IN TRANSIT - C.B.B.T.
Part 1. The Redeye Circuit. Five Christmas Bird Counts in Virginia and
North Carolina, December 26-31, 2003. Harry Armistead and Jared Sparks.
Read as much, or as little as you like.
As always, a little let down to be back in Philadelphia after all this, but
32 Mourning Doves at our feed here on Sunday, Jan. 11 are nice.
This poem by Emily Dickinson was on Sam Droege's nature poetry website
recently. Punctuation is as shown there. I can't imagine a more
appropriate poem for the winter solstice. Emily Dickinson ... THERE is a
poet.
There's a certain Slant of light
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter afternoons
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are
None may teach it Any
'Tis the Seal Despair
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air
When it comes, the Landscape listens
Shadows hold their breath
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of death.
Emily, you're a shoe-in for the American Psychiatric Association, Seasonal
Affective Disorder Chapter's "Cockeyed Optimist-Silver Lining Award."
By way of contrast, here's a new oxymoron I have come up with: "New
Yorker" poetry (not as pure an oxymoron as "compassionate conservative").
Today's 'New Yorker' would never publish such poetry, which, heaven forbid,
rhymes, and, even worse, expresses a sublime thread of thought or feeling.
This otherwise excellent magazine did not publish a good poem I sent them
so I am going to send them a really bad one just to be irritating: "An
apocryphal apostrophic apotheosis: the song of the wanderin' white boy"
(near completion; copies available on request). That'll show 'em. Don't
say I didn't warn you. And don't say I'm bitter.
from 'Chesapeake haiku':
near rhyme is no crime,
a line of so then I'm off.
but free verse is worse.-H.T.A.
l'envoi, Baby!
Fri., Dec. 26. To Hatteras. George drives his own car to Annapolis to
pick up Marshall Iliff at his family's place there. Jared and I shove off
from my house at 6:30 A.M. The start of the Redeye Circuit is always
dark, cold, and a little grim, even dreaded somewhat, and I always forget
something. Across the George C. Platt Bridge, named after a Pennsylvanian,
a Union hero in the Civil War in the Battle of Fairfield, Pennsylvania, a
recipient of the Medal of Honor. Sergeant Platt sustained a saber wound to
the head, ventral hernia, and gunshot wounds to the groin, knee and leg,
this information all from Google.
A beautiful, clear day develops with light SW winds as we motor past frozen
ditches and ponds in Delaware. 30-47 degrees F. A few 100 Snow Geese in
the air north of Dover. An adult Bald Eagle soaring over Rt. 13 south of
Dover at St. Jones River. Thousands of Snow Geese aloft at Bridgeville,
Delaware, flying west. Down Route 13 in Virginia, the Charles M. Lankford,
Jr., Memorial Highway (Lankford was chairman of the Virginia Marine
Resources Commission from June 1, 1942 to Dec. 4, 1958). Lunch at
Sting-Ray's at Cape Charles around noon. Best cheeseburgers anywhere.
After lunch go to sea in my car, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge & Tunnel, VA,
(CBBT) to take part in Ned Brinkley's CBBT Christmas Bird Count (CBC),
which includes only islands 3 & 4 of the CBBT and the vast surrounding
waters of Chesapeake Bay. Run into Paul Sykes, Bob Anderson, Thuy Tran,
Brian Sullivan, Todd Day, and others there. We spend 3 hours on the CBBT.
They are having a very poor CBC for gulls, just the basic 5 species so far
instead of the usual 8 or more, but they have had a late and out-of-place
Cattle Egret, a goldfinch (one of the few landbirds), and a good species
total. Great looks at a Harbor Seal as its head bobs up near the rocks of
island 3.
from: 'The world is too much with us':
"Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." - Wordsworth
We see an adult male King Eider, 4 Common Eiders, and 2 Harlequin Ducks for
a trifecta of the jetty ducks, which doesn't happen that often, plus 6
Horned Grebes, 25 gannets (vs. thousands some years), 350 Surf Scoters
(diving at very close range) in addition to a few White-winged and Black
scoters, a garrulous group of 45 Long-tailed Ducks ("Southerlies"), and a
lingering Brown Pelican. The tide is falling fast, which activates the
Purple Sandpipers, turnstones, and Sanderlings. At 3 P.M. we leave for
Cape Hatteras.
