Life is old there

During some "off" time during the first day of the New River Birding and Nature Festival we wandered down a windy single-lane road to the long-forgotten railroad town of Thurmond, West Virginia.

You arrive in Thurmond by crossing the New River over a narrow bridge that doubles as a railroad bridge. It feels pretty old and rickety, but was perfectly safe. I held my breath most of the way across, just in case.

; )

A short walk from the railroad depot, lies Thurmond's old downtown, built right along the railroad tracks. Several old buildings, including a bank with an impressive facade, make up the old downtown.

According to the 2000 census, Thurmond has 7 residents. Back in Thurmond's heyday, more than 500 people lived here and the rail lines carried more than 97 thousand passengers a year, along with 3.5 million tons of freight (most of which was coal).

Making our way back to civilization, we found a small roadside waterfall that demanded a ritual toe-dunking.

: )

8/100

Late in the week at New River, Beth G. and I had separated ourselves for an hour or so from the "serious birders" in order to photograph the Glade Creek Mill at Babcock State Park. It's a very pretty setting and deserved some time of its own.

So Beth set up her tripod and we scrambled around on the rocks in the middle of the creek for a perfect view of the mill... of course I was distracted the whole time by the fishermen who station themselves along the way. I'm always on the prowl for interesting strangers to photograph, but more often than not, my shyness gets in the way of asking for a photo.

So this guy approached us, once we had given up on photography and decided to go back to birding, to ask us what we were doing there that day and where we were from, etc.

We told him we were there to look at birds and his response was, "The birds are all dead."

Huh?

And he told us about, how, as a kid up at dawn, there used to be a deafening sound of song from birds. He doesn't hear that anymore. Doesn't hear birds singing, at all. So they're all dead.

Huh?

Mind you, his accent was pretty thick, so maybe I misheard him.

; )

In my devilishly charming sort of way I suggested that maybe his hearing was just going... that birds were still singing, but his ears were just too old to hear them, maybe.

; )

This was the moment when I asked for his photo. It's one of my favorites.

This photo is #8 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at Flickr 100 Strangers or www.100Strangers.com

The full report

The full report on the New River Birding and Nature Festival will have to wait a bit; for now there's just these couple images... of perfect roadside wildflowers, of rivers rushing across bared toes, of ghost towns nestled in the mountains, weathered barns along the way, of impossible to photograph birds, memories of twisty country roads, lush hillsides and scenic saw mills, the laughter of an impossible-to-imagine mix of friends, graffiti as art and, finally, a hug between two beloved Flock-mates for the sake of a little bird colored blue like the spring sky.

Yesterday

I was really tempted by the fried bolony...

; )

Today

The home team lost, but it was a beautiful day nonetheless.

Told you so

So I'd been almost patting myself on the back a couple weeks ago, thinking I'd earned my angel wings and all that...

That sort of thinking never turns out well, does it?

I'd managed to orchestrate a move for one of my most difficult mentally ill clients; he's been living in something like a boarding home situation for about 16 years and has wanted out of that climate for most all of that time. He'd call me multiple times a week with a new apartment he'd found or a new real estate agent he'd harassed into helping him find a place... all of which led to nothing but frustration on both our parts.

See, the thing is, he's crazy and has a hard time hiding it.

He has a small army of social workers that've been helping him to live a somewhat independent life... people that make sure he stays on his meds, washes his self and his clothes, pays his bills, doesn't piss off his landlord too much (that's my job!), etc.

We all sort of doubted that he could live on his own, but that's not our choice to make, is it?

So after years of trying and when things with his current landlord finally reached a breaking point, I located an apartment that met his annoyingly particular needs and begged him to let me do my job and get him into it.

Stay out of it! Please! Don't keep calling them with your craziness!

Instead he'd call me everyday with his questions and his rantings, trying to micromanage a process that he didn't need to be a part of. There were a lot of glitches along the way, but I got him in, got the Salvation Army to move him and donate furniture and household stuff. A success, I thought.

I'd hoped so anyway, with fingers crossed.

The ink is barely dry on our contracts with the new landlord. My phone has been eerily silent... I wanted that to mean things were going smoothly.

