self-portrait in the present sea

Evanston: spirits

Thu, 2 Sep 2010 14:48:28 -0500

A storm on the other side of the world brought this story.
When rain, wind and hail severely damaged the roof of their house in Perth, Australia, my friends, Wendy and Rob, had to move out while it was repaired. In doing so, they went through all the stuff that inevitably accumulates over time, including old sailing magazines in which they found several pieces of interest, one of which they mailed to me.
“Meditation on the Spirits” by New Zealander Adrian Faulkner appeared in the June 2003 issue of CRUISING WORLD. The story is well written, and I paraphrase because it is copyrighted.
In 1985 before setting off on a long voyage Adrian Faulkner hid a bottle of cognac on Meditation Rock, Adele Island, about 50 nautical miles northwest of Nelson at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, in what he hoped to be an affirmation that nature would protect him and that he would return.
He then sailed across the Tasman, up the east coast of Australia, and on to Indonesia, where beset by doubts about his purpose, he turned around and sailed home.
Back in New Zealand he pursued several careers, married, and sadly buried his wife.
In 1988 he anchored again off Adele Island, but was unable to locate the bottle of cognac.
Three more years found him ready to sail off again.
This time he made it all the way around the world, even visiting by car the city of Cognac in France along the way.
In New Zealand, circumnavigation completed, he found in an old log book the original entry for May 10, 1985, with details that he thought might enable him to locate the hidden cache.
On May 10, 2002, he and Helen, his companion, climbed to Meditation Rock and there in a nest of moss they found the bottle.
They opened it and put the steadfast--and well aged--spirit to its intended use.

Evanston: four years

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:30:10 -0500

A hot wind is bending limbs on the tree outside the window.
That tree has grown several feet during the past four years. Swaying leaves are noticeably closer than they were.
The first entry in this online journal is dated August 31, 2006.
I noted those tree limbs then, but they seem to have been still that day.
As I have frequently observed, time is an uneven medium, and in some ways that entry seems very distant.
The tree has grown. I’ve sailed around the world again. And the American economy has collapsed.
I don’t know how much I have written here.
Glancing back I seem to post ten to fifteen times a month, which means six or seven hundred entries.
Whatever the number, I’m sure I’ve written more in ‘self-portrait in the present sea’ than in all my published books and articles combined.
I’ve always liked that title. I carried it around inside me for decades before finally finding a worthy use.
The journal, which some call a ‘blog’ but I do not because I find ‘blog’ an ugly word and I kept a journal long before it existed, continues to fill its intended purposes; and has provided me with the unexpected pleasure of becoming acquainted with some of you whom I otherwise would not have known.
On the remote chance that I have a drink this evening, I’ll make a mental toast to the last four years, the next four years, and you.

Evanston: THE ELEPHANT’S JOURNEY; THREE STATIONS; and a sexy song

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:54:51 -0500

In 1549, fifty-one years after Vasco da Gama landed in India, an elephant and its mahout made the return journey to Lisbon, Portugal.
Like most originals, the elephant was not much appreciated and languished for two years on the banks of the Tagus, until in a royal example of re-gifting, King Joao III of Portugal gave the elephant to Archduke Maxmillian of Austria as a wedding present. Thus in 1551, elephant and mahout travelled from Lisbon to Vienna. This is the historical fact on which the great Portuguese writer, Jose Saramago, who died last month, based his last novel.
I have seen effusive reviews of THE ELEPHANT’S JOURNEY, which I assume are based on respect for the dead. Jose Saramago deserves respect. There is no contemporary novelist that I admire more. Yet to compare THE ELEPHANT’S JOURNEY to his greatest books, such as THE YEAR OF THE DEATH OF RICARDO REIS and BALTHASAR AND BLIMUNDA is absurd.
This is not to say that I did not enjoy THE ELEPHANT. I did, despite paragraphs that run on for pages and a refusal to conform to standards of capitalization. The book has intelligence, charm and novelty. The idiosyncrasies only make it more difficult to find a place to stop reading. And I read this short book in two sittings anyway.

