The wind roared last night. Roared. Steady, constant, loud. Dimly I remember awakening in darkness to a particularly strong roar—the wee hours, most likely. But when dawn broke and I looked at my bedside clock, the digital time display didn’t flash, so the power hadn’t gone out. And when I checked the sky, I saw blue. And when I stepped out on the deck for the first time today, the air felt positively warm—40-something degrees.
Crows flitted around during the day. I heard the song of titmouse and house finch. But then the clouds moved in again, and the wind picked up again, and the sky began to spit mist and spray.
In afternoon, I drove to town and saw no gulls or pigeons in the places they usually frequent, like the roof of the old stitching factory, now a local college. I did see some herring gulls floating in the empty gray sky. Off in the harbor, the line of the breakwater extended visibly from north to south, and I decided to walk the length of it.
The bay side had waves and whitecaps and wind-whipped mist; the harbor side had calm swells and a few red-breasted mergansers. The wind and spray quickly soaked the left side of my jeans on the way out, and I nearly turned back—but I didn’t, in part because of the crazy divergence of the height of the tide on either side of the breakwater. The tide was rising, I knew, and had reached about middle height. And the bay side seemed maybe five or six feet higher than the harbor side. Was this an illusion, perhaps the result of the chop on the bay side? Or was this in fact the case—did the incoming tide perhaps take some time to move around this long granite boundary?
As I wondered this, small groups of long-tailed ducks began flying on rapid wing-beats over the breakwater out toward the islands. Over the course of several weeks of walking out here—at usually late afternoon—I’ve notice the long-tails take up and head out late in the day. They must have special places out in the bay where they lay up overnight, then head back to feed at the rich, calm harbors and coves near mainland during the day.
Then I spotted a solitary black guillemot. A nice surprise. It’s plumage seemed closer to its summer attire than its winter wardrobe. In the minutes I watched it, it never dove.
As I approached the lighthouse, its fog whistle began to blow. The ferries to and from the island passed, as they do, I’ve learned, this time of day. The gray, the wind, the waves, the foghorn—I felt enveloped, surrounded, even protected by a wet, chilly marine world.
On the way back, I saw more long-tails flying eastward, as well as a big flock of gulls also heading that way. A male and two female eiders floated on the harbor side, preening.
Walking back up to my truck, I listened for a minute to the wind—and saw a pair of mallards at the shore.
Today’s List
American crow
Herring gull
Tufted titmouse
House finch
Red-breasted merganser
Long-tailed duck
Black guillemot
Common eider
Mallard

Surf off the Rockland Breakwater, Rockland, Maine, 26 February 2010.