Though The Whole World Is Burning

The sky is the color of salmon. A fishing boat pushes through the bay as the sun rises, turning the beachgrass golden. By the time another boat passes in the opposite direction, the sky is the palest blue, matching still waters. The atmosphere is colorless, but it darkens as winds come out of the northwest.

I thought I heard a gunshot, but I can’t think of an animal or bird in season. It may have been an outboard engine backfiring.

The mourning doves announce the day. The loons are nowhere to be seen. I miss the happy families bouncing with babies in choppy waves, against northeast winds.

Two carpenter bees bump their heads on the glass walls, stuck inside. Clumsy and loud, they want out but ignore the open slider. Grian, our schipperke, alternates between taking big gulps within jumping range and retreating into her hole, under the coffee table. She is keeping to her plan to silence their incessant buzzing. Like the giant winged menaces, she will not quit until she is free.

The ruby-throated hummingbirds migrated, from Mexico to our yard, on May 15, two weeks ago. Historically, they make it up north by Mother’s Day, but they’ve been shy or preoccupied; building a nest perhaps? The chances of finding the thimble of thistle, dandelion fluff and spider silk are nil to none in the juniper thickets.

But I suspect there is one. They are active today, drinking from sugar water in a feeder I hung from a branch. This is the first year I put out a feeder, for fear of killing the creatures that have given me so much pleasure over the years.

I’m a bit of a purist and love flowers as much as the hummingbirds, but I was anxious to get them here before their blooms arrived, so I dusted off the feeders and mixed one cup organic sugar with four cups water, filled the tubes halfway, and waited several cold weeks for nothing.

Still, I committed to changing the sweet mixture every other day so as not to sicken the 3-inch birds with bacteria or fungus. Their tongues, twice the size of their freakishly long bills, could swell with infection, slowly starving them to death. Parents pass the infection to their offspring, which weigh 0.02 ounces when they first hatch. No way I’m going to my own grave with that on my conscience.

Unlike loons, they’re polygynous and do not stay together longer than it takes to breed. Females build nests, incubate two white eggs the size of beans for two weeks, and feed the chicks two dozen times, feasting on 2,000 flowers a day.

On June 1, every time I turn my head, one is near, comforting me. Far away from the firecrackers, coral trumpets, cardinal flowers and columbine, yearning for warmth but not sweltering heat.

Far away from the sugar water hung on a shady branch, I spot one in the juniper trees at the end of the driveway. Unbeknownst to me, they eat sap, sometimes taking advantage of the yellow-bellied sapsucker’s bore.

But, no, it’s not the sap she’s after. It’s the midges. She needs protein for successful breeding. Thankfully, she locates her half-inch nest 10 or 20 feet above ground.

Piping plovers, shore birds the size of golf balls, have not been so lucky, nor have their feathered friends the least terns. For many years, both species nested next to each other on gravel beaches here in Springs.

Those threatened birds are sensitive to people, however, and have been chased away by beach driving, with nary a peep, or a care. People love ripping up and down tiny bay beaches, even though the town provides plenty of parking spaces mere feet away.

Walk to the shoreline with your fishing gear or sun chair. It’s good for your health. Let the sun hit your face. Feel the sand in your toes. Breath in the salt air.

And, for the love of God and all his creatures, take your garbage with you when you return back to your car, in the lot.

Will we ever allow those shorebirds to occupy the shore again, or have we claimed it for ourselves only?

Will the eagles come back to Accabonac Harbor after we chased them away? Last summer was one of the best ever. The Bonac eagles had their first successful breeding season, and we finally took out the canoe that sat in our yard for ages and quietly watched eaglets practice taking flight, one of the most spectacular sights in my life.

My heart sunk, though, when, late last winter, I saw a large crane reaching skyward in the wetlands, right up to the secluded eagle nest. An eagle cam! Well, what eagle wouldn’t want a camera in his nest?

How fun! We can sit on our couch and watch the eagles on television, live! Except they flew the Bonac coop, too. I’m sure they found a cozy place, near water with lots of fish, away from people.

Let’s just say the ospreys chased them away. It works.

Farther out to sea, a beautiful, young 34-foot female humpback washed ashore in Amagansett. She was the fourth whale to wash up on Long Island shores in two months, when they first began to arrive from their long migration north. “Welcome back!”

Humpbacks are making a comeback. It makes sense that more are dying. These are our excuses.

I can’t help but think of “the washed colors of the afterlife/ that lived there long before you were born/ see how they wake without a question/ even though the whole world is burning” by W.S. Merwin in his poem “Rain Light.”

Later, the bees lay scattered in the afternoon sun. Headless, broken wings and abdomens entangled in a mix of black-and-white hairballs. The dogs are shedding. Happily napping now.