Your mind working out this salty little scene

[sovay]

The water rushthatspeaks and I found was at Castle Island. It was brilliantly cold and almost deserted, the crushed mirror of the waves as harsh and richly blue as the dissolving sky. We identified the planes coming in to Logan as predators or prey by their countershading or aposematic coloration.



The cranes of Conley Terminal. The new ones, shipped last summer from Shanghai to service the Neo-Panamax container ships which the channels of Boston Harbor were dredged to accommodate. Close to, they were bleached almost as pale as the winter sky.



Beneath the pavilion out on the causeway that loops in Pleasure Bay. It looked like Escher from underneath.



I suppose this transparency of water is too green to be glaucous in English, but in classical Greek it could describe the eyes of Athene.



The banded iris of the shore. I have no close photos of the assorted waterfowl we saw bobbing among the reflections all around the bay, none of which we could name. With recourse to the internet, I am reasonably confident of the American black duck, the harlequin duck, the brant, and the bufflehead, with a lesser degree of certainty regarding the common eider and the white-winged scoter. A friend of mine who is a serious birder refers to this time of year as "weird duck season."

We collected dinner on the way home from Mamaleh's: a corned beef Reuben for me, a pastrami Reuben for Rush-That-Speaks, a 50/50 for spatch and the fortuitous discovery in the freezer when I had to wait around for our order—not ideal from a perspective of avoiding other people, but at least they are enough in demand to backlog the kitchen—of a quart of borscht, because Rob and I had just been watching The Talk of the Town (1942). We can eat it with sour cream when the polar vortex cracks the mercury on Friday. I just wish in all this broken-glass brightness it would snow.

Comments

[luzula]

Harlequin duck! How exotic (to me).

Also, I am very bad at watching movies and hardly ever manage it, but I do love The Talk of the Town and have watched it multiple times. <3 Borscht!

[hyarrowen]

Weird duck season! That's brillaint!

As is the weather. When they talk about crystal clear, this is the sort of crystal they mean.

[asakiyume]

I've been googling these ducks yoyu mention, and how cute the bufflehead is! And how pretty the harlequin duck and the common eider.

I also googled definitions of glaucous, and two had green in there (Merriam-Webster's and Collins)in a way that seems consistent with your water there, so: go for it! Glaucous!

What was the ratio of predator to prey planes at Logan?

[regshoe]

We identified the planes coming in to Logan as predators or prey by their countershading or aposematic coloration.

XD

Lovely photos, and really beautiful descriptions. I love 'weird duck season'—eiders are one of my favourite waterfowl (I think that'll be the same species we have here—they're a widely distributed bird), and harlequin duck is a very cool sighting.

[choco_frosh]

I just wish in all this broken-glass brightness it would snow.
From your lips to God's ears.
But I am glad there was ocean!

[radiantfracture]

the crushed mirror of the waves as harsh and richly blue as the dissolving sky

Ah, gorgeous.

We identified the planes coming in to Logan as predators or prey by their countershading or aposematic coloration.

That feels like the beginning of an elegant and elegaic sfnal story.

I liked the pictures!

[ashlyme]

I'm so glad you had sea- and Rush-time. Do you get mandarin ducks over there?

[skygiants]

It is ALWAYS a good time to eat Mameleh's and watch The Talk of the Town!