Gulls fill the sky and nest by the thousands in astonishing profusion, the ground perilously thick with straw-wrapped eggs clothed in brown speckles. The windward side of the island rings with the keening of terns, arrowed paragons of flight. There are many small birds too, but they've been held close to the earth, perching against the unrelenting pressure of the gale. Goldfinches and robins flit across the tops of the weeds, and red-winged blackbirds haunt the shrubs and the wild unpruned apples. Small clouds of starlings puff out of the grass, slide leeward and settle again, unable to make other progress.
Grackles choose discretion, and hop amongst the milkweeds.
Above it all across the harbour are the towers of the city, the buildings they supplanted making up the earth under our feet.