November 5: First snow

The first few flakes of snow were falling this morning, barely visible, but a sign that we're on the cusp of the cold season. Meanwhile, a birder friend made a morning trip to Sebasticook Lake to see if he could relocate a white pelican found there yesterday. (American White Pelican is a very rare species in Maine--this one undoubtedly ended up here thanks to Sandy.) He was successful, finding not only a new "state bird"--the first of this species he had seen in Maine--but also the first pelican he'd observed while snow was falling.

Snow falling on pelican.
Climate change:
things fall apart.

October 30: Flood

Since childhood I've had recurring nightmares about water--rogue waves about to carry me under, storms creating waves so high they creep up over the bank and across the lawn to carry away my grandparents' house, roads or paths flooded and impassable so I'm stranded with water all around me... You'd think that since I'm a water sign, a Pisces, I'd have a better subconscious relationship with water. But no.

So when I was looking at photos this morning of the flooding and destruction caused by Sandy in New Jersey and New York--cars completely submerged on city streets, houses surrounded by waves, impossibly high waves crashing over sea walls onto shorefront houses, commuter tunnels filled to the top with water--it was like seeing my worst dreams come to life. The images produced such a visceral reaction in me, I had to stop looking. My heart goes out to those people for whom such images are not just bad dreams but reality. And as I listen to the rain fall--nothing torrential, no high winds--I am tremendously grateful to have had it so easy here on the Maine coast, and that all those I love are safe.

It all washes away
so easily.

 

October 29: Entrainment

Hurricane Sandy, Extra-tropical Storm Sandy, Big Huge Storm Sandy, or whatever you want to call it,  is headed our way after already wreaking havoc on the mid-Atlantic states on up. When a big storm system moves through during a migration season, some birders get excited, anticipating unusual southern--even tropical--species blown off course. Pelicans and boobies end up off the coast of Maine; seabirds end up far inland. If you and yours are safe and sound post-storm, that can be one of the most interesting times to be out birding. If this kind of storm watching appeals to you, eBird offers more specific information.

In reading on eBird about how this storm may affect various types of birds, I've learned a few things. Strong storm winds may displace birds--blowing around or concentrating large flocks, knocking pelagic birds inland, for example. Or birds may get caught up in the calm eye of the storm, especially one as large as Sandy, and get carried thousands of miles north along with the weather. That's how we end up with tropicbirds in Massachusetts. That's entrainment.

This song describes Van Morrison's definition of "entrainment." It seems to differ slightly from the ornithological definition. But the concept, however one thinks of it, has tremendous poetic potential.

Calm amid passion's swirl
yet still carried away,
dropped on a strange shore.