Avalon 9

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You see these guys everywhere. Watching. Taking it all in.

If you walk down the beach, they're there. Go to the market, ditto.

We have all seen the Hitchcock movie. We know what happened in Bodego Bay, to Suzanne Pleshette, the school teacher, still tortured by her love for Mitch. But he only had eyes for Tippi, the icy-cool, fur-wearing blonde carrying a bird in a gilded cage.

Tired of being tamed, benign nature turned on them, became malevolent. It had had enough meddling. Short sightedness. Abuse.

I think that's a Bonaparte's gull—winter plumage, named in honor of an emperor, a conqueror—in the photo, watching us.

Avalon was like Bodego Bay: serene, comfortable. A faraway retreat to get away from it all. We were on vacation, relaxing. We needed the peace and quiet. But I knew we were under surveillance. I made sure we stayed between the lines. I smiled at the birds, even waved, but I slept with the lights on, just in case.

(Actually, Bonaparte's gull was named after a nephew of Napoleon, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, who was a leading ornithologist in the 1800s in America and Europe, but that does not fit the tension in the story.)

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rear windowed

There’s a scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 movie Rear Window where photojournalist L.B. Jefferies (Jimmy Stewart) is peering through the viewfinder of his camera across the courtyard at his neighbor Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr). Jefferies suspects that Thorwald has murdered his wife. Suddenly, Thorwald looks through the window and catches Jefferies watching him. Busted! The voyeur is discovered.

The other day, I was creeping up on a bullfrog at Ijams Nature Center to take his picture, and just as I began to frame him in my viewfinder he whirled around to look straight at me. Now, I know just how Jefferies must have felt. The peeping Tom becomes peeped upon. I have no idea if the pea-green amphibian had murdered his wife but bullfrogs have been known to eat other bullfrogs.