Book of Days
BOOK OF DAYS: A POET AND NATURALIST TRIES TO FIND POETRY IN EVERY DAY
Sign up on the Contact Me page
Filtering by Tag: Scarborough Marsh
Posted with BlogsyMarch 3: Scarborough Marsh
Kristen Lindquist
In the frozen saltmarsh
nothing moves
but three foraging crows.
nothing moves
but three foraging crows.
July 1: Summer marsh
Kristen Lindquist
This morning I visited Scarborough Marsh with my bird guide friend Derek in hopes of seeing a couple of unusual birds that have been reported there recently: Black-necked Stilt and Seaside Sparrow, both of which breed south of Maine. IF&W biologists were out in the marsh with mist nets carrying out some sort of bird research--as luck would have it, right where the stilt has been hanging out, so we had no hope of seeing that bird, but we watched and waited for the sparrow.
As we stood on Eastern Road, all around us many Nelson's Sparrows sang their odd song, a drawn-out spshhh that sounds just like water dropped into a hot frying pan--appropriate for a humid morning. Blackbirds tooted in the reeds. Sun began to disperse the fog lingering over Pine Point, and darker clouds portending afternoon rain rolled in from the west. Here and there white egrets feed silently in the pannes, while Willets startled up from their nests, flashing the white crescents on their wings. Along the edge of the trail, wild roses perfumed the salty air. A Glossy Ibis flew overhead.
Our patience paid off. Derek eventually spotted a Seaside Sparrow singing not too far off in the marsh. I picked up on the song and eventually got some very good looks at this life bird. Not a bad start to my morning. Then I had to rush north to get in a half day's work.
Anxious Willets flush
from marshy pockets, crying.
That kind of morning.
As we stood on Eastern Road, all around us many Nelson's Sparrows sang their odd song, a drawn-out spshhh that sounds just like water dropped into a hot frying pan--appropriate for a humid morning. Blackbirds tooted in the reeds. Sun began to disperse the fog lingering over Pine Point, and darker clouds portending afternoon rain rolled in from the west. Here and there white egrets feed silently in the pannes, while Willets startled up from their nests, flashing the white crescents on their wings. Along the edge of the trail, wild roses perfumed the salty air. A Glossy Ibis flew overhead.
Our patience paid off. Derek eventually spotted a Seaside Sparrow singing not too far off in the marsh. I picked up on the song and eventually got some very good looks at this life bird. Not a bad start to my morning. Then I had to rush north to get in a half day's work.
Anxious Willets flush
from marshy pockets, crying.
That kind of morning.
August 22: Scarborough Marsh
Kristen Lindquist
Change is in the air at Scarborough Marsh. Along Eastern Road trail, the leaves of some of the wild cherry bushes were already turning red. At high tide with little of the mud flats exposed, shorebirds weren't easy to see. They flew overhead, moving from one low patch to another, their high-pitched calls drifting across the marsh on the warm air.
Above the marsh grass, the white heads of egrets catch the eye. From Eastern Road the view is wide enough that we could see a harrier dipping above a field of goldenrod on the far side of the marsh. Over another part of the marsh 14 crows returned to the trees, having successfully escorted a red-tail out of their airspace.
We walked out between the pannes on a beaten trail and got close looks at some bright young least sandpipers. A snowy egret ran back and forth in the shallow water. A Canada goose raised its head from behind a hummock. On the walk back, in a pool on the other side of the road we picked out a little blue heron among some egrets. A few crickets hummed in the faded grass. Only a couple of salt marsh sparrows remained, scuttling from tuft to tuft, and the swallow nesting boxes are empty now.
Some leaves reddening.
Plaintive calls of sandpipers
shifting with the tide.
Above the marsh grass, the white heads of egrets catch the eye. From Eastern Road the view is wide enough that we could see a harrier dipping above a field of goldenrod on the far side of the marsh. Over another part of the marsh 14 crows returned to the trees, having successfully escorted a red-tail out of their airspace.
We walked out between the pannes on a beaten trail and got close looks at some bright young least sandpipers. A snowy egret ran back and forth in the shallow water. A Canada goose raised its head from behind a hummock. On the walk back, in a pool on the other side of the road we picked out a little blue heron among some egrets. A few crickets hummed in the faded grass. Only a couple of salt marsh sparrows remained, scuttling from tuft to tuft, and the swallow nesting boxes are empty now.
Some leaves reddening.
Plaintive calls of sandpipers
shifting with the tide.
July 4: Baptism
Kristen Lindquist
This morning my husband and I drove to Scarborough to attend the baptism of our niece and nephew; Paul had been asked to be the godfather of his sister's son. As a non-Catholic with no sense of the sequence of events at a mass, let alone knowledge of the responses, I spent most of the service keeping an eye on our active niece (though I did take a long moment to say a non-denominational prayer for my best friend's father, who's critically ill). Undaunted by the silence of dozens of people in the pews around her, she grabbed a hymnal and began "reading" from it aloud. Then she tossed the hymnal aside and began perusing "Spot Bakes a Cake" and a Sesame Street ABC book with the same intensity. For some reason this struck me as a wonderful juxtaposition--images of Grover and Big Bird alongside the reading of the day's homily and the singing of "America the Beautiful." And all being taken in by an angelic-looking two-year-old with wild curly dark hair wearing a long white fancy baptism dress. The only point in the service in which she got at all upset was when she was dunked into the baptismal font, but even that passed quickly.
After lunch and family time, my husband and I decided to stop at Scarborough Marsh for a little birding. The tide was high and the humid air clung to our skin. Throughout the marsh, willets--large sandpipers that breed there--flew back and forth, white wing patches flashing, crying, "Pe-will-willet, pe-will-willet!" Their noise seemed rather alarmist, as the marsh was otherwise placid: slack tide brimming at the edges, still air humming with insects, little other bird activity. I'm not sure how this connects at all to the morning's baptism, except that both experiences involved water, and I did briefly give thought to what it must feel like for a young willet to step into the water for the first time, committing itself to a life of marsh mud, tidal waters, and salt-fragrant air. I bet it cries out in alarm too, before acceptance.
Life-giving water
baptizes both bird and child--
high tide, blessed font.
After lunch and family time, my husband and I decided to stop at Scarborough Marsh for a little birding. The tide was high and the humid air clung to our skin. Throughout the marsh, willets--large sandpipers that breed there--flew back and forth, white wing patches flashing, crying, "Pe-will-willet, pe-will-willet!" Their noise seemed rather alarmist, as the marsh was otherwise placid: slack tide brimming at the edges, still air humming with insects, little other bird activity. I'm not sure how this connects at all to the morning's baptism, except that both experiences involved water, and I did briefly give thought to what it must feel like for a young willet to step into the water for the first time, committing itself to a life of marsh mud, tidal waters, and salt-fragrant air. I bet it cries out in alarm too, before acceptance.
Life-giving water
baptizes both bird and child--
high tide, blessed font.