peeps in the wind

Coffee of the Day: Ethiopian Yrgacheffe (however you spell that)
Bird of the Day: black-bellied plover
Weird Wrack Item of the Day: glove on a stick -- sans thumb
Coast Guard Assets Sighted: none
Invisi-bird Status: On the refuge: 3 pairs with nest, 2 pairs still doing test scrapes, 1 singleton lookin' for love in all the wrong places. At Sandy Point: 1 pair that had a nest but now doesn't -- just scrapes.

It was so windy today that every time I got up my chair blew over. Fortunately I remained resolutely seated with coffee cup securely in hand until every drop of Ethiopian Yrgacheffe was consumed. The other hand was on my hat most of the time. See that picture above? That's not fog, heat haze, or camera shake obscuring those black-bellied plovers and dunlins. Nope. It's windblown sand.

I let go of my hat to hold the camera steady for that shot. You know what happened next, don' t you?

I eventually zipped the hat, the coffee cup, and anything else that might become airborne into the back pack.

I talked to a grand total of 2 visitors, grew a sand dune in my left ear, watched a guy catch two stripers while his companion caught none, and saw my first two common terns of the season. As always, there was one seagoing purple martin. Seriously, what do they find to eat skimming over the ocean? Seagoing insects?

I treated myself to lemon-orange pancakes at Mad Martha's before heading home to remove the sand from my ear, clothing, and equipment.