Just an Inkling

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E.A. Inkling

More than an inkling--one is inside

Summer seems scarcely coming as a stolid gray bank of clouds has claimed the horizon for weeks--June gloom as it's known around here. The waves fail to crash but draw themselves in and out listlessly. The bright bush sunflowers and mustard have dissolved into brittle postmodern sculptures. Yet, the migrating orioles call their sunny staccatos from branch to branch, the common yellowthroat reveals his black mask from behind the leaves and young ravens stir the wind with the flick of their fresh tails at the dull air. The Grog Six appear to revel in wonder at their new world, even forcing the seagulls to take note by pulling their tails.

Further along the beach from a promontory, I watched the solitary young Moro hold his alert gaze out to sea as a string of brown pelicans surged north.* He then looked down to the orange-red bills of the black oystercatchers scouring the rocks for barnacles. As his parents landed below him, he scratched his head and got back to work hammering his cliff art, sending rocks right and left and one right onto his mother's head. She shook it off gamely while the silent Moor only looked on. 

In the next stretch of beach, high in the cliff,  I finally got an Inkling. At last I saw an Inkling nestling, only one. It is not feathered out yet, tiny. I would guess that it is about a week old as all I could see was a naked pink head and beak, edged white. Edgar Allan Inkling seemed busy collecting mutes for disposal so perhaps there is more than one nestling. Mother Lenore, after feeding her little one, settled gently into the nest for further incubation. 

Across the road, I believe the Jumbo Jets did take off yesterday in flight training. I couldn't see them in or around their nest. This morning the three were striking even against the palm shadows with their lush coats of sable giving them an air of rich contentedness as they awaited breakfast-in-nest. And the shy Pips still keep good guard with each parent on either side of the cliff jutting out from their precious pipe family of two babes, as far as I can see. An inkling of a raven could "beguile any sad soul to smile."