Riding the Wind

The wind had reversed direction and picked up speed since my last report on birds flying past the tip of Halibut Point. Then, the wind was coming briskly from the northeast and a good variety of birds were getting a boost from flying directly into it.

Sanderlings

Now on a very blustery day a different set of birds, and far fewer of them, was flying with the westerly wind, toward the east.

Common Eider

In both cases the birds were flying primarily from left to right but with different approaches to harnessing the wind. I had to speculate on whether they were seizing opportunities for intentional travel or simply making the best of elements forced on them.

Ring-billed Gull bucking the wind

Gulls were the exception to the pattern of the down-wind travelers. They patrolled both up and down the shoreline using the wind to hover and maneuver adroitly in all directions. Their ability to shape their wings and tail in broad, cup-like configurations helped keep them aloft.

Herring Gulls contesting a morsel

When they were in travelling mode, however, gulls harnessed the wind with preferences similar to other maritime flyers, wings straight, narrowed and extended.

Northern Gannet

Gannets are one of the most spectacular aerialists along the Halibut Point shoreline. The proportion of their long wing length to narrow width forms what is known as a high aspect ratio that facilitates maximum lift with minimum drag and turbulence, as the moving air creates a vacuum above the wing curvature.

Seasonal range of the Northern Gannet
All About Birds website, Cornell Ornithology Lab

Gannets are able to spend most of their lives far out at sea covering tremendous distances in pursuit of fish. They are most often seen along the New England coast in fall and winter.

Cory's Shearwater

The wings of shearwaters optimize the high aspect ratio principle to control and stabilize their flight near the water surface in all kinds of winds. They spend most of their life far from land but are occasionally pushed close enough to shore to be seen from our coast in late summer or early fall. When forced in by a gale like other seabirds they follow a counterclockwise loop around the edge of the Ipswich Bay to escape back out to sea past Halibut Point. 

Migratory range of Cory's Shearwater
BirdLife International, 31 May 2021

Cory's Shearwaters come to land for breeding in the Azores and Madeira, as well as the Canary Islands. Their pelagic migration journey follows an 8-shape pattern along the African and South-American coasts pursuing small fish on the surface and schools sometimes driven up by large marine predators such as dolphins and tuna. In summer they range up the continental shelf as far north as Newfoundland. They expertly benefit from dynamic soaring, as explained by Gloucester's Chris Leahy in The Birdwatcher's Companion to North American Birdlife, 2004.

Dynamic soaring

"Dynamic stability exploits the fact that winds blowing over the surface of the sea are slowed by the waves at the surface and gradually increase in velocity with altitude. Relatively heavy birds such as albatrosses, fulmars, and shearwaters with high aspect ratios (best for control and stability) can gain speed high in the fastest air and then plunge downwind; when they reach the slower air near the seas surface they then use their momentum to head up again, simultaneously turning into the wind, which blows them back aloft. The entire sophisticated maneuver is performed without a single flap."

They Don't Ask for Much

Early in May when we were cosseting our garden plants at home, I came across this herb growing exuberantly in the gravel perimeter road at Halibut Point.

Yellow Rocket - Barbarea vulgaris

It didn't seem to be supported by what we commonly think of as soil. And yet it was achieving the full destiny of a flowering plant.

Bluets - Houstonia caerulea

About the same time Bluets were brightening crevices and waste places all over the Park.

Oxeye Daisy - Leucanthemum vulgare

They and Oxeye Daisies seemed to be setting up a sequence for blossoms in unlikely terrain.

Racemed Milkwort - Polygala polygama

Finding them was like hunting for treasure in places sometimes obscure and sometimes conspicuous.

Shad trees - Amelanchier sp.

In mid-spring shad trees enliven apparently sterile grout piles with colorful leaves and flowers.

Bigtooth Aspen - Populus grandidentata

Aspens veil themselves with shimmering foliage and flowers in the very same rocky debris cast aside by the granite quarrying industry.