…

Continuing a series is difficult; repetition of a formula can quickly become boring.
Conan Doyle excelled with Sherlock Holmes. Alan Furst has done well, but may be beginning to flag. But Martin Cruz Smith is still going strong with Arkady Renko of GORKY PARK fame. Partially this is because the Soviet Union of GORKY PARK has become the Russia of THREE STATIONS, a new and different society; and partially it is because Martin Cruz Smith is a very superior writer.
THREE STATIONS is mostly set in contemporary Moscow, a place almost as brutal as Stalin’s Moscow.
I happened to finish this novel on the day that the murder of 72 migrants apparently by a drug gang in Mexico was reported. I was struck by the similar brutality in life as in the novel.
THREE STATIONS is very readable. A stolen baby. Child prostitution. Billionaires. A serial killer who leaves his victims in ballet positions.
Somewhere in THE ELEPHANT’S JOURNEY is a line that applies to THREE STATIONS to the effect that we should never be surprised by the cruelty of human nature.
There is also in THREE NATIONS the following, spoken by a newly minted Russian billionaire: “It turns out we don’t know how to run capitalism. That’s to be expected. As it turns out, nobody else knows how to run capitalism. That was a bad surprise.”

…

Browsing iTunes I happened across RED HORSE, a collaboration by Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka, and Lucy Kaplansky.
I already have music by all three, and like all the tracks on the album. But one song, Lucy Kaplansky’s “Scorpion” stands not only out, but by itself as one of the subtly sexy songs of all time.
The lyrics of this song are a fine poem, which culminate in: “I’m going to sting you with the kiss of my lips. Going to sting you with a piece of my mind. Going to sting you with the taste of my skin. Then you’re mine. Then you’re mine.”
I must admit that “the taste of my skin” gets to me.
Men nearly seventy probably aren’t supposed to care about such things. But some of us do. For those of you who are younger, that may be good news, or bad.
Live as passionately as you can. And be stung by the taste of a woman’s skin.

Evanston: Another Place

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:20:03 -0500

The above photograph and those below come from a regular reader of this journal, Martin Lynam. They are part of a sculpture consisting of one hundred figures facing the Irish Sea along two miles/3.2 kilometers of Crosby Beach, just north of Liverpool, England.
The work of Anthony Gormley, they are collectively and appropriately titled, ‘Another Place.’
Each of the cast iron statues is 6’ 2½”/189 cm tall and weighs about 1400 pounds/650 kg. Most cover and uncover with the tides.
Probably those of you in the UK are familiar with this work, but I was not. I think it wonderful.

You can find more about ‘Another Place’ at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Place

And find many more images at:
http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=another%20place%20statues&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1516&bih=934

If that doesn’t work, google: another place sculpture images.

Thank you, Martin, for bringing this masterpiece--it is not too strong a word--to my attention and permitting me to share your photographs.

Evanston: evening

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:29:12 -0500

Perfect.
I like to quantify things and have quantified perfect weather: 80ºF/ 26.6ºC, plus or minus a degree or two; clear sky; low humidity; light wind.
That’s what we have, have had for several days, are predicted to have for a few more. Who knew that Chicago is paradise?
A martini half drunk. A rising crescendo of cicadas calling to one another in sexual frenzy. Cicadas don’t have time for subtlety. The sun below the buildings across the street.
I walk to the Juliette. Yellow and purple flowers flourish. But the planter does not have the charm it did when doves nested there.
Trees. Limbs. Silhouetted leaves. Swaying in wind. They are like ripples on water. Almost. In two weeks I will be on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA and they will be water.
An airliner crosses the sunset sky with a cargo of hopes, worries, maybe dreams.
In November when I return here, leaves, and cicadas, and doves, will be gone.
The airliner is already gone.
And the trees will be bare.

Evanston: HUBBLE 3D and Wrigley Field

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:26:23 -0500

We had a Chicago weekend.

On Saturday morning we drove to Navy Pier to see the extraordinary, HUBBLE 3D, at the Imax Theater.
The forty-five minute film is divided between coverage of the 2009 mission to repair the Hubble telescope and extend its life until the next generation, James Webb Space Telescope, is launched in 2014; and exploration of the universe through Hubble images.
Those of us who have read FAR OUT are familiar with many of those images, but on the IMAX screen they are even more impressive than on the page, and with computer enhancement can seem to be flown into and through.
I don’t believe that we can comprehend the immensity of the universe--the scale is beyond our minds and lives--but Hubble 3D makes a valiant attempt to stretch human imagination in the right direction.
Of the repair mission, I was impressed by the professional skills of the crew, the closeness of the quarters in which they work, and the similarities of repairs in space and on a small boat at sea.
It has been my experience that whatever number of screws or bolts that need to be removed in order to repair something, one will stick. And I have found that there are times when all else fails and you just have to pull or twist a part off.
Apparently these apply to space, too.
See HUBBLE 3D if you can.
Thanks Jim and Marilyn for bringing the movie to my attention.