Today I got the call that his landlord is filing a notice to cease. This is the first legal step in the eviction process.

After just 25 days.

Can I get an, "I told you so"?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Most of my mentally ill clients are blessed with wonderful, caring and understanding landlords. The issues they deal with from their tenants are unpredictably varied. I want to be able to draw some conclusion from my experiences, but I'm not there just yet. It feels like the various support systems that are in place to support the mentally ill are not working very well.

Sandy Hook

gull wing curve of beach terns
in flocks like sheep standing one-legged
weather vanes into the wind swirls
and eddies of clam shells mussels
chaff of dune grass pebbles drifting
the gentle swells of sand white caps
bottle caps fishing skiffs sand castles
afternoon lineup of jets overhead in the wind
a plastic bag rolls over and over

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Monmouth County Audubon's bi-monthly field trip to Sandy Hook meets tomorrow at the Visitor's Center at 10 am. Laughing Gulls have arrived as have other spring migrants. Join us to welcome them back!

The disappearing

What do the disappearing know?

Can they change fast enough
with the few genes they have left
to make themselves more seen
in the sand? Will they learn that
what hides them
has become a clever enemy?

Can we read answers in their eyes
as they lead us away from their nests, piping
between flat beach stones piping
the same smooth recorder notes they piped
when no human threat
smashed their last eggs?

Do they
in their few numbers
hide until time
brings them a safe lover
or a place where their future won't be shattered?

What can they know of a final going?

Will they continue to try
to guide us away
because it's the only way they know how?

As if any of us, any fox or truck or boisterous dog could hear that song,
that piper in its low haunt
the possible dirge
of an almost invisible bird.

Some poems

some poems
you do not write

you wait
hushed
as the soil strains
its urgent whisper

this

listen
and remember
this

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bloodroot is peeking through the forest floor now; stepped over and unseen by all but those who know to look for it.

The Wiki link above is worth a read for its explanation of myrmecochory that I referred to in this prior post, but which I almost believed to be a fable.

It looked like love

Although as quickly as it happened, he might just have misjudged his landing...

; )

Garbage on the doorstep

The Piping Plovers that nest at "B" Lot and other oceanside beaches at Sandy Hook do so under almost ideal conditions, at least until Memorial Day Weekend, when beachgoers arrive.

Before then, they court, bond and set up housekeeping in relative isolation. Clamshells and pebbles populate the landscape; bits of driftwood and beachgrass offer them cover.

Save the occasional wayward Lab that can't resist a dip in their private ocean.

:)

(Dogs are not allowed on oceanside beaches during nesting season. Many people ignore this rule.)

Grrr.

The northernmost tip of Sandy Hook, by contrast, is like another world... beachgoers rarely wander this far; the beach outside the plovers' protected nesting area is littered with debris...

Piping Plovers, Least Terns, Skimmers, Oystercatchers... they all nest here, in privacy, in the middle of the garbage that washes, butt up, on their doorstep.

Far above the tide line, they carve out their nest scrapes among the scattered wrack and shells; they shelter their young in the shadow of discarded tv sets...

rusted oxygen(?) tanks...

car bumpers...

This last is kinda gross - don't look!

and decomposing dogs washed ashore from God-knows-where.

(I never did find any Plovers here... but the 8-10 reported recently had plenty of places to hide!)

I think we owe them better; I believe the cost of privacy for endangered and threatened species shouldn't be as high as this!

Every bit of garbage ends up somewhere... we all know this. A lot of NYC trash ends up at Sandy Hook. This needn't be so.

:(

Clean Ocean Action sponsors regular beach sweeps... the next at Sandy Hook is scheduled for April 30, 2011!

(Our newly returned Osprey will thank you for a more beautiful landscape over which to hunt flounder!)

Piping Plovers deserve at least as clean a beach as we expect for ourselves, don't you think?

Sea crows

Trying to be inconspicuous

Oystercatchers are funny birds; so boldly patterned, their calls so strident, yet they're so shy!

Staying put, for the moment

You wouldn't think it, but you could easily walk past an oystercatcher without noticing it. Except that they give themselves away at the very last second.

