Hurricane Sandy: when nature bats last

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Unbelievable.

Yes, climate change is real, spawning monster storms now being called the new norm. 

Above is a photo of the salt marshes I took three years ago in early October just inland from the Jersey shore near Avalon, very close to where Hurricane Sandy came ashore last night.

Today the entire area, indeed the entire Jersey coastal region from Cape May to Sandy Hook, has been devastated. 

I wonder if the snowy egret got away.

 NBC Nightly News: Jersey shore

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Avalon 17

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Sun going down over the salt marsh, somewhere near Avalon.

In European mythology, Avalon, the “Isle of the Blessed,” is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend, the place where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was forged and later where Arthur is taken to recover from his wounds after the Battle of Camlann.

In the quest for Arthur's mythical capital Camelot, a large number of locations have been put forward as being the real “Avalon,” perhaps it was located on the coastline of New Jersey.

It is certainly a good place to go and heal.

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Avalon 15

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Is that a clapper rail?

Karen Sue and I spent the closing hours of one afternoon last October at Jake's Landing, northwest of Avalon. We were looking for a clapper rail, a chicken-sized bird that rarely flies and generally stays hidden in the tall grasses. (This is why we spent the closing hours of one afternoon looking for it but not actually seeing it.)

They are birds of the marshlands, grayish brown with a pale chestnut breast and a noticeable white patch under the tail. But, my God, who gets a chance to see the tail?

Should you get a peek at its bill, you'd notice that it curves slightly downwards, a suitable tool for probing shallow mud and water for the crustaceans, aquatic insects and small fish it likes to eat. Sort of surf and turf without the turf.

We were told that Jake's Landing was a good place to search. We heard one—the call sounds like a clatter, or clapping—one time, but that was all. As you might or might not suspect, a group of clappers is called an applause. But, of course.

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Again the solo gull; alone on the intercoastal shoreline, patrolling. You cannot help but watch them, wondering what they were doing.

My general sense, laced with a bit of over-the-top imagination, was that they were keeping an eye on our comings and goings. It's as though this one was assigned the task of watching the boats in the inland channel.

- Photo taken at Avalon, New Jersey. October 2009.

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And we conclude our thoughts on evanescence with a third image. Seasons pass. Time fades. It's a theme I come back to time and time again because in nature, there's a daily transition. Even the evergreens are not quite ever green, in this case, they die leaving only their ripening fruit, the new generation.

(What looks like blue berries are actually blue cones.)

- Photo taken at Avalon, New Jersey. October 2009.

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Call it the evanescence of the moment. On an early morning walk, I found an evergreen cloaked in late-season spider silk. A woven net so fine that it had trapped only the overnight mist from the ocean. It shimmered with dew.

As the sun climbed to its zenith, the trapped mist faded away.

- Photo taken in Avalon, New Jersey. October 2009.

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Summer was over and we were two weeks into the fall but there was still some color left, albeit was fading.

I could wax poetic about "beauty is the fading flower," but I think you get the idea. Late in the season, we hold on to the things most precious until they are also gone.

- Avalon, New Jersey. October 2009.

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Avalon watch

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Who watches the watchers? It's the ever present gulls; they keep track of what's going on. Nothing passes their attention. (See yesterday's post.) Perhaps they count the counters.

The men in the photo are part of the Avalon Sea Watch, a count of migrating seabirds at an observation point overlooking the ocean at the north end of Avalon, New Jersey. This location extends a mile farther out into the ocean than the coastline to the north.

Southbound seabirds that are following the shoreline pass very close to this beachfront. Birds are counted seven days a week, from dawn to dusk, rain or shine, cold weather or even colder weather, from September 22 to December 22. An average of almost 800,000 seabirds are counted at the Avalon Sea Watch annually. Sometimes as many as one million.

When we were there in early October, over 8,000 double-crested cormorants had already been tallied. All under the watchful eyes of the gulls.

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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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AVALON in October: Another piece in the kaleidoscope that was similar but different: seaside goldenrod.

There are a blue-dozen (not an official term) species of goldenrod. This one has adapted to living in the salty air of oceanfront property. Good move.

"Solidago sempervirens" is a maritime wildflower found along the Atlantic seaboard. As you might suspect, it’s highly tolerant of both saline soils and salt spray, and as we found out, is usually found growing on coastal dunes and in salt marshes.

Oh to be so lucky to live in sight of the ocean!

- Photo taken in Avalon, New Jersey.

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Avalon 3

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“When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.”

- From “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville, US novelist and sailor (1819 - 1891)


AVALON in October: There’s a curious phenomenon that occurs when you are sitting on a beach. Despite the enormity of it all, it’s actually very calming; that is until you begin to ponder what lies just out beyond the surf, underneath the surface. Then it all becomes quite alien, quite unknown and scary. The peaceful afternoon I took this photo, the ocean seemed rather tame: Melville's "velvet paw."

- Photo of Avalon Beach in New Jersey

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