Blue Hill, from the Rockland Breakwater.
Today dawned overcast—and twenty degrees colder than yesterday. Appropriately for this time of year, the temperature never made it out of the 20s (F) all day. But I had a hankering for a little birding-slash-exercise and so in early-afternoon, seeing the motionless anemoter, thought, I’ll just bundle up and walk the breakwater, see a few birds. I mean, it’s so close by, and all.
Black guillemot.
I knew I’d be contending with some wind—there’s always wind when you’re nearly a mile out in open water—and I dressed, well, appropriately for this time of year: warm coat over hooded sweatshirt, scarf, insulated gloves. I arrived to find at least half a dozen vehicles in the parking lot, so the chill air hadn’t deterred any Sunday walkers. Down the little escarpment and along the water’s edge all felt warm enough. Up onto the granite blocks, though, and the ocean breeze picked up a tad. No problem. About half-way out is when my fingers started going numb.
Purple sandpiper.
I couldn’t help but contrast my benumbed fingers with the naked pink feet of the herring gulls standing on the stones, or the red legs of the guillemot paddling in the frigid harbor. Common loons and great cormorants submerged themselves for a minute or more in the chilly depths—emerging, in the case of one loon, with a crab that proved a challenge to gulp down. I counted perhaps five or six loons, in fact, each sailing lazily along like a riverboat, plenty cozy in their miraculously patterned feathers. The long-tailed ducks, too. And the common eiders. And red-breasted mergansers. I even watched a pair of purple sandpipers fairly frolick in the bubbly swell, with seemingly no circulation troubles in their tiny legs and toes.
Ducks got feathers, seals got blubber. Before figuring out how to wear the skins of animals, we humans never saw this latitude in winter, that’s for sure—or if we did, we surely died in a hurry from cold.
Herring gull.
On the walk back, I had a tail-wind. More like a tail-breeze, really, but it made a difference. I even took off my gloves to snap a photo of a tourist couple from an Asian country, perhaps Japan. Back in the parking lot, I noticed license plates from New York and Massachusetts. The Maine coast gets visitors even at a wintry time of year.
Today’s List
1. American crow
2. Herring gull
3. Common eider
4. Red-breasted merganser
5. Ring-billed gull
6. Common loon
7. Black guillemot
8. Great cormorant
9. Long-tailed duck
10. Canada goose
11. Bufflehead
12. Mallard
Tidal rocks.
Tags: American crow, black guillemot, bufflehead, Canada goose, common eider, common loon, great cormorant, herring gull, long-tailed duck, mallard, red-breasted merganser, ring-billed gull
