Summer Shoreline, Part 5 - Rough Water Vigil

Occasionally a pounding ocean surf  intrudes on even the mildest days of September. This particular morning only the eider ducks chose to stay on the water.

Eventually some of the them took refuge on shore too.

Swells rolled in from a tropical storm passing northward out at sea.

A grounded Herring gull weighed the chances that the surf would offer up something edible.

Laughing gulls made a rare roost on shore at Halibut Point.

Their black-headed breeding plumage was just beginning to molt to gray.

Double-crested cormorants also considered the turbulence of the waves in their calculus on hunger and fishing.

They preened and oiled their feathers in preparation for a return to the water. 

As for myself, I had the luxury of seeing it simply as beautiful.

Summer Shoreline, Part 4 - An Egret in the Cove

Although Great egrets can be a common sight on mudflats and marshes, prior to this summer I'd never seen one on the rocky coast of Halibut Point.
 

Of course I'm always  happy to find beautiful novelties here even if they're readily seen elsewhere. In the back of my mind was the question, "Is this just a lucky moment, or is there a reason it's here?"

The bird soon made the answer apparent. It had spotted food. 

 

Its prey appeared to be a cunner, a type of fish we boys used to catch easily on these shores but which seemed to have disappeared in my grandsons' era.

 

We used to consider cunners delicious but bony, with dangerously sharp dorsal fins.


 

The egret flipped the fish around to swallow it head first, fins flattened.

It was already scanning the shallows for another target.

 

Lifting this great body into the air required a great span of wings. It began a slow flight, with its neck retracted, which is characteristic of egrets, herons and bitterns. This distinguishes them from storks, cranes, and ibises, which extend their necks in flight.

  

Large numbers of Great egrets were killed around the end of the 19th century for their plumes to decorate fashionable hats.

 

In 1895 Cousins and Boston socialites Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall, disturbed by the destruction of the plume hunters, organized a series of afternoon teas with other wealthy local women, encouraging them to avoid feathered garments. They also sent literature asking these women to, in Hall's words, "join a society for the protection of birds, especially the egret." Later that same year they founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Its resurgent numbers have made the Great egret a conservation success story. This image of it in flight was ultimately chosen as the symbol of the National Audubon Society .

 

 

 

 

Mary Oliver, for all the senses

POETRY • MUSIC • PHOTOGRAPHY

Sunday, September 22, 4:00

 

Lanesville Community Center

8 Vulcan Street

 

Poems of Mary Oliver, read by Nan Webber

 



"Poetry has long been in my background. It has been as close to me as theater." 



"Mary Oliver is one of America's most admired poets. She is a naturalist in the vein of Thoreau who speaks with an everyday language. She represents us all." 

 
 

"I find her very spiritual. She considers animals to be her beloved friends - number one being her disobedient but adorable little dog Percy. I love the fact that she is so honest, and that we have claimed her as the William Wordsworth of this era."
 

Original clarinet compositions by Stephen Bates

 

"The audience will enjoy several of the arts blended, rather than just poetry as poetry, to hear the music that's in poetry, the artistry, all the wonderful colors that will bring the program to life."

 

Halibut Point photographs by Martin Ray

REFRESHMENTS 

$20 SUGGESTED DONATION AT THE DOOR 
for families, $15 EACH PER FAMILY MEMBER 

The program is a benefit for the Manship Artists Residency and Studios, Lanesville.

 

Summer Shoreline, Part 3 - Queen Anne's Lace

Queen Anne's Lace, possibly originating in Afghanistan, naturalized across Europe and subsequently colonial North America. It beautifies inhospitable locations although its self-sowing prowess is not so welcome in agricultural fields.

The disc-shaped inflorescence is an umbel of myriad tiny white florets that form a constellation around a single mysterious ruby-colored central flower.

As seeds develop, the umbel curls protectively into a bird's nest shape that has its own appeal to collectors of dried-flower material.

...with cow vetch, Vicia cracca

Besides their exuberant pattern the white flowers combine pleasurably with others, to our eyes, at least.



...with Elliott's goldenrod, Solidago latissimifolia

Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota) is a member of the parsnip family and a subspecies of the cultivated carrot. A biennial, it flowers, sets seeds, and dies in its second year. While very young in its first year the roots are edible.


...with groundnut, Apios americana

At one place on the moors of Halibut Point Queen Anne's Lace grows next to another plant whose underground tubers were traditionally gathered as food, as indicated in the folk names Groundnut, Wild Potato, and Indian Potato.

...with staghorn sumac, Rhus hirta

Queen Anne's Lace seems born to ornament every place where it takes root.

...a roadside near Halibut Point State Park