Yesterday we went to Wrigley Field.
For those of you outside the U.S. and Canada, Wrigley is the home of the hapless Chicago Cubs, who once were owned by the chewing gum family. The oldest baseball stadium in the National League, dating from 1914, it is one of baseball’s cathedrals, along with American League Boston’s two year older Fenway Park. We’d never been there and wanted the experience.
The day was perfect for baseball, or anything else: 82ºF, sunny, light breeze.
We rode the CTA down, had good seats on the third base side, enjoyed hot dogs, peanuts, beer, and the spectacle.
In person I was impressed by the remarkable athleticism of players making routine plays that are considerably more difficult than they appear on television.
I was also impressed by how much better you can follow a game on television than in person, with the distractions of shouting vendors, and people continually standing and moving about in front of you.
Wrigley seats 41,000, and there were over 37.000 there yesterday.
Along with many others we left midway through the seventh inning to beat the crowds on the trains. We didn’t miss much. The Cubs lost 15-6.

Evanston: Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back”

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:24:47 -0500

I was watching a White Sox game on television a few days ago when I heard a new Satchel Paige story.
I expect that those of you outside the United States and Canada may not have heard of Satchel Paige, who was one of the greatest baseball pitchers of all time. Some would say the greatest.
He was a black man born in 1906 and therefore played most of his career in what was known as the Negro League. In 1948 he was finally permitted to play in what we call the Major Leagues, and at 42 became the oldest “rookie” ever at an age when almost all players are long retired.
Sometimes I despair of America, such as now when I read that 18% of the population believes that Barack Obama is a Muslim, but I regain some slight hope when I consider the differences in how minorities are treated now than they were when I was born.
In addition to being a great pitcher, Satchel Paige is the source of many good stories and quotes. Perhaps the best is: “Don’t look back---something might be gaining on you.”
The story I heard yesterday was told by the announcer, Hawk Harrelson, who said that he once interviewed Satchel Paige. He asked Mr. Paige, who was known for the pin-point control of his pitches, if it was true that he warmed up by pitching over a chewing gum wrapper. Satchel replied that yes it was true, and that he worked both sides of that wrapper.

My favorite Satchel Paige story is told by Willie Mays.
I’ve seen slightly different versions of this, but they all agree on the essential facts about when Willie Mays as a teen ager faced Satchel Paige, who was then in his forties.
On his first at bat, Satchel Paige threw Willie Mays a curve ball, which Willie hit off the fence for a double.
When he came to bat the second time, Satchel Paige called to him, “Boy, this time there be no foolin’, and then you sit down.”
Willie Mays turned to the catcher and asked, “What does he mean?”
The catcher told him, “He’s going to throw you three fast balls. Nothing else.”
With the arrogance of youth and the confidence of his own great athletic ability, Willie Mays thought he could hit any pitcher alive.
As Willie Mays tells the story, three fast balls came. He swung three times. He missed three times. And Satchel Paige walked off the mound for the dugout before the third pitch crossed home plate.

Evanston: zoo

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:05:16 -0500

While I don’t equate zoos with Sea World, generally I’d prefer that they didn’t exist, despite the good that they may do in research, attempting to preserve endangered species, perhaps broadening public awareness of conservation, and enabling children a brief summer escape from the war zones in which some of them live. (Those in blue shirts below were part of one such group.)
Nevertheless we went to Lincoln Park Zoo yesterday.
As I child I knew Lincoln Park Zoo through Marlin Perkins’ television program, Zoo Parade, the predecessor to Wild Kingdom.
In the Wikipedia article about him I came across this story:

Because Walt Disney had fabricated footage of a mass suicide of lemmings in its film WHITE WILDERNESS then CBC journalist Bob McKeown asked Marlin Perkins if he had done the same. Perkins, then in his eighties, "firmly asked for the camera to be turned off, then punched a shocked McKeown in the face."