Complaining that I'm too close for comfort

Their nerves get the best of them when what they really need to do is stay put and stay quiet! Instead they advertise with loud calls and bright bills.

Stalking ahead

All afternoon today I was pushing a pair ahead of me as I wandered at Sandy Hook looking for Piping Plovers.

Wordless Wednesday - puddle wonderful

starlings enjoying the thaw

My spring

Did you ever chance to hear the midnight flight of birds passing through the air and darkness overhead, in countless armies, changing their early or late summer habitat? It is something not to be forgotten... You could hear "the rush of mighty wings," but oftener a velvety rustle, long drawn out... occasionally from high in the air came the notes of the plover.
--Walt Whitman, Specimen Days

The warming March sun and a faintly whistled "peep lo" lured me to Sandy Hook this weekend to greet the newly arrived Piping Plovers. Courting Woodcock the evening before, an Osprey making a bee-line up the coast and the season's first Phoebe completed the day.

Happy Spring!

Wordless Wednesday

*smirk*

Considering Scaup with Crossley

So there's been this huge flock of Scaup resting at the base of the Oceanic Bridge between Rumson and Middletown the last couple weeks... quite the spectacle for local folks who never pay attention to such a thing.

Busy with tennis and lunch dates, you know.

*snark*

I was glad to find people there, glad to find "normal" people curious about this big conglomeration of ducks that seemed to appear from nowhere.

The great mass of them were Scaup sp. with a couple Red Heads mixed in, Brant and Ruddies at the fringes of the flock.

While I "know" that these are mostly Greater Scaup, I wondered what wisdom Crossley might have to offer...

Lesser on the left... Greater on the right

Greater is known to form large flocks in winter in coastal estuaries.

Check.

Frequently mixes with very similar Lesser Scaup.

Durn.

Sometimes obvious, but at other times separating from Lesser a real head-scratcher.

Yep.

Iridescent green head often appears black, but rarely purple.

Check!

I finally saw that purple iridescence on a couple Lessers on Lake Como this weekend and it's so very obvious when the light is right...

(one hardly needs to pay attention to the bulgy cheeks of the Greaters that Crossley mentions!)

I'm enjoying sorting through the local waterfowl with the new Crossley Guide... have you bought a copy yet? What do you think?

Wigeon

It's been a great couple of days to be a duck!

I shot this female wigeon on a much bluer day, feeding in the grass beside Lake Takanassee.

The places we go back to

Photo by Nina

To some, the mention of West Virginia conjures images of moonshine, hillbillies and mountains leveled by coal companies. The string of small, almost threadbare towns one finds tucked into the hills in the southern part of the state only reinforces the reputation of the place as somewhat benighted.

Yet I keep wanting to go back.

There are no life birds for me there. As a birder, you can understand the equation necessary between limited travel funds and the possibility of life birds added to one's list.

Birds are not really why I go.

There's some other appeal in the homespun spirit of the New River Birding and Nature Festival that draws me back late each Spring. It's run in such a way that it does end up feeling like summer camp for birders, as Bill Thompson says about it. It's funny to me now to remember a similar feeling before I ever even went to this festival for the first time.

The field trip groups are kept wonderfully small; intimate, even, compared with most popular birding festivals. The trip leaders, besides being experts, are personable and enthusiastic and actually learn your name. Profits from the festival benefit local schools.

These are important things in my book.

This is the perfect festival for The Flock, too. They spread each of us out among the daily field trips - probably so that no one group will be subjected to the bunch of us together - and give us the chance to spend evenings together at dinner and the presentation. Then they secret us away for the night in a farmhouse in the middle of some marsh where no one can hear our silly antics.

; )

I've made lifelong friends there. I've seen gorgeous birds and beautiful sights shrouded in mist. There are hillsides drenched in wildflowers. There's biscuits and strawberry jam at every breakfast. A porch swing and Susan.

Is there any wonder why I go back?

There's still a couple openings for this year's festival... join us! If not this year, do put it on your list for someday soon.

Show Jersey some love!

(and, for the record, I too love the "city of lights" along the Turnpike mentioned at 5:10!)