Before I started recording, the herring gull was legitimately scaring up a meal via this little tap dancing routine (I was kind of far away, but I could see an occasional silvery flash of something he grabbed out of the wet sand). Maybe performance anxiety doomed his success after that.
My favorite part is 0:27 when the ring-billed gull on the left starts halfheartedly imitating him, and then they both look embarrassed.
A 173-year-old whaling ship returns to the sea for the first time in almost a century and sends a whaleboat out to meet some humpbacks. Somehow those whales can tell there's no harpoon aboard.
Video by Mystic Seaport
This might sound odd, but I once spent an evening in the belly of that ship, reading passages of Moby-Dick aloud (Chapter 113: The Forge). I have also climbed its rigging.
Aug. 15 update: click here.
Recompence Shore Campground, Freeport, Maine
Barnacles like mussels.
Abby McBride
© Abby McBride
abbymcb@alum.mit.edu
Top photo credit: Otto Whitehead