A Cape Cod Notebook

 No beast possesses such a lethargic, amorous progress as the horseshoe crab. On a recent day, Robert Finch found a pair of mating horseshoe crabs on the bank of the tidal creek.  The paired crabs had apparently been stranded by the outgoing tide only minutes before.  Attempting to help, Bob tossed the pair off the end of a jetty and into deeper water - and only to recognize the old truth that misplaced compassion and ignorant attempts to influence the direction of another’s life, however well-meant, are at best ineffective, and at worst, unintentionally harmful.

Spending the day with a group of birdwatchers from the Boston area on Chatham's South Beach, Robert Finch found his observational powers playing upon his human companions. What this group of earnest enthusiasts didn't pay attention to - clammers, natural history - was as noteworthy as what they did study: the birds, and, in at least one possibly romantic development, each other.

Audio essay is posted above.

The thesaurus lists over 80 different words for green, more than any other color. But Robert Finch believes this may still not be enough. At a time of year when many are rhapsodizing the flowers, Bob contemplates the richness and variety of leaf tones that nature crowds into the season.

Going ashore on Bird Island one morning 30 years ago, Robert Finch and two companions found 30 freshly killed Roseate terns - what amounted to one percent of the entire continental population. As the men collected bird corpses, they gradually pieced together a picture of the predator. It seemed most likely to have been a peregrine falcon, by sad irony another endangered species.

In May of 1984, two-thirds of the entire North American population of Roseate terns were believed to nest upon Bird Island, a small pile of glacial debris located in Buzzards Bay about a half-mile off the coast of Marion. The colony at Bird Island was long considered secure from predation. On A Cape Cod Notebook, Robert Finch recalls the morning when he and others made a painful discovery which shattered that presumption of safety.

Nature flourishes even in unlovely locations. On A Cape Cod Notebook, Robert Finch peeks behind Wellfleet Center where, amid dumpsters and bags of recycling, grows an immense black willow. It rises over 60 feet into the air. A true wild native, it is there not because of human tending and protection, but in spite of the lack of it – a king in an environmental slum.

Every six hours a 6-foot-diameter weather balloon is launched from Truro to gather data on the atmosphere. On spring evenings, a balloon's release may be accompanied by the flights of woodcocks engaged in their distinctive rocket-like mating display. On A Cape Cod Notebook, writer Robert Finch ponders the curious juxtaposition: helium-filled science balloons and avian courtship behavior.

Audio essay posted above.

Here's a video of a weather balloon launch at the Cape Cod National Seashore:

The high percentage of seniors on Cape Cod can make personal indications of aging easier to ignore. On A Cape Cod Notebook, Robert Finch tallies some of the signposts of aging, including failings of the body, and encounters with professional figures younger than appears seemly. Recently, he was struck by a fresh age-related realization: the newly elected Pope might just be his last.

Audio essay posted above.

Between two spasms of violence that gripped the nation's attention - the Marathon Bombing and the subsequent manhunt that shut down Boston - Robert Finch found himself seated on a bench in Harvard Yard reading poetry. It was only later, looking back, that he perceived how unknowingly that pretty spring day embodied the eye of a storm. 

Audio essay posted above.

Scattered groups of migratory herring – pink, dark-finned shapes, curved and elusive in the water - appear no more than wisps of current that circle and disappear with each shimmer of light. On A Cape Cod Notebook, Robert Finch notes that these fish, also known as alewives, represent visual camouflage of the highest order. They become an integrated part of the stream as they proceed to spawning ponds each spring.