Autumn is a special time on Plum Island, especially on those crisp, sunny fall mornings. Such mornings remind me of a tale told by the late Doug Chickering a number of years ago when he paid a visit to the Parker River Refuge in autumn and shared with us the magical spirit that this natural place holds. I thought that this would be a good time to share it with you once again:
“I drove onto the refuge a half hour before dawn and started the day with a walk out to the edge of the marsh from the Wardens – looking for sparrows. It was a splendid way to start a perfectly cut gem of a mid-autumn day. I stood in the shadows as the rising sun illuminated the broad sweep of the salt marshes and the hills of Newbury on the far side. In places the sun flashed off the windows of the distant houses. Heading north were small groups of Egrets laboring in low flight, almost yellow in the new sunlight, off to fishing pools somewhere out there.
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Words on Birds | Steve Grinley
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