Metrobeach May 4, 2005

12:31 PM I lean against the park-here-for-Nature-Center sign eating a turkey sandwich and feeling cranky because I packed 1 1/2 turkey sandwiches and a molasses cookie for lunch and the cookie is missing. I may have dropped it at home or in the driveway or in the road or it may be roaming around in my car, but it isn’t here for me to eat. I thought I had a fruit bar, too, but I left that in the pocket of a different coat.

I’m also cold. It is perfectly clear, sunny, chilly, and windy.

Someone is flying a model airplane. It’s quite large and acrobatic.

12:46 PM I am walking. I need to leave in less than two hours, so I don’t have time to lounge around, darn it. I looked in vain again for that cookie, then suited up with gear, camera, binoculars. I hope I can see the owls today, including perhaps the screech owl.

I am cold in a coat and fleece and long sleeved jacket etc. and some of the tiny kids are only in shirt sleeves. There is a school field trip. They must be four five-year olds.

Driving here through the city I saw a gorgeous display of white and yellow tulips and another of red and yellow tulips. Flowering trees in flower everywhere. Here, the blackbird and redwings are going nuts.

I pass a couple bird watching. Hear more redwings and something chirring. I see a nut hatch. The redwings must be at the height or singing. The air is full of their trills.

Algae are already growing in the ponds.

I remember being here with Rachel, little Rachel (my granddaughter), how she posed at every turn for a new photo. I think about Keith saying I was cuddly because I was soft (he even used the word squishy until I objected, as if it was a good thing to be squishy!) I said he was cuddly and he said he was too bony.

Some red-headed man crowds by me on the trail walking faster.

Now I hear a very high musical chee-deep, chee-deep. Not a chickadee, higher than that.

I see a bird emerging from a bluebird house. I am watching them for the screech owl, but I’m not sure I remember which house it was in. But when I raise my glasses, the bird zips out through the hole and flies away. I am sure of only a couple things: it is not a screech and probably not a blue bird. Maybe a swallow.

The redhead hurries back and stops to talk to me. I see he is only a boy, maybe 15 or 16. He tells me the trail is really wet ahead. I thank him and continue on. He goes back the other way.

There is no screech owl looking from the box that I think is the one the naturalist said had a screech owl who often looked out. I go on without seeing him.

1:11 PM A mourning cloak butterfly settled on the ground nearby, but flies when I try to take his picture. I settle on a bench. (Click here to see what I wrote about my fibro).

A bird that looks a little like a gull, but smaller, with sharply angled wings and a long sharp bill plunges into the pond as if attempting at catch a fish, and then flies in circles around it. Turtles are sunning. Painted turtles.

A mallard hen flies very low over the pond, quaking throatily. I shoot a turtle, with Eeyore, through the phragmites.

Two geese hiss at me as I walk past them.

The huge snapper is here, but more out of the water than last time, so I shoot a few shots with Eeyore and one with Olli.

When I reach the spot where the male great-horned owl was, I can’t find it. I know I have the right spot, exactly. I get a great look at two cavorting flickers and male red-winged blackbird, but no owl.

So far, I am striking out in the owl department. Lots of ducks, though.

I just ran into the naturalist from a couple days, no green jacket, he told me where the male owl is, and the female owl. Said the screech owl wasn't hanging out today. So far.

The female great-horned owl is sitting in the nest. No sign of the babies.

I go to the place where the male owl is supposed to be, but I can't find him. Lot of woods to scan and no one to say, look there by the dead branch or whatever. I look from several different vantage points but fail to find him and need to move on. It’s 1:44 and I have to LEAVE in an hour. Wahn. I keep watching as I walk away for some slight thickening, but see only what look like large nest with lots of sticks. No owl.

When I get back to the nest, Mom and both babies are visible so I attempt a shot. While I’m attempting a second, the babies start sinking out of sight. More people come, I leave.

There is loud woodpecker drumming that reminds me of the ivory-billed. This isn’t that loud, not hardly. Maybe only a hairy.

My watch zeros out at 31 minutes. 14 to go.

There are not enough benches, logs, or rocks for people suffering from fibromyalgia out here.

I would like to get one of those cards to take light and color readings for adjusting the exposures later, I wonder if Keith has one.

I walk out into the marsh and then return to check the nest again. The mother is still visible. Then I run into the school group, they stop by the snapper. I hope they don’t poke it.

Especially with their little fingers.

When they leave, I shoot the turtle again, and a small frog. The turtle ahs moved slightly. Also some geese in the canal.

Another school group approaches and I tell them about the snapper and remind them to watch the little fingers.

2:16 I have walked my 45 minutes plus a little and have to leave in less than half an hour (and still walk the rest of the way back to the car). That means there will be no reading of manuals, probably. Let’s see if I can write an entry for Full Tilt Retreat in the little bit of remaining time. Click here to see what I wrote for Full Tilt Retreat.

Oops, after writing, I have 2 minutes to get back to the car. It’s more than 2 minutes away!

I peek at the screech owl nest box, but from this distance, I’m not sure I could tell of it was there or not. A mallard hen flaps wildly in a puddle.

I walk past lots of fur bits where some animal met its demise. I am sad to have to go home. I would say, "I wish that Graham would tell me when he wants to come home, but really, I have other things to attend to at home probably should go home anyway. Though I’d get more writing down if I stayed here.

I did not come out where I intended to come out, but walked farther away so now I have to walk back farther. Aiee.

I got hot sitting in the sun writing, but the wind is cold out here in the open.

I get home, get my stuffed packed up and unloaded and get into the house at 3:26 PM. Phew.

I never found my cookie. :-(