the human capacity
for staring out to sea.
Showing posts with label ocean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ocean. Show all posts
Saturday, October 28, 2017
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Sunday, September 28, 2014
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Sunday, January 13, 2013
January 13: Wet enough for a duck
The view from inside looked bleak, foggy. As he stepped out the front door, my husband mused, "I wonder how wet it is out here." We had barely talken two steps on our walk into town for brunch when we both laughed. A drake Mallard stood there right in front of us, about to make his way across the street, hundreds of yards away from the river. On this day that felt more like mid-March than January, I guess it was wet enough for him to take a little stroll away from the water.
When we got to town, we had brunch at a restaurant on the waterfront. The inner harbor was brimming full, a just-past-new-moon high tide, the waters still and calm. Curtis Island in the outer harbor was muted by fog and looked farther away than it really was. As we ate, we watched a single coot meander among the empty floats and cocooned windjammers. A loon surfaced with a sea urchin in its bill. Along the public landing, the very air felt laden with moisture, our wet breath making clouds each time we exhaled.
Morning of mist, tides,
ducks pacing wet streets.
Our bodies contain oceans.
 |
| Why did the duck cross the road? |
When we got to town, we had brunch at a restaurant on the waterfront. The inner harbor was brimming full, a just-past-new-moon high tide, the waters still and calm. Curtis Island in the outer harbor was muted by fog and looked farther away than it really was. As we ate, we watched a single coot meander among the empty floats and cocooned windjammers. A loon surfaced with a sea urchin in its bill. Along the public landing, the very air felt laden with moisture, our wet breath making clouds each time we exhaled.
Morning of mist, tides,
ducks pacing wet streets.
Our bodies contain oceans.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
May 20: Off island
The hour-long ferry ride home from Monhegan, especially on a day of dazzling sunlight and calm seas, offers an almost dream-like transition from the isolated island--for me, a repository of years of wonderful memories and experiences with dear friends and thousands of birds--and the reality of my ordinary life. I'm tired, sunburned, lulled by the rhythm of the boat through the waves. I often nap. The laughing gulls raucous calls as we approach Port Clyde harbor seem somehow an appropriate awakening. And then I'm in my car, Red Sox game on the radio, heading up the St. George peninsula, already thinking ahead to a mundane errand I need to run on the way back home.
All that deep water
between here and there. It seems
days past, not mere hours.
All that deep water
between here and there. It seems
days past, not mere hours.
 |
| View of Fish Beach, Monhegan, as the ferry leaves harbor |
Thursday, September 1, 2011
September 1: September begins...
The air feels like September: crisp at night, brilliant blue sky during the day. The bay's a deeper blue than the sky. I had lunch on an outside patio today overlooking the ocean, feeling fortunate to have such beauty (almost) in my back yard.
A fat goldfinch fledgling hung out gorging in our window feeder, even after I pulled the car into the driveway next to it.
Around the corner tucked in between the house and the propane tank, with dead leaves stuck to its web, sits a giant mottled brown-and-white spider. It's both repellent and fascinating. More fascinating than the large spider that wouldn't leave my bathroom sink this morning.
The air already smells of leaf mold. Fern fronds are browned, curled up. Hum of the crickets has a tone that's somewhere between desperate and comforting.
The Strawberry Candy day lily has bloomed again in one last fit of summer flowering.
These in-between days,
that bittersweet edge--blue skies
and one red maple.
A fat goldfinch fledgling hung out gorging in our window feeder, even after I pulled the car into the driveway next to it.
Around the corner tucked in between the house and the propane tank, with dead leaves stuck to its web, sits a giant mottled brown-and-white spider. It's both repellent and fascinating. More fascinating than the large spider that wouldn't leave my bathroom sink this morning.
The air already smells of leaf mold. Fern fronds are browned, curled up. Hum of the crickets has a tone that's somewhere between desperate and comforting.
The Strawberry Candy day lily has bloomed again in one last fit of summer flowering.
These in-between days,
that bittersweet edge--blue skies
and one red maple.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
September 22: Island Night
The chirp of crickets blends with the background roar of the surf, punctuated by the occasional moan of the foghorn and the intermittent chime of a bell buoy just offshore. Today is day one of my annual fall vacation on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine. I'm sitting in the dark on the lawn of my inn, the Trailing Yew, admiring the patterns of the clouds backlit by a full moon--the first full moon of autumn--while behind me the lighthouse beam sweeps the meadow. Earlier I saw a bat fluttering in the twilight. Now birds are calling as they fly overheard, about to head out over open ocean to continue southward.
It's been a full day so far and this is really my first moment alone. A crowded boat left Port Clyde this morning on rough seas. While the deep swells didn't bother me, many on the boat did not fare well. My friend Amy met my boat, and from then on it was a wonderful swirl of catching up with old friends and meeting new ones--all while trying to see a few migrating birds. The birding is a bit quiet right now, but the birding social scene is hopping.
