Ducks on the Wing

The great compensation for winter's blustery weather is that Halibut Point's shoreline comes alive with birds. Seeing them on the ocean surface between dives for food presents an admirable view of their lifestyle and coloration.  When they fly, we get a fuller appreciation of their abilities and beauty in this challenging, stunning environment. The camera lets us take home a stop-action souvenir of these wonders.

Red-breasted Mergansers

White-winged Scoters

Harlequin Ducks

Common Eider

Buffleheads

Surf Scoters and Black Scoter, with Greater Scaup in lead

Brant

Long-tailed Ducks

Quarry Ducks, As the Ice Closed In

 

With the approach of winter, the Halibut Point quarry pond became a place of refuge for various ducks while the water remained open.

Chief among these hardy waterfowl have been Mallards and their closely related Black Ducks.

These dabblers are drawn to the quarry to rest from their rough and tumble foraging for vegetation along the ocean shoreline. There is nothing up here for them to eat at this time of year.

Mallards with a Ring-necked Duck

Once in awhile an exotic duck appears with the Mallards. Unlike the surface dabblers, these are usually divers.

Ring-necked Duck diving

I supposed they were diving to the bottom in search of mollusks or other edibles. Out in the middle of the quarry it's a long way down.

Greater Scaup swimming, and Mallards, standing

These visitors appeared just as ice was beginning to form on the quarry. They looked like bantams next to the plump Mallards, which were content to stand on the frozen surface on their broad, paddle-like feet.

Female Goldeneye

The divers busied themselves below the surface and never left the water.

Goldeneye diving

They had swimmers' feet, large and cupped for propulsion, not at all suited for standing or walking.

Goldeneye with fish

This photograph finally revealed the target of all that diving effort and the purpose of a lifestyle so distinct from the dabblers.

Ring-necked Duck

Evidently, for most of the year, the diving ducks find habitats more to their liking than chasing minnows in the quarry.

Mallards on the rim of the ice

Frigid temperatures have entirely closed the quarry to the colorful animations of ducks. For the adventurous, there's always the shoreline to admire the saltwater species overwintering in the harshest of environments.

A Watchtower Parable

 

Parables turn conventional thinking inside-out to reach a deeper understanding of things.

Parables put elusive ironies into plain speech and images, there to be sifted for clarification.

While I was compiling the previous two Notes from Halibut Point, Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" played incessantly in my mind. Also Jimi Hendrix's electrifying version of the song delivered on the Isle of Wight in 1968, that caused Dylan to radically amplify his own performances thereafter.

The lyrics feature a conversation between a joker and a thief as they ride toward a watchtower. On one level they seem to refer to getting beyond a sense of victimhood and exploitation at the hands of the music industry.

There must be some kind of way outta here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief.

Business men, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth

None will level on the line
Nobody offered his word.

No reason to get excited
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But, uh, but you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us stop talkin' falsely now
The hour's getting late.

Halibut Point Watchtower, moonlight 2025

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants, too
Well, uh, outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl, hey

All along the watchtower

All along the watchtower.

Great Blue Heron

Bob Dylan is the master of teasing, provocative metaphors that reveal both the glories and inequities of life. Eventually he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In writing "All Along the Watchtower" he likely drew on these lines in the Book of Isaiah.

Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise ye princes, and prepare the shield./For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth./And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed./...And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.

 

The previous postings on the Halibut Point watchtower noted its roles in national defense and a promontory for birds. Dylan's artistry challenges to vigilance in keeping faithful to our values in character and culture.

The Watchtower and Technology

By the 1930s the Rockport Granite Company had shuttered its quarrying operations and gone into receivership, attempting to sell off its barren Halibut Point property. A small part of the promontory was acquired by the federal government during World War 2 as an observation station for the defense of Boston and the Portsmouth Naval Yard.

Coast Guard Tower under construction at Halibut Point, c. 1942
Bollinger photo, John and Betty Erkkila, Souvenirs of Pigeon Cove, 2014

Coastguardsmen with optical devices were stationed full time in the barracks. From their elevated unobstructed tower they could look considerably further than distances comprising the horizon at sea level. The facility also contained fire control centers linked by telephone to coastal artillery batteries along the rim of Massachusetts Bay.

Radar station, early 1950s
Photo courtesy of MITRE Corporation

In the latter 1940s the United States assumed the mantle of protector of the Free World in a new global phenomenon, The Cold War. The lethal reach of military weapons extended tremendously in this competition. Radar networks became a vital part of early warning systems. The station at Halibut Point was transferred to the Department of the Air Force in 1951, closely linked to national security programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research (MITRE) and its offshoot, the Lincoln Laboratory of Bedford.

The Whirlwind Computer at MIT, 1950

MITRE Corporation

Simultaneous development of the digital computer enabled high-speed processing of vast amounts of data for both civilian and military applications. By 1953 the Halibut Point installation was integrated into the regional air defense system with a role in supporting the most advanced technological research and development through MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. All operations were highly classified.

165-foot transmission and receiving tower, 1958

MITRE Corporation

Last week I received a most intriguing response to my blog posting "The Watchtower" from a fellow rambler at Halibut Point whose father was, from 1977 to 1998, the Director of Lincoln Laboratories. We met for coffee.

His father Walter Morrow was one of the youngest students ever to enter MIT at age 16, in 1945. After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical engineering he transitioned to the Lincoln Laboratory and succeeded in developing the world's first transistor radio. Communication, broadly speaking, is at the core of making information useful. A major component of the laboratory's research was in operational guidance, interfaces, and communication systems for the microwave generators underlying radar. Air traffic control and satellite navigation are two of the areas utterly reliant on those capabilities.

By geographic position and a precedent of secure military operations, as well as a small parcel under government ownership, Halibut Point was ideally suited to be a forward site of testing and deployment of the technology network. The completion of Rte 128 at this time further linked Cape Ann to Boston's technology highway. As Greg Morrow puts it, Halibut Point was the Mecca of radar and digital development. The MIT-based research teams developed the modem to compress at the sending end, then expand at the receiving end, enormous amounts of digitized information into bits that could be transmitted economically on telephone lines. This led to video broadcasting as we know it. The computer mouse was another product rooted in this 1950s era.

Practically speaking civilian and military research initiatives are almost inseparable, and their funding channels are closely entwined. A constant review of ethical directions is an ongoing part of MIT's self-examination. On its website the University applauds Walter Morrow's leadership in these matters as well as his technical innovations.

During his tenure on the Defense Science Board, Mr. Morrow led eleven task forces and summer studies, many of which have been used in guiding the direction of defense acquisition and in determining critical Department of Defense investments. He was commended for his broad understanding of national security issues and his ability to access the best science and technical advice, resulting in balanced and thorough recommendations.