Evanston: cards of the times; talent and opportunity

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:19:03 -0500

I was looking for a greeting card yesterday and found in addition to the usual categories: birthday; wedding; sympathy; graduation; etc.; a new one: recession cards.
There were several.
A typical card showed on the front a tipsy man with a wine glass saying: “If the economy gets any worse, I’m going to have to give up buying wine.” On the inside: “Ha. Ha. Sometimes I crack myself up.”

----------

For those of you outside the United States, in baseball a ‘closer’ is a relief pitcher who comes on to protect his team’s lead in the ninth, usually the last, inning of a game.
Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees is generally accepted as the greatest closer of this era. Playing for fifteen years with the Yankees, who usually go into the ninth inning with a lead, Mariano Rivera has had abundant opportunity to display his skills.
In Chicago I can watch all the games of both the Cubs and the White Sox on television.
As American readers know, the Cubs haven’t won the World Series in 102 years. Teams from places that weren’t even places in 1908--Arizona; Anaheim; Florida--have won the World Series since then. A local joke is, “Well, any team can have a bad century.” But the Cubs are well launched into a second.
I sometimes watch the Cubs, and we are going to a game a week from today to experience Wrigley Field. Tickets are easy to come by this season, when the Cubs are playing much more poorly than expected.
The Cubs have a few good players.
One of the best is their closer, Carlos Marmol.
Marmol is almost unhittable. As opposed to Rivera, who is known for his control, Marmol is a little wild. This is not necessarily bad for a closer, as it keeps opposing batters off balance. His strike out ratio is phenomenal. As of today, 98 strikeouts in only 54 innings pitched.
Marmol’s problem is that he plays for the Cubs, who very seldom enter the ninth inning ahead.
A local newspaper reported “A rare Marmol sighting” yesterday when he come on to save a 3-2 victory over the Saint Louis Cardinals.
It had been nineteen days since he last played. During that stretch the Cubs went into the ninth inning behind in sixteen successive games.
Marmol might be one of the best closers in baseball, but who can tell?
Talent without the opportunity to display it is always a misfortune and sometimes a tragedy.
Still it is hard to feel too sorry for Carlos who is being paid $2.15 million to work a few minutes every three weeks.
On the other hand, Mariano Rivera is paid $15 million for working a bit harder.

Evanston: LE MANS and waiting

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:14:56 -0500

A few weeks ago a reader sent me a quote from the 1971 Steve McQueen auto racing film, LE MANS, and a question.
The quote, spoken by Steve McQueen’s character to the exquisitely beautiful German actress, Elga Andersen:

A lot of people go through life doing things badly.
Racing’s important to men who do it well. When you’re
racing, it...it’s life. Anything that happens before or after...is
just waiting.

The question: Do I feel that way about sailing?
It’s a good question, and the answer is no.

As I mention on the Introduction page of this site, I like to believe that I do three things well, and sailing is only one of them, though the one for which I am best known.
For the first thirty-three years of my life the quote might have been true. I have called that period “longing”, and certainly toward the end I was counting the days, and nothing and no one was going to stop me from setting out for Cape Horn.
When I pushed away from a San Diego marina on November 2, 1974, I left behind not one, but three women of great beauty and charm. There was no deception. They all knew of one another, and they all knew I was going.
And from that moment on, I’ve lived in the present. Not the future, though I consider it and make tentative plans; not the past, though I have not forgotten much as of yet.
Although I’d rather live on a boat than land, when I am in Evanston I write almost every day and I enjoy being with Carol.
When I return to New Zealand I enjoy being on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA on her mooring.
That mooring, as regular readers of this journal know, suits me perfectly. I love just being there.
And I also love sailing oceans alone. But when I’ve been sailing alone and not had a woman in my life, I have not been happy.
It is the unmet need that calls the loudest.
After a while when I’m in Evanston, I increasingly miss being on the boat. And when I’m on the boat, after a while I increasingly miss being with Carol. And during my fifth circumnavigation, I missed being on my mooring.
But I accept that they are mutually exclusive, and my life is not any one, but all three.

…

I saw LE MANS when it first came out.
It happened that a few days after I received the quote by email, I noticed that it was being shown on Turner Classic Movies and watched it again.
The plot is slight, a short story at most, but the footage, both of the spectators and particularly the racing, is excellent. Though loud. Very, very loud.

----------

I am again Harmony sitting, while her owners are on vacation.
Harmony is a harmonious cat. She is not black , but gray.
She is waiting.

