Birds of the Quarry, 4 - The Cormorant

Turbulent times prompt a cormorant to still waters at Halibut Point.

Immigrants of various races gather in sanctuary. The cormorant stands on immense incongruous feet. 

It's adaptation to deep diving comes at the expense of buoyancy and waterproofing. The cormorant comes ashore periodically to dry its wings to stay afloat. Those wings beat laboriously to keep it in the air unlike the soaring gull. Its dense leg musculature excels on the chase but burdens its flight.

Nevertheless it flies. It out-swims fish under water then takes to the air.

It maintains a regal posture at the edge of the quarry as it does along the rocky ocean shoreline.

On land it appears more wistful than saturnine.

 

Its flight may be termed expedient but it does transcend distance and gravity. It strains to work itself up off the water. It launches easily from a promontory.

To look steadily at a cormorant is to see the embodiment of a hunter in its niche.

 

It looks back through a wary turquoise eye, holding the secrets of its sovereignty below the surface.

Platform for America

At the entrance to Halibut Point State Park two emblems remind visitors of government's mandate to serve the land and the people. The people have chosen their governors this week on Election Day. At the end of the week, on Veterans Day, we will honor those among us who served in the national defense.

The following week, on the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, we will recall President Lincoln's consecration of a battlefield in the most perilous time for the nation, and the hope that it "shall have a new birth of freedom." The final week of November brings the celebration of Thanksgiving.

Eloquence can emerge from episodes of great struggle such as these historic occasions of re-purposing. It may yet arise from the consternation we are now experiencing. Clarity may return us to community, or chaos may bruise us further.

The eloquence may be in speech or in action.

It will come, instinctively or by cultivation, from the truest source: the still, small Voice that tempers the slide between desire and indignation.

Within the current dissonance we will have to attune to the quiet guides and uncluttered decorum of reconciliation. We will have to accept a personal role in the State of the Union. We will have to envision a spirit of mutuality.

Birds of the Quarry, 3 - The Mallard

 

Mostly, mallards do things in pairs. Fortunately the stylist of creation distinguished the genders so that we can follow the sexes separately, if not individually as they do in matrimony.

During their nuptials the mallards are mutually appreciative and theatrical.

Then they go off together to set  up a nesting site. Mrs. Mallard seems to have the deciding say in its location, as she's the one who keeps solitary vigil over the eggs and manages the welfare of the ducklings. Her camouflaged coloration must safeguard her during the vulnerability.

It is the only time of year when the gentlemen mallards keep their own company exclusively.

The nest may be secluded at a considerable distance from the Halibut Point quarry, although it is probably near at least a puddle large enough to give safety to the brood when it hatches. Ducklings can swim immediately after emerging from their shells.

Then they begin the serious comedy of preparing to fly.

The National Audubon Society  website looks past the commonness of mallards, their predilection for urban parks and for children's bread-crust handouts. "Although barnyard and feral ducks may be dumpy and ungainly creatures, the ancestral wild Mallard is a trim, elegant, wary, fast-flying bird." With a strong tailwind in migration they have been known to travel 800 miles in 8 hours, at altitudes above 2,000 feet. They may lose up to half their body weight during this exertion.

Alternatively they may stay to endure our winter. Beneath waterproof outer feathers the ducks have a snug layer of down.

When the quarry freezes over the mallards move down to Folly Cove to forage along the shoreline. They have neither nerves nor blood vessels in their feet.

They have already made their familial commitments for the year ahead.

In spring the mallards follow softening weather to hospitable wetlands throughout the Park. The drake and the hen, separately arrayed for their parts in the union, display the common blue speculum on their wings.

The Prince of Iridescence

Perfectly contoured feathers keep the duck afloat or aflight, as needed. Their crisp lines seem more painted than sprouted as though drawn for the pleasure of a sublime eye more demanding than survival itself.

Birds of the Quarry, 2 - The Kingfisher

Kingfisher male, Folly Cove

Our local kingfisher cycle begins in the springtime on the shoreline of Folly Cove where a pair of the birds tunnels into the sandy bank to nest and the ocean caters delectables.


Kingfisher female, Halibut Point

Eventually they bring their youngsters to the bounty of minnows on Halibut Point. Their looping wingbeats and short-tailed silhouette call to mind a woodpecker in flight. The open perches they choose give good views to the water and to the dubious motives of humans. They're easy for us to see but hard to photograph. When approached they fly off with an indignant, scolding reproach.

In its plumage and brassy voice the kingfisher resembles a blue jay re-molded into a square, its crest teased into a shag. Its stretched bill, cupped wings, and truncated tail all suit its adroitness to hover and plunge into the quarry. 

The Kingfisher

Mary Oliver 

The kingfisher rises out of the black wave

like a blue flower, in his beak

he carries a silver leaf. I think this is

the prettiest world--so long as you don't mind

a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life

that doesn't have its splash of happiness?

There are more fish than there are leaves

on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher

wasn't born to think about it, or anything else.

When the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the water

remains water--hunger is the only story

he has ever heard in his life that he could believe.

I don't say he's right. Neither

do I say he's wrong. Religiously he swallows the silver leaf

with its broken red river, and with a rough and easy cry

I couldn't rouse out of my thoughtful body

if my life depended on it, he swings back

over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it

(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.

*  *  *

In a fortuitous moment this afternoon I encountered Dianne Sampson at the Cape Ann Museum carrying a sculpture of her favorite bird, the kingfisher.

The Kingfisher, commissioned by Dianne Sampson
Brad Story, sculptor

Erik Ronnberg photo

Birds of the Quarry, 1 - The Phoebe

A pair of phoebes has nested at precisely the same crevice in the Halibut Point quarry wall these past few seasons. My own perch on a nearby ledge faces the proceedings.

 

Although the male and the female look alike I understand it is she who sets up the household.

She may simply be refurbishing last year's nest beneath the overhang on the quarry wall, a bit above the water surface. Or starting anew. The details are out of sight.

After the eggs have hatched both she and her partner begin feeding the chicks.

Their slightly hooked bills help them grab insects on the wing.

Like many members of the flycatcher family phoebes can extend bristly hair-like feathers around their gaping mouth to improve their hunting success. The bristles are partially visible in the photograph above.

Phoebes often build their nests on sheltered vertical surfaces such as bridges and cliffs. They try to be coy about their comings and goings. But once you have located their homestead you're likely to have good sight lines for observation.

During the nesting season their domestic center turns a corner of the quarry into a birdwatching arena. Their behavior separates them from other 'little grey things.'

They occasionally showed their aerial agility by picking prey from the water surface.

 

 

You would think those exertions must nearly equal the caloric value of the catch.
 

As time goes on the parents become more insistent that the chicks launch themselves out over the water. Tucked up under the overhang the chicks have not yet glimpsed the world nor tested their wings.

In a small brave explosion the fledging gains a toehold on the cliff before flying to the safety of the woods.

 

The phoebe family has fulfilled its rendez-vous in our favored spot on the vast continent of America.