Birding Sachuest Point with Kids

 

Sachuest Point, Rhode Island

 

“Did you see that?” I asked of Leo. He was in a grumpy mood, not having wanted to have left the RV. We had already spent a damp twenty-four hours more or less trapped inside the RV, so perhaps that explains why I was so eager to set out despite the moist weather. I get sitrcrazy in next to no time. Twenty-four hours indoor is not easy. “There was a rock wall, pretty cool!”

He did not respond to this obnoxiously dad-like comment.

We left our campsite on the north side of the same island as the town of Newport, where one can go and see the mansion that Vanderbilts back with the money they did not pay to the railroad workers who made their fortune. Instead of heading to the southwest of the island, we went southeast, for a point that stuck out into the Atlantic, that is a designated wildlife refuge.

I was hoping to see a Saltmarsh sparrow and/or a Nelson’s sparrow and was not about to let the rain get me down. The boys had rubber galoshes and raincoats, and just a week ago (after another rainy day in which I slowly became more and more drenched) I had also bought a raincoat from Bass Pro Shops.

We drove past tiny strip malls, schools, and houses. Everywhere, there were the same rock walls, built of stacked stone, perhaps three feet tall. Some had perfectly flat tops, others more rounded, but they were everywhere. I had been in a place like this once before, an island in Greece, and I found it fascinating to think that these stone walls were likely built of field stones, centuries ago, while the ones in Greece were maybe thousands of years. Both were the same height, with the same straight sides. The difference only being the rocks here were of a darker hue, and more covered in moss and lichen than the ones in the dryer climate of Greece. Simple solutions to an old problem: get the stones out of your field and keep out the critters, and once it’s done, never move the rocks.

Some of the rock walls were newer, no doubt to match the aesthetic. For all I know, there’s an HOA that mandates stone walls instead of tall, cheap, wooden ones. For once, I approved.

Anyways, on we drove, past stone walls, a Mitchell Avenue (Look kids! Mitchell Avenue!) and out onto the point.

When we got there, we discovered a great mass of tree swallows flying from tree to tree in the mist. I lingered for just a moment, watching from the dry refuge inside the truck, before driving on, parking, and disembarking into the rain.

We found ourselves in fields of grasses and vegetation, dotted here and there by short, salt choked shrubs. We started down the path, hoods up, boots on, the boys stepping in puddles and me avoiding them.

Was this crazy? I asked myself. Is this insane? The chances of finding one of these sparrows in this weather was slim, while the chances of the boys slipping and failing in a puddle is large. Sure, we had been trapped in the RV and had been going a bit stir crazy, but surely that was better than risking-

A bird!

I hurried down the path. The boys tromped along steadfastly behind me.

We followed a flock of streaky brown birds the size of dinner rolls as the grasses grew even taller on either side of us. Gulls circled low overhead. The roar of the sea crashing on the rocky shore grew louder.

I got glass on a bird—song sparrow, damn. I’ve already seen like a thousand song sparrows, and they had been unusually abundant on this trip as well. Not what I was here to see. But the boys…

The boys were splashing through the longest puddle the world has ever seen. Step by step they moved, holding hands, as Leo urged Xander to keep walking, but not too fast, because he didn’t want him to splash too much and get his pants wet.

My heart melted. I love these boys. I cannot believe how strong, and flexible, and curious they are. I think most parents would not have faulted me for letting them watch TV all day, but instead, I had dragged them out into this misty mucky park, and they were loving it. They had each other, and the grass blowing in the wind, and puddles filled with snails, and that was enough. It was enough for me too. In fact, it might be time to stow my binoculars under my raincoat and-

I saw another bird.

I hurried ahead, glancing back at my two sons as I grew ever closer to the bird. It flitted across the path in front of me, chirped, and I got eyes on a blue-gray bill, and orangish face, sitting about four feet up in a shrubby something or other on the right of the path. Nelson’s sparrow. Lifer!

I sighed a breath of relief, checked on the boys. They were fine.

There’s a lookout up ahead, I told them, let’s see what we can see.  

We continued along until we reached a break in the tall grasses. Here, we could see a rocky shore of black boulders lined with stripes of white crystal being battered by waves. In the distance, on formations of stone that would one day become the boulders and stones on this beach, Great Black-Backed Gulls soared overheard and Common Eiders swam amongst the crashing waves. I have seen a surf more violent than this, but never on a shore so desolate, in a fog, with nothing but the birds and my own sons to keep my heart warm against the cool mist that was turning into a light rain.

I looked back at my sons, eager to share the view of this place that might as well have been alien to a couple of kids born in central Texas, only to discover that Xander had just at that moment, fallen face-first into a puddle. He was soaked. Chest, legs, hands, face. All covered in mud, everything soaked through except for his raincoat, which was only dripping.

I raced back to him, scooped up my crying child, and wiped the mud out of his face. He calmed down, just as long as I held him, and I checked the map on my phone to see just how far we had come.

Too far, was the answer, as in we had already traversed more than half of the loop.

Nothing to do now but go forward.

Of course, that was when it began to rain in earnest.

No more misting of fog or whatever vocabulary for precipitation they have up here. Now it was rain.

I threw Xander over one shoulder, and Leo and I ran.

We made it back to the car thoroughly drenched, pausing only once when we found ourselves in a flock of American Goldfinches, but alas, no saltmarsh sparrow.

We got to the truck, got our wet clothes out (I had an entire change for Xander, because that’s how nature dads roll, especially on rainy days), and we had a snack.

And then, while we sat in the car, a ring-necked pheasant appeared and strolled by, not twenty feet in front of us. The birder in me knows that they are not from this continent, but the dad in me pointed out the bright red face, the green and white head the long golden tail, and my kids chirped that yes, they could see it! They could see it!