Evanston: dead children

Mon, 9 Aug 2010 21:20:56 -0500

I try not to watch the spin-off of Entertainment Tonight that poses these days as network television news. I don’t watch Entertainment Tonight, either.
I do watch the local news, mostly to follow developments in whichever of our elected officials is currently on trial; and I have been repeatedly impressed by how much more frequently I see reports in Chicago of children being shot to death than in any other city in which I have lived.
That’s anecdotal, so I sought statistics and found them
The city of Chicago has 2.8 million people, approximately ⅓ that of the city of New York, and a million less than Los Angeles. Yet in 2009 Chicago had almost as many murders as New York, 458 to 471, and 145 more than Los Angeles. Boston, where we used to live, had 50.
These numbers are for only the cities, not the entire metropolitan areas.
In Chicago murders are not uniformly distributed. The majority occur in predominately black neighborhoods on what is known as the South Side.
Many are the result of stray bullets and some, such as the recent execution by a gang of a thirteen year old boy, cases of mistaken identity.
I recalled writing about this before, and finally found the entry for June 27, 2007, Evanston: THE ILIAD and the evening news: a second modest proposal.
Nothing has changed.
Chicago is no longer the capital of crime, except among politicians. No longer the city of Al Capone and John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson.
But to be a black child in certain neighborhoods is to live in a war zone, to face daily the possibility of sudden death, of being killed on your way to school or playing in a park or going out to buy an ice cream cone, as much as if you were living in Iraq or Afghanistan.
And that is outrageous. But doesn’t seem to elicit much rage.

…
Around midnight last Thursday, a 21 year old man/boy took his grandfather’s 31’ sloop from one of Chicago’s many municipal marinas out onto Lake Michigan. He is described as “an excellent sailor” and had permission to use the boat. He was accompanied by a male friend and two young women.
An hour later and two miles offshore, the young man and his girl friend decided it would be a good idea to go for a swim. They jumped over the side and called to the other couple to join them. Impulsively they did.
At that moment no one was on the boat. The boat was not anchored. Carried by currents, the boat began to drift away faster than any of them could swim. The water temperature was 65ºF/18ºC.
Five hours later a sport fishing boat heading out at dawn chanced to see arms waving above the water. The crew picked up a young woman, who said there were others. They found the second girl three hundred yards away.
The body of one boy/man has been recovered. The other has not.
To no one’s, or at least not my, surprise, reportedly alcohol may have been consumed.
Officials have commented with bureaucratic irrelevance that none of the young people was wearing a life jacket.
These kids have consistently been described in the media as ‘boaters.’
I am possibly the only person still alive who knows that a ‘boater’ is a straight-brimmed straw summer hat not someone operating a boat, who might be a boatsman or woman. Or even a sailor.
These children did no evil. They were just having fun.
And I think that the difference between their deaths and that of a child shot on Chicago’s South Side is that one is unfortunate and the other a tragedy.

Evanston: waves and websites

Sun, 8 Aug 2010 09:02:09 -0500

A couple of months ago I posted a list of websites I visit most mornings. That has already changed a bit; but there are also a few sites that I visit most late afternoons that might be of interest to readers of this journal.

One is http://www.vimeo.com which is a kind of YouTube for serious film makers.
Recently I came across a video there called “Surfing the 4th Dimension” that has been the proximate cause of this post. It can be found at: http://www.vimeo.com/13831859

It happens that I also recently watched a more traditional surfing film, BILLIBONG ODYSSEY.
I think I wrote about this a few years ago when I first viewed it.
If so, we probably all have forgotten.
BILLIBONG ODYSSEY is about big wave surfing. It is 90 minutes long with about 70 minutes of filler. But the other 20 minutes are spectacular, especially the opening and closing scenes, which are of the same ride down the biggest wave I have ever seen on film, and far bigger than any I have ever seen in person.
Some surfers have a genuine passion for the sea--at least its edges. In BILLIBONG there is talk about being “in the middle of the ocean” when they are in fact only 100 miles from shore--and that some men have the nerve and ability to ride waves over 60’ has my awed admiration.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture runs groups of striking photos about a single subject, usually one currently in the news.

http://70point8percent.blogspot.com is a site I have written about before, and one of only two sailing sites I regularly check. (The other is my morning visit to http://www.sailinganarchy.com/index_page1.php )
70.8% is small boat oriented, with a slant toward cold Northern waters, and I often find items there of interest that appear no where else such as the current lead post about sailing Davis Strait.

http://www.shorpy.com is an archive of old photographs of life in the United States that was brought to my attention by a Kiwi--thanks, Zane.
Three or four new photos are posted each day. Most date from the first half of last century, but there are some as far back as the Civil War, including one at the moment on page 3 taken after the battle at Harper’s Ferry in 1862.

http://www.oobject.com updates at intervals with lists of photographs that are sometimes of interest, sometimes not.
On their current home page my favorites are “world’s largest crowds” and “decayed Olympic sites.”

