Creator’s Custom Camouflage

Plumage protects in branch and thicket

Pelage conceals upon rock

Cartilage safeguards among sands

Behold.

 

Make Tracks

One Track:

Cock Pheasant find hen.

Crow find clam cache.

Stay on Track:

Snow Fence keeps back

Dune & Wave

Keep Track:

Beach Grass habitat

Converge

Conserve.

Lone Sea Star

Asterias:

When I turn back the pages of my "rite in rain" notebook to early summer 2011 on Fishers Island, I was jotting observations that had me realize I had not seen so many starfish washed ashore-ever.

As I walked both Isabella & South Beaches, I would tally up to 20-40 of these delicate sea creatures.

Recently I read that researchers of invertebrate at Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. did indeed note a population explosion of starfish during the same 2011 time frame.

Last November on Chocomount I noted just one Asterias sea star in a shallow tidal pool

.

This past summer, University scientists in nearby Rhode Island observed so few starfish between New Jersey and Maine that they were asking local divers to “let them know if ANY starfish population existed that might help with area research.”

A massive die off is noticed on our East Coast.

This November, Race Point at twilight gifted me and my field notes with this lone star.

Mantis Mantra

I met a Mantis along the Path.

It artfully displayed perfect mimicry of dried grass stems and fallen leaves.

Hidden from whirling bicycle spokes

Dressed in the finest camo

Aiming its mantic antennae

I knelt to hear a hissing mantra:

“Let us prey”

Autumn Transit

 Bee pollination

Monarch’s migration

Tanker’s wake

Deer steps ashore

 

Atukan Akun & What Really Counts

The Aleut tribes of the Pribilof Islands sing a song: Atukan Akun or “We are one”. From summer 2004 till winter 2009, I had the opportunity to live as an active community member in the village of Saint Paul, to be one of the one.

During this unique time of my life I was eager to learn every Unungan word and dance step to the drumbeat’s rhythm of Atukan Akun, but more importantly I recognized the privilege to embrace its message of unity in my daily life

In January 2013, still gleaning my naturalist skills, I walked and monitored the shores of another Island.

Counting Harbor seals out at Hungry Point, here on Fishers had become routine but with the same stillness and even remote sense as in The Pribilofs-I cherished many sacred moments of “oneness” with nature, with the universe, with myself.

Just like the moment I spied a tiny piece of white fabric in a sand drift and unearthed a sailor’s shirt from WW ll.

I was eager to ride home and warm my feet, but that stillness and oneness had nudged me and declared to back track and return to a small spit of beach  and scrub line before leaving.

Later in May, while gently hanging the shirt that had probably been buried for nearly 70 years, some encrusted sand fell away from its hemline and I discovered a last name: Kushigian.

Somehow in their own precise way, these “Atukan Akun” moments led me to find Julia Kushigian, daughter of First Class Officer Jack P. Kushigian all these years later.

The other week I invited Julia to Fishers Island, back to Hungry Point where even this time with a Connecticut newspaper jotting notes and a Long Island television film crew looking on, there was indeed a still sacred moment reminding me that we are indeed all One.

With a simple exchange of gifts I presented her with a long lost shirt and in return I received a stronger sense of family and a unique friendship.

Scenic Lookout For Wonders

I was just doing my job.

Zipping to and fro, clocking endless miles repeatedly between West end at Race Point and the East end’s Big Club Beach,pedaling speedily past the Parade Ground at Fort Wright…

“Remember to put together that field note about invasive plant species”

I meditate on this thought-especially the “remember” part even with the heavy luscious scents I love but should learn to identify….

Treking by bicycle diligently and cautiously around the old Boroleum Factory across from Hay Harbor Golf Course…..

“Remember to SLOW down with the morning ferry’s truck traffic around this curve!”

“And don’t forget to look up the types of migrating hawks”. I see them swooping over the putting greens…

I reach my starting line at the Gate House, always waved on by gracious smiles, and I’m off!

