Sunday

It's Sunday afternoon. Carol suggested I go out on the dock and sit awhile -- I'm a bit restless and onery today. Been thinking of the house in Medway and even after getting away from it and going to Mass, I was still unable to concentrate on anything else. I walked a bit up and down the driveway but it didn't help. The dock helped, I think. Sitting there by myself in the warm sun and cool, I waited for the Clapper Rail to come out of the maize of marsh pilings along the rising channel. She screeches and rails and sometimes sounds like the bird she is, sometimes clucks like a chicken. She is, yes, very loud, but also very shy.

I didn't see the Rail today, but I did see her one day when she stepped out of the marsh and walked toward the water -- only for a second, because she quickly turned and disappeared into the brush. I think she looked like a small chicken but her extremely long yellow beak tell you she's not. Her legs are long and yellow, big chicken-like feet move very quickly. She is rather brownish, somewhat striped and her round, brownish eyes are set in a gray head.

While I sat there on the dock, two pelicans flew overhead, then a couple of egrets flew over. One dipped quickly down into the water, circled and then dipped down again, this time disappearing into the Marsh. I saw two pelicans fly overhead, very close. I then saw a small white bird with a black head fly over, dip into the channel's water, fly up, circle and then dip again -- just as the egrets did. I learned this bird was a forster tern (I think I got that right).

It was tempting for me to stay on the dock but if I had my hat like a sail would have taken me, windblown, along the channel.

Carol came out then and as we left the dock, two hawks circled overhead, frustrating the little birds in the sky over our heads.