Now it's bedtime, so I can rise early tomorrow and hit the trails in earnest, looking for warblers, sparrows, and hawks, the avian highlights of the season. As Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes" once put it, "The days are just packed."
Once by this full moon
I hiked with friends through night woods
to surf-churned Burnt Head.
It's been a full day so far and this is really my first moment alone. A crowded boat left Port Clyde this morning on rough seas. While the deep swells didn't bother me, many on the boat did not fare well. My friend Amy met my boat, and from then on it was a wonderful swirl of catching up with old friends and meeting new ones--all while trying to see a few migrating birds. The birding is a bit quiet right now, but the birding social scene is hopping.
Now it's bedtime, so I can rise early tomorrow and hit the trails in earnest, looking for warblers, sparrows, and hawks, the avian highlights of the season. As Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes" once put it, "The days are just packed."
Once by this full moon
I hiked with friends through night woods
to surf-churned Burnt Head.
Monday, September 6, 2010
September 6: Bold Coast
The Bold Coast Trails in Cutler offer some of the most beautiful coastal hiking I've ever experienced, especially on a cool but sunny day like today. We hiked through several miles of mossy spruce forest over bog bridges and tree roots as kinglets flitted in the treetops overhead. The trail follows the ocean's edge for several miles, as well, featuring one vista after another of dramatic rocky bluffs with crashing surf below, lobster boats at work on a sparkling sea, gulls and eiders bobbing offshore, and on the far horizon, the hazy length of Grand Manan Island.
At one point we crossed a small stream draining into a pebbly cove, and in a little side pool amid the rocks, I spied a frog. Hardly what I was expecting for wildlife so close to the shore. The frog was bright green with black spots, a leopard frog. My husband tells me they like wet fields, and we had crossed one earlier, but this palm-sized amphibian still seemed a bit out of its element.
We hiked almost six miles, and were a bit surprised to see the parking lot full upon our return. Clearly we weren't the only ones to think that this quiet, wild place in the middle of nowhere was the place to be on this holiday.
Why here, leopard frog?
Were you too drawn by sea's thrum,
these water-worn stones?
At one point we crossed a small stream draining into a pebbly cove, and in a little side pool amid the rocks, I spied a frog. Hardly what I was expecting for wildlife so close to the shore. The frog was bright green with black spots, a leopard frog. My husband tells me they like wet fields, and we had crossed one earlier, but this palm-sized amphibian still seemed a bit out of its element.
We hiked almost six miles, and were a bit surprised to see the parking lot full upon our return. Clearly we weren't the only ones to think that this quiet, wild place in the middle of nowhere was the place to be on this holiday.
Why here, leopard frog?
Were you too drawn by sea's thrum,
these water-worn stones?
Saturday, August 14, 2010
August 14: The Call of the Sea
It's rather ironic that as I sit on my back porch about to write a post about waking up this morning to the sound of an osprey chirping overhead, I can hear the cheesy carnival-esque music of an ice cream truck making its slow pass through our neighborhood. There's something about ice cream trucks (and clowns, for that matter) that creeps me out, although I'm sure to children with more innocent minds the music is as saliva-inducing as Pavlov's bell was to his dog.
When I awoke on yet another perfect summer morning today and heard the osprey before I even got out of bed, I thought to myself that I don't think I could live where I wouldn't hear that, or at the very least, the sound of gulls. That reminded me of something in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings books, when Legolas, a prince of the wood elves, is told that if he hears the gulls, he'll never return to his forest realm. I'm not sure if that was meant to be a straightforward prophecy--for he does hear gulls when he reaches the sea and ends up spending his life traveling Middle Earth with his dwarf companion--or if there was something more implied.
Personally, having grown up in midcoast Maine, I think there was more to it. I wouldn't want to live for any amount of time away from the ocean and the cries of the gulls and ospreys. I like to imagine that once Legolas saw the sea, its lure was inescapable, so that he could never be satisfied with life in Mirkwood Forest again. Of course, coming from a place called Mirkwood, it seems like the attractions of the sea would be obvious--sunlight on waves, the expanse of the open water, sea birds twinkling overhead... I guess what I love best about this place that is my home is the perfect combination of waterfront and woods--I can wake to ospreys as well as to a cardinal's whistle and the rustle of wind in the leaves. I can hike for several hours on mountain trails shaded by big old trees and be rewarded at the top with an ocean view: the best of both worlds.
A few minutes ago, my husband (in a nearby lawn chair) told me that he could smell the sea. He too grew up near the ocean and understands how fortunate we are to be able to sit beneath an ash tree alongside the river, breathing in salt air--and also, how inevitable, as if we could bear to be anywhere else.
With an osprey's voice
the sea wakes us up, beckons,
its blue doors open.
When I awoke on yet another perfect summer morning today and heard the osprey before I even got out of bed, I thought to myself that I don't think I could live where I wouldn't hear that, or at the very least, the sound of gulls. That reminded me of something in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings books, when Legolas, a prince of the wood elves, is told that if he hears the gulls, he'll never return to his forest realm. I'm not sure if that was meant to be a straightforward prophecy--for he does hear gulls when he reaches the sea and ends up spending his life traveling Middle Earth with his dwarf companion--or if there was something more implied.
