one point, I was startled by the tiny image of a gull flying past, its reflection caught in a photograph on my director's desk. During a conversation with a co-worker, I had to consciously stop looking away from him every time a gull came into my peripheral vision. It was a little bit like seeing stars, those brief glimpses of quickly moving white birds throughout the day.

There's a dairy farm near Route One in Rockport over which a flock of gulls can regularly be found swarming. It can sometimes look like a scene from "The Birds." I've always assumed they were finding things to eat amid the spilled feed and cow droppings. While our gulls today weren't quite that numerous, I do wonder what they were attracted to. Was our neighbor tossing out bread again? Was something interesting (for a gull, that would translate to "food-producing") happening in the open water of the river out back? Or were they just gracing us with their presence?

Gull visitation--
a blessing of white feathers
or a distraction?

January 28: Gulls and bagpipes

Walking the sidewalks of Portland waiting for my husband to finish up with an appointment, I could swear I heard the sound of live bagpipes playing "Scotland the Brave." Sure enough, as I got closer to the little park near Middle and Exchange Streets, the sound grew louder, until I could see a young man, standing behind a bench with a jar in front of him, playing the pipes. The music swelled and resonated in the space between the city buildings--bagpipes are not quiet instruments--yet people just walked on by, hardly giving him a second glance. Maybe he plays out there every day. I'm one-quarter Scottish via my paternal grandmother, so hearing this traditional Scottish tune always stirs my genes. I listened from about a block away, enjoying this unusual and not unpleasant din on the Portland streets. As he finished up, a flock of gulls flew overhead, giving voice as gulls do. As the last wailing notes of the pipes faded away in the chilly, late afternoon air, the gulls' cries seemed to prolong them in strange accompaniment.

He began another song, but I had to go meet my husband. I came back later when I had some cash on me, hoping to leave some money in his jar, but he was gone. Perhaps the bagpipes are too much even for the shoppers and street denizens of the Old Port. Or perhaps he'd played his repertoire. We were hit up for money three times as we walked around for an hour or so, but the piper was the only one I would have paid.

One wailing bagpipe
and a flock of crying gulls--
music amid noise.

October 15: Grass

When I was a kid, going to the dump was a fascinating experience. This was back when the dump was really an open-air "dump," with everyone's trash spilling down giant, smelly mounds covered with squealing gulls. I didn't dare leave the safety of the car, but the swirling masses of gulls pulling at and fighting over various rubbish oddities certainly kept me distracted from the disgusting smell long enough for my parents to toss their trash.

Now all that's a landfill and transfer station, with big containers for recycling. While it's not as colorful as it used to be, it's not as gross, either. In fact, as I was waiting in the car this morning for my husband to empty our last bin of recyclables, I was captivated by a mound covered with tall, deep green grass. The grass rippled in waves in the brisk breeze, catching the sunlight, creating mesmerizing visual patterns. While I knew that underneath the grass moulder decades of trash, including that of my own family, what I could see there on the surface at least was beautiful.

Grass at the landfill--
our old trash feeding the roots,
rippling waves of blades.

August 1: Predators

Today is the pagan holiday of Lughnasa or Lammas, the first harvest holiday of the season. I celebrated this perfect summer day on the Elizabeth Ann, watching seabirds in Muscongus Bay under blue skies and on calm seas for Friends of Maine Seabird Islands' fourth annual seabird adventure. We cruised out to Eastern Egg Rock with about 120 people on board, most of whom hoped to see puffins. And puffins we saw, though not in great numbers. Puffin Project researchers on the island counted record 109 pairs this summer, but only a handful of the colorful little birds were hanging around offshore today. What we did see: black guillemots, laughing gulls galore (1,500 pairs of those on the island!) making a racket along with the clouds of terns (common, Arctic, and endangered roseate all nest on the island), cormorants, eiders, a big cluster of ruddy turnstones, a couple of Wilson's storm-petrels dancing on the waves, a few gannets in the distance, some "peep" sandpipers, several great black-backed and herring gulls, osprey, bald eagle, harbor seals, and harbor porpoises.

And a peregrine falcon, which strafed the island, flushing every bird into the air in a screeching, swirling mass. It stooped, the fastest bird on earth, and when it rose into the air again we could clearly see it held a tern in its talons. The falcon flew off trailing an angry mob of terns dogging it like silvery wasps, but it did not relinquish its prey. Early harvest.