Virginia rose - Rosa virginiana

Decades later botanical marvels have pioneered into the lifeless landscape.

Smooth Hawkweed - Pilosella piloselloides

They arrive as seeds prodigiously cast to the wind, or to traveling animals. A tiny portion of those seeds eventually find anchorage in water-retentive locations on Halibut Point.

Sheep Sorrel - Rumex acetosella

Drought-resistant species with advantageous structures are able to conserve moisture within their cells.

Eastern Red Cedars - Juniperus virginiana

Soil building on the bare rock proceeds through an interaction of chemistry, physics, geology and biology. The substrate is weatherized into particles, dissolved into nutrients, enriched by the carbon cycle. It could be said that the rough quarry debris constitutes the coarsest element in the soil formation matrix.

Seaside Plantain - Plantago maritima

Down on the coastal margins specialized plants overcome harsh challenges to colonize dry, windswept, salty crevices.

Seaside Goldenrod - Solidago sempervirens

All through these headlands an ineffable force pushes organic life to make opportunities for itself on the most meager, and resplendent, circumstances. 

The White Bird

The sun rising over Halibut Point bathed Folly Cove's ledges in golden light and deep shadows. It made a rich backdrop for noticing the birds gathered around a school of small fish.

Early morning, Folly Cove

The leathery tones in the granite accentuated  a singular white bird perched above the multitude like a serene icon over the feeding frenzy.

The White Bird

In its stillness the bird seemed an eerie transmogrification of a member of a usually frenetic tribe. It was an albino Herring Gull, feathers unmarked by color or pattern. At that moment the White Bird appeared aloof from the restless appetites of its species.

It's easy to sense transcendence in such a creature. It seemed to be composed of elements only partly of this world. Its lack of outward detail suggested supernatural detachment, self-contained elegance, potency in reserve. It projected a quiet knowing.

In both the Old and New Testaments a White Bird, particularly a dove, is often associated with divinity, purity, peace, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

White tern, Plum Island

This was my second recent encounter with a mysterious white bird. The one above photographed on the Plum Island safari is apparently an albino Common Tern. Without visible field markings, taxonomy can be difficult. I felt the yearnings of science weaken. Like the ancients, and like mystics of all eras, I became aware of metaphor taking hold as a force of meaning and power. Whiteness has timelessly suggested clarity, hope, and new beginnings, the removal of pain and suffering, the unity of spectral diversity into Whole Light.

White is the color chosen for bridal veils and baby's swaddling clothes, for surgical healing and naval ceremony, for Islamic pilgrims and Christian angels, for Buddhist funerals and Hindu shrouds. The Pope has worn white since 1566 as a symbol of purity and sacrifice. It is the color of glory and of the heart bled dry.

From Moby Dick to alpha wolves to Great Sharks, white has been associated with power and liminal qualities at the boundary of life and death. The White Bird flies back and forth between ultimate realms. For minds seeking the fullest experience it brings science and imagination into Oneness.

Into the Wind

 

In the blah and blustery weather earlier this week I watched birds at the shoreline succeeding not only with the marvel of flight but against a stiff wind.

Great Black-backed Gull

Gulls are the aerial masters of the environment. They shift their wings to meet varying conditions and purposes. The one pictured here has cupped its wings to emphasize buoyancy rather than forward movement,

Ring-billed Gull

This Ring-billed Gull maintains a straighter wing configuration with its intention of traveling rather than lingering.

Laughing Gull

This Laughing Gull is similarly maximizing aerodynamic lift. Air passing the longer, curving upper surface of its wings creates a vacuum above that pulls the bird up and counters gravity.

Herring Gull hovering above Common Eiders

This gull is not flapping its wings at all. It has curved them out with feathers splayed to catch the onrushing force of the wind keeping it aloft directly above the Eiders it intends to rob of food brought up from the bottom.

Turkey Vulture

A Turkey Vulture soared overhead employing both these techniques to float in the sky while spiraling over coastal terrain.

