Remembering September 11th

I lived just across the water from the Twin Towers on 9/11 in Brooklyn. I was in the subway going into Manhattan when the train stopped. We smelled smoke. Within 3 minutes men walked through the train telling us that the fire was above ground; we were not in danger. We are turning all the trains back to Brooklyn. With that they were gone. Very shortly afterwards the train began moving. I couldn't believe they had moved the trains back to Brooklyn so fast. When I entered the subway system the Twin Towers, though on fire, still stood. When I came above ground both towers were gone.

As I drove my daughter back and forth from Brooklyn to Long Island often; she was going to school out there. I remember crying each time the smoke or spotlights they were using came into sight. I wrote the first two lines of this poem during one of those trips.

Twin Towers

                                         A hole was punched in the sky today
                                         Two thousand voices screamed out in silence
                                         Now they've tried to plug the hole
                                         With ethereal blue lights
                                         They are as temporary
                                         As the buildings and our lives
                                         Pretty and eerie though they are
                                         They are not lasting
                                         Reminding me of how temporary and fragile
                                         Life really is
                                         It was and remains too easy to turn them off

                                                   by Cynthia J. Cage  (written between 11 Sept 2001 - 21 June 2002)

Pictures taken with camera phone tonight. As we remember our stories let's remember those lives that were lost and their families who must live with it.

        

We will never forget.

Birding Wharton Point, Brunswick, ME (Part 1 of birding the Maine Coast)

     So in honor of Shorebird Day I finally finished the first part of this post.

I left the western mountains of Maine at 0 dark 30 in anticipation of some shore birding with my friend Kathie from Kathiesbirds - http://kathiesbirds.blogspot.com/

Albany Township Community building at sunrise (A mile from Songo Pond)

Lake Pennesseewassee/ Norway Lake at first light

Our first spot for the day was Wharton Point on Maquoit Bay. I know Kathie birds here and writes about it often. It was our most prolific spot as birds go. We kept trying to leave and move on but each time we saw another bird species. After almost 2 hours we'd seen about 30+ species.

Marsh around the bay

Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow (I think - what do others think?)

Bobolink

3 Lesser Yellowlegs (I think- as I remember we identified by their call of two notes)

A least sandpiper fresh from a bath

Least Sandpiper - they are the smallest of the sandpipers with yellowish-green legs.

The most surprising species was the Bobolinks. We both started hearing a tinkling  sound and at the same time we said "Bobolinks." We thought they would be long gone by now. In fact I had already seen some migrating Bobolinks in CT before I came up to Maine.

This picture is a Bobolink in CT (I thought I'd gotten pictures)

The birds we saw included:

1 American BL Duck                                                          1 Ring-Billed Gull
20 common eiders                                                              14 Herring Gulls
50 other duck species (too far away to id with accuracy)     10 other gull species
3 Double-crested Cormorants                                             1 Common Tern
2 Great Herons                                                                   10 Mourning Dove
2 Great Egret                                                                      3 Blue Jays
2 Snowy Egrets                                                                  3 American Crows
1 glossy Ibis                                                                       12 Tree Swallows
2 Osprey                                                                            1 Barn Swallow
1 Bald Eagle                                                                       3 Gray Catbirds
1 Greater Yellowlegs                                                          1 Cedar Waxwing
3 Lesser Yellowlegs                                                            4 Common Yellowthroats
5 Least Sandpipers                                                             2 Yellow Warblers
20 other peep species                                                         1 Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow
1 Bonaparte's Gull                                                              6 Song Sparrows
4 Bobolinks                                                                        1 sparrow species
5 House Finch                                                                    1 Black Bird species
1 Wild Turkey just before I got to Kathies place.                15 Goldfinch 

Three Ways to Eat Blueberries

 Okay, so maybe it should read "Three Creatures That Delight in Eating Blueberries" or "A Maine Breakfast of Champions."

American Robin

                         

Now that's a mouthful

I love the way this little chipmunk ate the blueberry. He got an awful lot of bites out of just one blueberry.






















And for the final creature or way to eat blueberries.. drum roll please.......

 It's tradition that we eat blueberry muffins on one of the first days we arrive in Maine. A yummy tradition. These were baked in the same kitchen that I use to visit from next door and eat home made "Scotchies" when I was a very little girl. No wonder I love this kitchen so much... In fact the muffins are sitting on a Duchess Atlantic, wood burning stove, out of Portland Maine. The very stove that the cookies were baked in.

















Coming up a post about birding the Maine Coast  with Kathie from Kathie's Birds