Fighting the wind, it flaps and swerves wildly, then quickly drops down again. But the dune grass holds my attention. Waving and bowing in the wind, it shines a color that is just short of golden, polished by a whole winter of storms. I try to remember what this grass looks like in summer, and decide it is more appealing, somehow more fitting, with its appearance right now. At a break in the dunes, I wander over for a look at a large saltwater pond.
Whitecaps are on that water, too, but the pond is where the other birds are seeking shelter.
A flock of black ducks. A dozens cormorants hunched on rocks. A pair of hooded mergansers. A small flock of the elegant red-breasted mergansers. In a little cove are a pair of dark and white birds that appear to be goldeneye ducks, along with two other ducks that I used to know as baldpates, for the male's white forehead.