The Watchtower

All through the record of history watchtowers have been prominent features of public vigilance. That is how the present Visitors Center of Halibut Point State Park came into existence as part of the coastal defense system during the uncertainties  of the early 1940s when German submarines were poised to menace the fishing fleet and shipping in Massachusetts Bay, and the refuge of Boston Harbor.

Perched cliffside on the Atlantic shoreline the building has been under constant exposure to environmental assaults and decay. Recently the Commonwealth invested substantially in state-of-the-art rehabilitation.

American Crow

The tower gives an open field of vision not just to human observers who climb to the top but to various birds keeping tabs on the lay of the land. Crows can often be seen and heard commenting on activities below. They seem to have set black as the plumage standard for this privilege.

Common Raven

A sturdy relative of the Crow, this Common Raven anchors itself  resolutely to the peak of the tower on a windy day.

European Starlings

A flock of European Starlings, a smaller but hardly less resilient blackbird, regroups en masse atop the tower while surveying a winter foraging mission. 

Turkey Vultures

The scale of the tower is never so well complemented as when large birds bring an eerie magnificence to the perch.

Besides unobstructed sight lines the promontory offers these massive creatures favorable conditions for taking off. They can pick up lift and air speed simply by falling forward. 

Bald Eagle

This big, dark, ominous bird‒distinguished by white on head and tail‒briefly took a lordly position on the peak of the tower this summer. The Bald Eagle could be seen as the monarch of elegance in the winged world. Its detractors contend that it is slow, opportunistic, and not above eating carrion.

Peregrine Falcon flyby

One of the truly adept hunters-on-the-wing flew by for a closer assessment. Bald Eagles and Peregrine Falcons have quite different hunting techniques and targets. Both species are still seen hereabouts in apparent coexistence.

The Watchtower constructed out of conflict rather than coexistence on this remote skyline now forms an observation feature as significant to nature as to humans.