Coming home, the Black Skimmers have begun their return to the south end of Wrightsville Beach. Black Skimmers are found year round in South America and along the Gulf Coast, and they come to Wrightsville Beach each summer to breed. I counted 52 of them this morning flying over Masonboro Inlet and into the dunes. NC Audubon protects this area and trains volunteers to be Bird Stewards, educating beach goers about the birds and protecting the nesting area. At the end of March, we erected a posting around the nesting area to create a protected home for the birds, and during April, they have begun to arrive, along with Oystercatchers, Least Terns and Common Terns. The Black Skimmers are my favorite. Around dusk and dawn, they can be seen dragging their lower beak through the water to catch fish.
This morning, I heard them coming home. Their call is like a loud barking sound. Famed ornithologist R.C. Murphy called them “unworldly…aerial beagles.” I heard the barking and looked out over the inlet to see about 24 of them flying in at once and land in the dunes. Nothing gets me as excited lately as the sound and sight of these birds. There’s something magical, something that evokes a childlike sense of awe and wonder in me when I see these birds coming back to the same place that they have coming home to year after year to nest.
Noah Strycker, in The Thing With Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human, writes that birds navigate and can find their way home to familiar places based on visual landmarks, the sun and stars, sense of smell, magnetic fields, polarized light, echolocation and infrasound.
I encountered the colony one evening last spring while searching for answers about whether to try to make this area my home. Feeling frustrated with my ongoing ambivalence, I asked for a sign about whether I should stay. Within two minutes, I rounded a corner and saw the colony of nesting birds, and this spring, I’m here waiting for their return.
Mindful Journaling prompts: What makes a place home? What creates a sense of being at home? Is home a momentary internal state of body, heart and mind brought about by being fully present in the moment with the sight and sound of these birds? Or is home a place and the other people who inhabit it?
Lately I’m finding that home is the sight and sound of Black Skimmers. Home is the feel of Eos’ warm little body curled up in my arms. Home is connecting with Nature, being fully present in the moment, taking in a little bit of nature therapy.
Jen Johnson is a mindfulness teacher, coach, and therapist teaching meditation for healing, creativity, and resilience. Sign up for Jen Johnson’s email list to receive mindfulness in your inbox.