“Remember to check on Osprey nests, remark on autumnal sights-the sky blues of Jays and Kingfishers, and  remember the sounds-chirping crickets, zipping dragonflies, look up tidal chart for Chocomount, pack clicker to count Hungry Point seals, photograph and document plastic debris covering area ponds, examine Mussels and Knotted Wrack at Hooverness, remember to slow down for tiny baby Snapping turtles finding their way and Praying Mantis sunning themselves….”

I’m coasting now down carved twists and turns hugging the Oyster Pond.

“Remember to STOP and smell the roses.”

“What?”

I tightly grip my hand brakes and hop off my bike and for the very first time stand quietly upon the newly erected Scenic Lookout.

I am grateful that simple sights fill me with awe (remember this).

A welcoming bench, two Swans with their three gorgeous ugly ducklings(cygnets)grazing on thick algae, an egret balancing on a rock, rows of oyster beds floating in symmetry,  tree leaves hanging so still you can only imagine that you see them changing hue right here- right now.

A large, heavy duty dump truck barrels by behind me, a window rolls down, motor revved, an unfamiliar face …

“What are you seeing?”

“You wouldn’t believe the size of this Blue Claw crab! Quick come look!”

The gigantic truck pulls over and stops with the same ease of putting a kickstand down.

Poking out from under the thick algae, there is a crab with size worth noting (remember to jot this down).

“Wow, look at that, that’s a beauty”.

“This is the first time I have stopped here!”I exclaim this like I can’t believe it, like it's history…..

“Me too”. The driver walks back to  the truck and drives off to his job.

I pedal standing up, continuing on the path with purpose.

“Remember to post a field note about being grateful today” myself reminds me.

For an Island, and a recreational path, a sturdy bench, sharing wonder with a stranger, a chattering Kingfisher…..

  Just for starters.

 

Sandpipers & Peeps

It all started with just one “peep”.

I was walking and monitoring the shore of South Beach, following a tiny shadow of a bird playing zig-zag tag with lapping waves.

As a kid I remember seeing many of these small shore birds darting about the surf around Island.

Not anymore.

So, I went back to school (in thought) and gave myself a homework assignment.

I know I have mentioned I don’t consider myself a “birder” but I can’t escape the fact that there are quite a few shore bird species on and along Fishers Island.

The Sandpiper for instance-there are 21 different types.

Narrow the area down to Long Island Sound, we might see 8 such types of these “waders” and “surfbirds”

My homework assignment got even tougher when I read that out of the “Sandpiper 8”there are “5 Peeps”-slang for the smallest North American Sandpipers……that I might observe on South Beach.

Holding steady my binoculars, squinting tightly without wobbling, then trying to focus the camera, I quickly snapped a few photos.

This tiny lone bird about the size of a sparrow became the subject of a few emails  with the Henry Ferguson Museum. I also compared my photos with different species noted on various websites.

No wonder birders believe that these 5 Peeps create more identification debates than the rest of the shore birds put together. Back and forth comparing my observations detailing plumage, bills, leg color……

Finally, I called it:

The Least Sandpiper.

The clues I thought were its yellowish legs that only this type Sandpiper has, and if I look ever so closely-the mere rounded slant at the end of its bill.

I haven’t spotted or heard another Peep since.

I did though give myself an A for effort.

Web Sight

Nature’s Design

Spider’s Domain

Bird’s Browser

Flies, hits..

Morning’s temporary Under Construction page.

Aerial Acrobats on Parade

Tree Swallows are back this summer’s end.

Skyward they soar and tumble in vast swarms while migrating and navigating southward along our Atlantic coast.

I observe flocks resting and roosting in grassy fields, bayberry scrub, and marsh along the Parade Ground shoreline and Hay Harbor golf course.

Subsisting on flying insects of all types, Swallows on the move inhabit these perfectly sheltered areas feeding on dragonflies, moths, butterflies, beetles, ants, bees, spiders-their menu goes on and on! During summer breeding months they even swoop back and forth to the beach for high calcium clam shells and fish bones.

From 1966 to 2010 New England saw the Tree Swallow population in serious decline. Perhaps there is too much managing and clearing of woodlands for these tree cavity dwellers.

Welcome back beautiful birds….