Evanston: flown

Thu, 5 Aug 2010 14:54:52 -0500

Last night was to be the young dove’s first alone in the nest, or so I thought.
At about 9:00 p.m. movement in the planter box attracted my attention, and I went to the glass door and saw one of the adults beak to beak with the squab, feeding him. Not wanting to interrupt, I stepped back.
The rain had stopped a few hours earlier, but when I went to bed I could see that the adult bird had gone, and I thought of the little bird, sitting there for the first time exposed to the vastness of the sky, small, defenseless and alone.
When I awoke this morning the nest was empty. it is in the left pot in the above photo.
I opened the glass doors and stepped onto the Juliette, leaned over to see if there was a small bundle of feathers on the condo entryway forty feet below. There was not.
Doves leave the nest between ten and fifteen days. Today the now fledgling is eleven or twelve days old.
I wonder what it was like, to climb from the nest onto the railing and launch into air; and how did the adult tell him it was time to go?
According to what I read, the male will continue to feed the fledging for another week or two.
I wish the young dove a life free from cats, hawks, hunters and politicians.
We have been watching the doves since Carol discovered the under-construction nest four weeks ago. I feel their absence.
Ahh, they grow up so quickly.

Evanston: exposed

Wed, 4 Aug 2010 17:07:20 -0500

A line of severe thunderstorms passed through Chicago this morning. There has been light rain intermittently ever since. And now in late afternoon, heavy rain is again falling, and the sky is dark enough so that I’ve turned on living room lights.
Not the best first day to be exposed to the world; but we don’t choose our time, our time chooses us.
Monday evening, the female and male dove left the chick alone in the nest for a half hour.
Tuesday evening he was left alone for an hour and a half.
When I came into the living room this morning, at 5:45 a.m., the female was standing on the balcony railing, looking into the condo. A few minutes later she took off with the male no where in sight. And that was about it.
The chick, now perhaps technically a squab--which oddly also is a word used for boat cockpit cushions--has been alone in the nest each time I’ve checked today, except at 9:30 when the male was sitting on him.
The little bird has developed in the past few days, but he is still small and he looks decidedly unhappy huddled beneath a few flowers, blinking in the rain, without a parent to shield him.

The top photograph was taken when the rain tapered off this morning.
Here is what he looked like three days ago.

Evanston: standing

Mon, 2 Aug 2010 15:04:00 -0500

The dove chick is now eight or nine days old. We last saw the egg on Friday, July 23, and first saw the chick on Sunday, July 25, but he could have hatched on Saturday.
After that brief initial sighting on July 25, the parents continued to sit on the chick as though on an egg, and we didn’t see him--or her--again until Thursday.
On Thursday, there were definite stirrings; which by Friday had become pronounced to the point that I interpreted them as, “Get off me you big lugs.” A scraggly head often poked out from beneath the father, who is on the nest during most of the daylight hours when we can observe it, and an eye peered about.
By Saturday, both parents were more standing above rather than sitting on the chick. And yesterday there was even a few minute interval in late afternoon when he was left alone in the nest. I do not know if this was at the changing of the guard, or if one of the parents had pressing business elsewhere, or simply normal.
I tried to get a photograph, but the sun and angle were wrong, and the chick is speckled brown and blends into the nest. I expect not by chance.
The mother soon returned, and this morning when I got up was asleep on top of the chick.
At this moment the father is standing above and to the side of him, blocking him from view except for the enormous, but apparently harmless, creatures on this side of the glass.
Carol tries to water the plants when the mother is in the nest, but both birds now let her come within an inch or two with the watering can without taking flight.
Although he has grown considerably during his first week, the chick still has a long way to go, and it is difficult to believe that, as we read, he will leave the nest in about six more days.