Personally, having grown up in midcoast Maine, I think there was more to it. I wouldn't want to live for any amount of time away from the ocean and the cries of the gulls and ospreys. I like to imagine that once Legolas saw the sea, its lure was inescapable, so that he could never be satisfied with life in Mirkwood Forest again. Of course, coming from a place called Mirkwood, it seems like the attractions of the sea would be obvious--sunlight on waves, the expanse of the open water, sea birds twinkling overhead... I guess what I love best about this place that is my home is the perfect combination of waterfront and woods--I can wake to ospreys as well as to a cardinal's whistle and the rustle of wind in the leaves. I can hike for several hours on mountain trails shaded by big old trees and be rewarded at the top with an ocean view: the best of both worlds.
A few minutes ago, my husband (in a nearby lawn chair) told me that he could smell the sea. He too grew up near the ocean and understands how fortunate we are to be able to sit beneath an ash tree alongside the river, breathing in salt air--and also, how inevitable, as if we could bear to be anywhere else.
With an osprey's voice
the sea wakes us up, beckons,
its blue doors open.
Friday, August 6, 2010
August 6: Pelagic
Three birder friends and I had picked this day several months ago for a seabird trip from Vinalhaven with biologist John Drury in his boat Fluke. Who knew we'd have such luck? Today everything came together for the perfect pelagic outing: good people, clear skies, relatively calm seas, and lots of birds*.
There's something special about the birds you see when you're on the open ocean with no land in sight. Wilson's storm-petrels, small brown seabirds that dart among the waves like swallows, seemed to appear out of nowhere to flit past the boat and then disappear beyond the swells. Young gannets dropped from height, plummeting after fish head-first, straight down into the water like shining white arrows that always hit their target. Terns wheeled acrobatically on slender white wings, dipping into waves right alongside the boat for little fish to bring back to almost-fledged young. At one point we saw two jaegers in the distance and gave chase, but these big, gull-like birds that like to steal prey from other birds were quickly out of sight.
Sometimes we passed a lobster boat pulling traps, and each swell would half-hide the other boat from view. But these were long, smooth swells, no white-caps in sight, so not scary, just a little disorienting. It doesn't take long to get into the primal rhythm of the water, the rise and fall that every so often seems to come to life in the form of the dark fins of porpoises. A day like this makes me think owning a boat would be really cool, until I remind myself that days like this are truly rare.
Fog lifts. Swelling sea
carries us on its grey back.
We leave land behind.
* I would be remiss if I didn't somehow get in here that the real highlight of this pelagic trip was seeing a red-billed tropicbird on Seal Island, a life bird for me. This tropical vagrant is spending its sixth summer in Penobscot Bay, which it has apparently chosen as its home. John Drury, who knows the location of the bird's lair on the island, says he thinks it thinks it's a tern, but the terns don't want to have anything to do with it. This exotic summer visitor is, I fear, doomed to lead a lonely life, unless a fellow tropicbird of the opposite gender also happens to wander this far off course...
Tropicbird in Maine--
despite your lonely summers,
you keep coming back.
There's something special about the birds you see when you're on the open ocean with no land in sight. Wilson's storm-petrels, small brown seabirds that dart among the waves like swallows, seemed to appear out of nowhere to flit past the boat and then disappear beyond the swells. Young gannets dropped from height, plummeting after fish head-first, straight down into the water like shining white arrows that always hit their target. Terns wheeled acrobatically on slender white wings, dipping into waves right alongside the boat for little fish to bring back to almost-fledged young. At one point we saw two jaegers in the distance and gave chase, but these big, gull-like birds that like to steal prey from other birds were quickly out of sight.
Sometimes we passed a lobster boat pulling traps, and each swell would half-hide the other boat from view. But these were long, smooth swells, no white-caps in sight, so not scary, just a little disorienting. It doesn't take long to get into the primal rhythm of the water, the rise and fall that every so often seems to come to life in the form of the dark fins of porpoises. A day like this makes me think owning a boat would be really cool, until I remind myself that days like this are truly rare.
Fog lifts. Swelling sea
carries us on its grey back.
We leave land behind.
* I would be remiss if I didn't somehow get in here that the real highlight of this pelagic trip was seeing a red-billed tropicbird on Seal Island, a life bird for me. This tropical vagrant is spending its sixth summer in Penobscot Bay, which it has apparently chosen as its home. John Drury, who knows the location of the bird's lair on the island, says he thinks it thinks it's a tern, but the terns don't want to have anything to do with it. This exotic summer visitor is, I fear, doomed to lead a lonely life, unless a fellow tropicbird of the opposite gender also happens to wander this far off course...
Tropicbird in Maine--
despite your lonely summers,
you keep coming back.
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