One of our escapes within the city is Breezy Point tip, a spit of sand that is part of a federal park, the National Gateway Recreation Area. We see very few people, mostly fishers, as well as boats and sea fleas (jet skis) and occasional yachts out in the channel, where the Atlantic Ocean flows in and out of Jamaica Bay. This tip faces west, and part of our horizon includes Coney Island, New York Harbor, and Staten Island, far across the water.
Over these last two weekends of August we have spent a Sunday (the first pictures) and a Friday evening on the sand, sipping our drinks, picnicking quietly, and watching and photographing a collection of shorebirds foraging at the water’s edge. It is migration season, and the birds are becoming more diverse. We find their lives riveting, and can watch for hours as willets (the long legs, long beaks) rush in and out along with the little sanderlings.
The calm water here makes for good feeding. Passing boats’ wakes send more waves curling onto the sand.
It’s good to see seagulls being proper sea birds, and not land vultures snapping up bits of pizza. Bad day for the crab.
Out on the water loons cruise. They should overwinter further north and I’m not sure why they stay. Perhaps there is enough food here.
There is a channel buoy not far offshore that clangs in the swell, a remote and lonely sound on the water.
A black bellied plover stands alone among the sanderlings.
And a ruddy turnstone inspects a slipper snail (I think).
Until this year we have never seen willets here before, but there seems to be a regular group of five at the moment.
I don’t know whom the tracks belong to. I hope rangers, but it’s hard to say. I despise vehicles on beaches. Birds breed here and the dunes are fenced off.
On Friday, seeking solace, we headed out to Breezy Point again. On the way, we passed a tree with not one, not two, but six osprey in it. So they migrate, too. At the beach, we found open skies and sun, a very low tide, and flocks of these plovers outnumbering the sanderlings.
This poor bird had only one leg, and he hopped strongly on it, fending for himself.
A visiting merganzer stretched and fluffed its feathers.
The willets were still there, and less skittish than before.
And out in the channel the big loons still cruised, calling to one another when they reunited after hunting far apart.
It is the end of summer. And of other things, too. Many things. But I am inexpressibly grateful that we both enjoy watching these other lives, and that we are able to see them right at the edge of the teeming human city.
