As hard as it is for me to admit, it's very likely that this is my last post as CWP Director. Piping plovers are beginning to arrive, seasonal staff are coming on board, and the first American oystercatchers have been in MA for at least a week now. But rather than gearing up for my sixth field season with the Coastal Watebird Program, I am retreating... thinking about how different my spring and summer will look. There has been a lot to do to get to this point (budgets, proposals, reports), but while I'd normally be working with Ellen and sanctuary directors to think about where and when we're going to erect fencing, how much gear we need to buy, who we're hiring and where they're going to live, now my thought process is starting to be very different. There's a piece of my brain that's stepping away from the stress to actually imagine the blank slate that is my upcoming spring and summer. I'm even letting myself think about the prospect of having time to go birding and to the beach... just for FUN!
Trusty AmeriCorps Cape Cod members helping with early season fencing last year on Dead Neck Sampsons Island... soon they'll be back - thank you, AmeriCorps!
I've been told not to use the cliched phrase 'mixed emotions,' but I do have a swirling pot of feelings in the pit of my stomach at the prospect of leaving. A glimmer of excitement at the thought of a true summer stretching before me as it hasn't since I was a kid. A pang of regret that I'm giving up my 'dream job' to focus on raising my own chick. A surge of panic that I'm abandoning what has been the most all-consuming, rewarding, and challenging job I'm sure I'll probably ever have. A twinge of fear that the people I'm leaving behind will be sucked into a stressful vortex of the field season and that I'm being selfish by sneaking away at this inopportune time.
But I know that they will carry on without me, just as they did when I had my daughter mid-tern census last June. Soon there will be American oystercatchers scraping, piping plovers high-stepping, and the mad scramble to erect protective fencing so that the first eggs (early April!) don't get stepped on and birds aren't scared off from their prospective nesting grounds. The cycle will continue, and the recovery of these species will go on without me. Like so many mothers, I felt that I couldn't let a moment of my own daughter's early life go on without me, and I'm lucky enough (or delusional enough) that I think we can make it work without two full incomes, at least for a little while.
My daughter and walking in the woods behind our house. We'll be doing lots of this on beaches this spring/summer.
A piping plover chick will fledge in about 0.4% of the time it takes a human to "fledge" (that is, assuming they leave the nest at age 18... a big assumption, especially with the parental commitment that college can entail!). Our human young are altricial in the extreme (in bird terms - the helpless, naked, "feed me" type of baby bird), while piping plovers are the epitome of precocial (the chicks can walk miles within a few days of life and find all of their own food!). This extreme neediness of my own chick was definitely a factor in my decision to focus on her rather than my other "offspring" and my career (although this job is so much more than just a 'career').
Although it was a tough choice, I can rest easy knowing that my successor has much bigger shoes than mine. When I found out she had accepted, a breathed a huge sigh of relief - the birds, all of our hard work to build the program, everything - will be in very very good hands. I can barely believe it, but Kathy Parsons is the "new me." I can think of no one more incredibly qualified, and I'm humbled even to hold the same position as she. She's the incoming President of the Waterbirds Society, has over 20 years of experience at Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences (a great partner on our recent American oystercatcher work), and is pretty much the person that everyone in this region thinks of when they think waterbirds - especially wading birds (herons and egrets). She has done some fascinating research on these birds over the years, and I am so excited that she brings her dedication, perspective and devotion to coastal bird conservation to Mass Audubon.
I want to extend my thanks to Mass Audubon for giving me the opportunity to do this work for the past nearly 5 years, and most especially to Ellen, the Assistant Director, who is the heart and soul of the Coastal Waterbird Program, and from whom I learned everything I know about piping plovers, and so much more. I'm not saying goodbye... just "see you on the beach."
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