Some days ago—never mind how long precisely—having little to no time to waste, and no particular birds to look for on the shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see a watery part of the world. It is a way I have of finding new birds, and maybe other new experiences. Whenever I find myself with Warbler Neck; whenever I tire of standing for hours on the side of a marsh looking for the bird that never comes; whenever the notion of another 200-mile-drive-to-chase-a-bird-that-probably-already-left fails to quicken my pulse; and especially whenever dogs off leash chasing birds get such an upper hand of me, that it requires strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately chasing down that dog owner and methodically wrapping that empty leash in his hand around his own neck—then, I account it high time to get to the sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for striking people with rolled-up newspapers. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all birders in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings toward the ocean as me.
Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea when eBird reports nothing on land, or Rare Bird Alert emails run dry, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a Passenger. Passengers get sea-sick—miss the most interesting sights—do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a Passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook.
No, when I go to sea, I go as a Birder, right at the prow, aloft to the upper deck, quickly to the aft, binoculars at the ready and camera poised to fire at an instant. True, the Passengers obstruct my path and block my lens, causing me to jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches on a nerve, the same one triggered by loose dogs and wailing children that unleashes the sharp whack with the newspaper. But even this wears off in time.
And so, quitting the good nation of oh-so-polite Canada, I duly arrived in Bar Harbor, on the rocky coast of Maine. It was a Monday evening in August. The sun, slipping below the mountains earlier and earlier this time of year, had nearly settled for the evening, bringing out tourists hungry for the day's catch; kissed by the grill or hugged by a light batter and fried, as is the diner's preference. A warm wind whispered quietly from the east, and the humidity was fair, portending a fine day for sailing to come.
Tuesday was indeed mild, as the Passengers shuffled merrily through the serpentine aisle, demarcated by stout braided rope, toward the ship; the
Atlantic Adventurer, they called her. She was a twin-hulled craft, a catamaran, with dual diesel engines mounted low, and massive steel propellers ready to churn the water with the force of a thousand horses. Built for speed and clearly capable of achieving her birthright, the
Adventurer would get us to sea with haste.
Slowly though, our Captain backed from the dock, and began a modest glide through the harbor, past massively ornate summer "cottages" of the New England gentry, a lighthouse on cormorant-covered rocks, and thousands of bobbing, multi-colored buoys, each one the marker of an unfortunate lobster's future demise.
"Passengers!" the Narrator announced over the PA system, and "Birders!" I added for myself, "We are off to find a whale!" Then, the Captain unleashed his multitude of petroleum-fueled stallions, the Adventurer's nose tipped higher, and she sliced cleanly through the glassy waters across the Gulf of Maine.
While the Passengers sat inside, doing the things that Passengers do, the Birders were on the prow, alert, aware, and actively scanning the seas for signs of life. And those looks were rewarded amply, as Gannets drifted lazily overhead, Shearwaters swooped, and Storm-petrels pattered on the water, gently dipping their toes into the sea just enough to entice a curious fish for a look. From below, dozens of Atlantic White-sided Dolphins in small groups breached the surface, their dorsal fins projecting first like a flag announcing their arrival, sleek bodies pushing aside the water for a brief ray of sunshine, before concealing themselves again in their blanket of blue ocean.
For an hour we cruised, then another, but not a single whale had risen from the depths for a tell-tale gulp of air. The Passengers grew restless as their unrequited anticipation abated with every passing minute. The Captain peered through his windshield, steadily guiding the boat back and forth across the feeding grounds, ready to spin his wheel in any direction at a hint of his whale. The Narrator scanned from her crow's nest in all directions and back again, eyes shaded by the back of her hand against the sun. And the Birders admired the multitudes of shearwaters, one in particular flying alongside the
Adventurer for several seconds as if testing her flying strength against the boat's engines.
Suddenly, the Narrator came alive.
"Thar she blows! Thar she blows! A whale! A whale! At two o'clock from the ship!" [
ed. Note that she didn't actually shout, "Thar she blows", although she should have]
The Black Whale! But what kind of Black Whale? It rolled to one side and began flapping its flipper, as though waving Hello to the boat.
And the announcer cried, "Oh my! Folks, look at that flipper! That makes it a Right Whale! They were nearly hunted to extinction, and now only maybe 500 still live in the entire world. This is an amazing find!"
The
Right Whale was so named because whalers considered it the "right" whale to hunt: it has lots of baleen and blubber, so produce excellent returns, and was buoyant enough due to all the fat that it floats after being killed.
As an endangered species, the Captain maintained a respectful distance from the playful whale, who for more than 20 minutes, alternated between poking its head above the water, slapping its tail, and flapping flippers.
Was the whale really playing? Was he just trying to wipe off barnacles and other parasites? Or was he threatening the Captain for some past transgression that only the two of them knew about, and that the Captain refused to acknowledge? We will never know.
The boat turned toward shore, steaming furiously back to pick up the next Passengers.
Epilogue
The drama's done. What thence?
Upon returning to land, we sprinted back south to near Portland for another shot at Nelson's Sparrow. That sparrow is a little brat. Earlier in the week, a guy had reported them on two separate occasions at this marsh, but we didn't get a peep. The next morning before heading to Boston Logan, we tried again with similar results, but did manage to encounter a migrating Philadelphia Vireo, which was nice.
Now, we're home, poring over historical bird reports as we plan our next outing. For the first time all year, I really have no idea where we're going next!
Until I have more news,
Me
