 | Now: 63°F | Low: 51° High: 65° |
The migrating plovers along the shore this morning come from a wintry realm of the far north. Geographically, they come to us from Canada, but genetically they were among the first birds on earth, older in fact than gulls and loons. Little changed in millions of years, plovers bear a remarkable likeness to their ancestors of the Oligocene Epoch in Tertiary times. Their DNA has the imprint of each succeeding generation through the centuries. — Diary, autumn 2009
The poet, Hilda Doolittle, admired seashells, especially the craftsmanship of the occupants, (“master masons,” she called them) who created the “stone marvel.” Observing that “There is a spell … in every seashell, continuous the sea thrust is powerless,” she writes of the “flabby, amorphous” hermit crab that now occupies the carapace, its “temple, fane, shrine,” opening its portals at intervals “to the tide-flow.”*
In a manner of speaking, the beach is a stage, mystical and wondrous, nature’s remarkable theater. Performances range from the dramatic to the mundane. Among the more spectacular are autumn’s sunrises and sunsets, splashes of crimson across the sky. Less impressive, but surely as intriguing, are mullets in the sand flats, leaping repeatedly. Whether for the joy of flight or to escape a predator, who knows? But, nevertheless, all are fine actors. — Diary, autumn 2009
Every offshore post within sight is occupied this morning. Through binoculars, I see that all are brown pelicans, except for one great blue heron perched on a piling near the fishing pier. Pelicans have now returned to the mainland in record numbers, following their parental summer on the barrier islands. Last night at sunset, flocks of the birds flew in single file, as is their wont, above the beach, gliding with grace and power in the soft, evening air. — Diary, summer 2009