Ned's C.B.B.T. count, now in its 10th year, totals 36 species today, 11 of
them waterfowl, but including 72 migrating Turkey Vultures, 39 Great
Cormorants, 622 Red-throated Loons, 3 starlings, a pipit, and a redpoll.
In these 10 years only 13 species of landbirds have been seen.
Most unusual is a group of 20 starlings apparently killed by traffic at
Coinjock, North Carolina. A few roadkill Nutria in Outer Banks tidal areas
near Kitty Hawk on the way down is not surprising but I almost never see
starlings d.o.r. Arrive after dark at Buxton. Supper is at, was it the
Dolphin's Den?, in Avon. Hatteras CBC compiler Pat Moore sets up shop in
our Cape Pines Motel room to handout maps and instructions to the
participants of tomorrow's Cape Hatteras CBC. Earlier she had hollered to
some male birder "See you Friday night at the motel", which attracted some
notice from unwitting strangers.
The drive down, 410 miles, is helped along by a boxed set of 5 CDs my
sister-in-law, Dorothy Mallam, gave me for Christmas - Beethoven's 9
symphonies. These are old friends since the early 1960s when I first
listened to them in earnest. Today we hear nos. 3, 4, 5, 8 & 9. I must
say, I never felt the choral 4th movement of the 9th S. is reconciled with
other 3 movements. Magnificent at times, it nevertheless often seems all
over the ball park, but one of my favorite parts of it is the so-called
Turkish March which segues beautifully into a sung part. Unfortunately the
Turkish March was used as part of the score of a wretched movie "A
Clockwork orange". The 3rd S. with its taut, precise, disciplined martial
airs and the superb funeral march is my favorite, but the little 4th S. is
underperformed and undervalued - in my humble opinion, an unsung gem. The
2nd and 8th Symphonies I consider marginal compared to the others but I
nevertheless enjoy listening to them a few times a year. The 1st S. I
consider in between S.2 & S.8 and the others, better listening than S.2 or
S.8 but not as great as nos. 4, 5, 6, 7 & 9.
My favorite movement among those of all 9 is the magnificently lyric and
moving 3rd movement of the 9th S. That will go with me on a desert island
along with the Alpine Symphony, the Organ Symphony, Ein Heldenleben, the
Pathetique, Brahms' 4th, and the Scotch Symphony. The 5th S., with its
great initial theme, variously thought of as V for victory, or fate, dah,
dah, dah, DAH, is terrific but has an endless ending that takes forever to
resolve itself. A few opinions. Those CDs sure help to melt the miles
away. My first car with a CD player. But when the going gets rough and I
have trouble staying awake behind the wheel, peppy, frenetic Rossini
overtures, or a good oldies station such as 98.1, are better than coffee
for staving off the odd head-on collision, going into the rough, or
otherwise coming up on the short end of the stick.
Pablo Casals said the 9th Symphony should be played by every orchestra in
the world when Spain was finally rid of Generalissimo Franco. Taking a cue
from Pablo, I played it when Nixon resigned, the same day my mother's
unpleasant, inbred, and lifelong unhousebroken chinchilla Persian cat died.
One of my college acquaintances, considered an arbiter of culture and
taste among Philadelphia glitterati even when he was 23, at that time,
while we listened to the Ninth once, intoned "Scratch one symphony" when
the singing started during the fourth movement. He also made such
pronouncements as "Yeats's poems are the garden of twentieth century
poetry." These sorts of opinions, it seems to me, are not too bad to utter
when you are 70 but at 23 are a bit pretentious. This young man had a
windowless room, and, like Marcel Proust's, his was lined with cork, full
of his favored books, recordings, and objets. I can't even remember his
name but with the passing of 40 years of sunsets since then I feel I can
share his reservations about the 4th movement of the 9th, although not with
his harshness.
What does all this have to do with birdwatching? Poetry and music are a
life force just as nature is, part of the cycles of the seasons and of
travel as they resonate in our heads.
Best to all - Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA
1919-1225. 215-248-4120. harryarmistead at hotmail dot com.
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