SCENES FROM THE BEACH | by George Thatcher / NOV. 1, 2015

John Keats described autumn as a "... season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!"* And so it is this afternoon on our beach. Earlier, downy clouds had shed drops of rain, and now the sun has warmed a cool morning. Two flocks of shorebirds -- gulls and skimmers -- are somnolent in the mid-afternoon sunshine. Within the large flock of skimmers, we see several immature birds, only a few weeks old, having hatched recently. They doze on this mellow autumn day along with their elders.

-- Diary, fall 2015

*"To Autumn" by John Keats, New Oxford Book of English Verse; Oxford University Press, New York

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 6:39 PM with the headline "SCENES FROM THE BEACH | by George Thatcher / NOV. 1, 2015 ."