Northern Gannet

Interestingly, as I looked out into the Bay almost all the birds were flying from left to right into a stiff north east breeze.

Double-crested Cormorant

It seemed counter-intuitive that they would choose to head into the wind.

White-winged Scoters

Quite apparently the lifting energy of the moving air was helping them more than the momentum lost to the opposing force of the wind.

Surf Scoters

I changed my perspective to theirs, from flying 'against the wind' to flying 'into the wind.' 

Common Loon

Birds flying with that wind to their rear seemed jet propelled. The power assist made them considerably more of a photographic challenge than the moderately paced ones borrowing lift.

Peregrine Falcon

Along the coast came one of the fastest flyers in the world. The Peregrine Falcon artfully maintained a stationery hunting position in the sky by 'kiting' or balancing all the forces affecting its flight. It is supremely agile on long tapered wings.

Bald Eagle

Soaring downwind in the other direction this Bald Eagle stayed aloft on broad wings held consistently horizontally, scanning the coastline for a ready meal dead or alive. Perhaps its wing structure and anatomy dictated the passive flight terms. Or perhaps it lacked the dexterity and temperament to finesse the wind in a headlong merging of energies.

Plum Island Safari

Looking across the Ipswich Bay from Halibut Point a great stretch of sand marks the horizon, some of which is preserved as the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island and adjacent estuaries. I decided it was time to take a look.

Egrets, ducks, and wading birds

The inner side of the refuge offers both salt water and fresh water habitat. Its great advantage over Halibut Point as a food producer for wildlife is the prevalence of mud.

Dunes and ocean

The outer side looks back at Halibut Point's rocky shoreline and quarry ponds. The environments could scarcely be more different. Plum Island's sand dunes continuing into shallow water form another part of its distinctive ecology.

Near the entrance to the Refuge is a tribute to legendary naturalist Ludlow Griscom of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. I was gratified to read on the plaque that he played a leading role in establishing the 4,700 acre sanctuary. Eleven years ago in these Notes I reported on a conversation I had with Roland Clement, aged 101, concerning a birding trip to Halibut Point with the charismatic Griscom in 1941. Here is an excerpt: People were either awed by him, or hated him. I was a lucky protégé for a year or so....It was our aim to outdo our guru in first spotting some rare find. Or, heavenly luck, catch him in some hasty misidentification. But he almost always took a second look before speaking out, so we remained empty-handed.

Cormorants, gulls, and egrets in a feeding frenzy
on small fish driven to the surface by larger fish

The Refuge is simultaneously a place of serenity and of existential tumult.

Harrier, or Marsh Hawk

A visitor might well get a sense of being on safari in a distant, exotic landscape.

Osprey

Given the richness of these estuaries in supporting colonies of wildlife, it is not surprising that Plum Island attracts a wide range of birds of prey.

Red-tailed Hawk

Fierce raptors patrol the air eyeing the teeming flocks of shorebirds and rodents scurrying in the uplands.

Sandpipers and plovers take flight

Here the appearance of a falcon overhead panics waders feeding on the mud flats.

Merlin (falcon)

The falcon circled and burst into the flock as it veered distractingly in hopes of collective safety.

The Merlin and a Semipalmated Plover

The falcon succeeded in knocking down one of the shorebirds to its demise.

Greater Yellowlegs and Short-billed Dowitcher

Of course those mild-mannered mud probers are also carnivorous in their appetites as they insert their bills into the mud for tiny invertebrates.

Common Tern with fish

So are the graceful terns patrolling the waters off the beach.

Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets rising

This refuge at the edge of the continent sustains not only its resident wildlife but as a critical staging area in the Atlantic flyway for countless songbirds arriving and departing on migration flights across thousands of miles of ocean.

The U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service manages the preserve with a nice balance of primal sanctuary and recreational access and vistas for visitors. Even for those of us lucky enough to frequent Halibut Point, a trip to Plum Island feels like a safari to an exotic but accessible destination.