Seasons take on their own forms at Whitefish Point, but in the current progression of summer and advance of fall, the wild blueberries are coming on amidst the jack pines, mushrooms are beginning to push up from the lichens, and warblers, subdued in song and plumage, mill around the point while the new wave of mosquito hatch whines in my ears. It’s a little mind-bending to acknowledge that our fall waterbird count starts this weekend (August 15th!), but the stately Baird’s Sandpipers that grace the beach, along with the little spurts of Red-necked Grebes that trail weather systems (nearly 300 in a few hours this morning!), evidence migration’s acceleration.
Our two plover chicks (and their entire captive-reared cohort) are still here, and, without fail, they still make me smile. Part of this is because they’ve become quite rotund as they prepare for their first migration… (already, juvenile Great Lakes Piping Plovers are being reported in South Carolina and Mississippi!) Before our chicks hatched, I pledged to avoid undue attachment. Though shorebird chicks are less fragile than most young birds, their early days are still fraught with danger from an array of predators. Of course, when our chicks did hatch, my whole plan to not become attached went out the window, and I immediately fell in love. It was always a relief to find them each morning, and there always was a moment of dismay when a Herring Gull would swoop towards the beach.
Whitefish Point is a place that for me evokes deep emotion: I felt the same way watching our plover chicks fly for the first time as I do when I’ve counted skeins of geese riding the north wind south after a fall front, or when I’ve witnessed a Snowy Owl transform from apparition to bird as it emerges from the heat shimmer and snow squalls over Lake Superior. My summer work here did, however, unveil a new suite of emotions that were not quite so transcendental. It takes tact–probably more than I’ve got–to describe, diplomatically, the anger and frustration of stewarding a Piping Plover beach that seems, at times, to get treated like a dog park. I’m not sure if I’ve ever despised anyone as much as I did the couple who let their two dogs charge through the closed area towards day-old Piping Plover chicks, then excused their behavior by admitting that, though they saw the signs, they just didn’t feel like reading them.
Mary Oliver wrote that attention is the beginning of devotion, and that’s how it’s been with me and Whitefish Point. The more intimately you learn a place and its nuances, the more pressing grows the urge to care, intentionally, for it. This summer, I’ve been evaluating my actions through a lens of caring for the space I occupy: how do I best treat my surroundings, human and otherwise, tangible and more figurative? I implore you to do the same, and to enjoy the consequent deeper experience you’ll have in the nature you’re in.
–Alison Vilag, WPBO outreach specialist & Piping Plover monitor
Baird’s Sandpiper on the WPBO beach (note the long wings and general willowy appearance!) Vilag.