The cruise began to feel like a Discovery Channel nature show when around the next bend we came upon a great black-backed gull attacking a young laughing gull headfirst. While we watched in awe, the gull killed this bird almost half its own size and dragged it off to tear apart for a meal. Another early harvest. As Sue Schubel from Maine Audubon reminded us over the boat's speakers, "It's not being mean, it's just eating dinner." I've never seen anything like it. But apparently the birds nearby had, as they barely even noticed the commotion just a few feet away.

As we circled the island several times we also were able to observe many guillemots catching rock eels the same vivid red-orange as their feet. Terns and puffins flew in to young with beaks full of fish. A riffle on the water chased by a gull revealed where a school of fish was driven to the surface by larger fish. And just before we turned away to head back to Port Clyde, a peregrine scared up the birds once more...

A lot of harvesting going on, the bounty of the sea made visible by this island teeming with healthy bird life. And a joyful day overall, which we celebrated by enjoying our own harvest from the sea at Cod's End in Tenants Harbor on the way home.

Not gull's prey this time,
cormorants look away, calm,
dreaming of herring.

July 10: Gulls and Clouds

My mother and I went to Belfast this morning to check out the arts and crafts show on the harbor. Rain was forecast for the afternoon, so we figured early would be best. We timed it well, checked out the entire show, watched some kids play on the "beach" near the park, and even did a little shopping in downtown Belfast. While having lunch, I happened to look out the window. Between buildings I could see a wall of dark rain clouds settling over the river and harbor. They looked truly ominous. But where we were, the sun still beat down on the sidewalks and street. Its mid-afternoon rays hit the dozens of gulls that had been stirred off the roof of the old Stinson sardine plant down by the water. As the gulls swirled in the air above the river, with the glowering clouds as backdrop, they shone in the undiminished light. Made tiny by the distance, they almost sparkled, like when you're dizzy and see stars. And then, a few minutes later, the light dimmed and the rain poured down.

Last light before rain
ignites the gulls swirling high,
 each a rising spark.

February 10: Ghosts

Driving home from the gym tonight on Park Street, I passed the house where my grandfather died. The house doesn't always consciously register in my mind when I go by it--which is fairly often, being my main cut-across route from the Y. He only lived there for a few years before he passed away. While I spent a lot of time with him there when I was home from college, mowing his lawn and helping with house-cleaning, it never really felt like his true home to me. My entire life before that, he and my grandmother had lived on a saltwater farm with sheep, chickens, a pet goose, and a big organic garden in Lincolnville. After my grandmother died, he down-sized to the house in town as a way of making his daily life easier and renewing his social life. By his choice, it ended up being where he eventually succumbed to cancer. 

The few times that I think about this as I drive by, I wonder if the people who live there know that someone died in that downstairs room. And I wonder if there's anything of my grandfather's spirit left about the place, if the house is haunted. But if my grandfather's ghost is anywhere, I don't think it's lingering in that nondescript ranch house on Park Street. I would think if his spirit were going to linger, it would be hanging out again at Sea Bluffs, the old farm that was his life's joy... which has now been transformed into a luxury inn. You can sleep in my old bedroom (or his)--both utterly transformed--for $385 a night. My grandfather would have been amazed and delighted by that. 

My grandfather once told me that gulls were his favorite bird. A herring gull would hang out on their chimney, coming down to feed on table scraps strewn on the lawn when called (his name was Joseph). Joseph and his buddies were a constant presence, and my grandfather loved to watch them soar on the sea breeze. He said that it looked like they were sailing around just for the sheer pleasure of it, and that after he died, he'd like to come back as a gull so he could fly like that. Sometimes when I see a flock of gulls in the air, white wings illuminated by sun in a way that renders them positively angelic, I think, Maybe he's up there now, enjoying his wings. 

After passing his house this evening and remembering him thus, I arrived home to find a pre-pub copy of a Maine poetry anthology that includes one of my poems. The poem is an homage to my grandparents' kitchen--a place I remember in the minutest detail and with much love. Sadly, my name is misspelled in the book. The poem doesn't even properly carry my grandfather's surname--pretty much the only tangible thing I have left from him. But my grandfather loved me and was so proud of everything I ever accomplished. Even though they got my name wrong, his unshakeable support of everything I did would have made it seem okay. And he would have been so thrilled that a poem about his kitchen was published in a such a lovely little book. Here's the poem published in the anthology:

Kitchen

There is the ritual of icing the sugar cookies,

the sacrament of eating them:

sheep, reindeer, turkey, tree, little man.

There is the prayer of the old pressed tin ceiling,

litany of the clock with its waxing moon face,

blessing of the cast-iron potbelly stove

fragrant with coffee and rising bread.

The hymn of certain knowledge.

The psalm of bringing it back.

Whether he's a ghost or a gull or simply life essence in the ether, I know he's still with me somehow.

No longer a child
yet still missing what was lost,
I talk to your ghost.

January 23: The Birds

I woke early with a whole beautiful sunny winter's day before me to do whatever I wanted. So I started off by going on a run to my parents' house, about 2.5 miles away. I felt warm enough because I was moving, and safe enough because the shoulder was well plowed, but hadn't anticipated how that cold air would feel hitting my lungs. On my run, despite by belabored breathing, I heard enough birds that I made an effort to keep track: blue jay, robin, cardinal, downy woodpecker, crow, white-breasted nuthatch.

So a good run, but my breathing needed a little recovery time. While hanging out "recovering" with my parents, we had front row seats as a bird drama played out on the Megunticook River: two young eagles repeatedly dove on an injured Canada goose in the open water just below the bridge. At one point, an eagle landed in a pine tree right in the backyard, causing my mother to unexpectedly curse very loudly in her excitement. The goose lived to see another day; perhaps the eagles were just toying with it, or testing its strengths and weaknesses for a future tandem attack.

Later, my friend Brian picked me up for a bird outing in Belfast, with a brief stop at Chase's Daily, of course, for one of their amazing pear almond muffins. We walked down to the Footbridge, from which we quickly picked out several groups of goldeneyes bobbing and preening on the Passagassawakeag River. As far as I could tell, every goldeneye we could see was a Barrow's, an unusual winter visitor but one regularly found at that spot on the river. We got good looks, close enough to see their golden eyes, the crescent-shaped facial marking on the males, and the orange bills of the females.

Photo by John Good - NPS Photos

On the roof of a nearby industrial building, hundreds of gulls (and a handful of black ducks) hung out, presumably resting and warming themselves in the sun. Suddenly, they all lifted off and flew over our heads in a swirling mass--just like the flocks in "The Birds." I kept looking for what might have scared them up--an eagle, perhaps--but no luck, even though this happened twice while we were there. The cool thing was that the second time, I was able to pick out an Iceland gull amid the milling hordes of herring gulls. Like the Barrow's goldeneye, this white-winged species is another winter visitor from that Arctic that's uncommon enough that I was particularly excited to see it. Especially amid the craziness of the massive gull lift-off.

Photo by Brian Willson.

Before heading back to Camden, we made another stop at a new preserve upriver, acquired by Coastal Mountains Land Trust in December. We followed a snowmobile trail to some old farm fields, only spotting three chickadees and a meandering line of tiny rodent tracks. But as we were leaving, a red-tailed hawk soared overhead in the blue sky, its tail bright red in the sun. Seemed a good omen on which to end our outing.

Knowing winter's long,
humans and birds soak up sun
on a day like this.

November 6: Gulls

Some days I'm just driving around minding my own business when poetry throws itself in front of me. Today while carrying out an ordinary errand in Rockland, I was startled into attentiveness by a pair of gulls flying above my car, the light catching their wings and bodies in a way that made them glow angelically. I actually slowed my car to watch them.

Caught me by surprise
over Route One, McDonald's--
flash of white feathers.

Of course, these gulls are among the noisy gang that vigorously scavenge food scraps in the McDonald's parking lot, so not the most likely source for an afternoon epiphany. But that juxtaposition of the sacred and profane of sorts made the moment all the more enlightening--to find beauty amid the ordinary ugliness of fast food restaurants at a busy intersection gave me a brief sense of renewed joy in the greater world. It woke me up, made me aware of where I was and what was around me. Reminded me of the poetry to be found in the mundane if we catch a glimpse from just the right angle.

Further along Route One, a swirling whirlwind of hundreds of leaves rose up over my car, dipping and scattering like small brown birds. Another lovely moment. My favorite song came on. For a few minutes, I was acutely conscious of being happy.

And then I got stuck at a light, a car cut me off, and my mind started to focus again on the next task at hand, shifting out of that brief phase of awareness into just driving back to work.