According to the Canadian Ice Service, an enormous chunk of ice, 260 sq.km. in size, separated from a glacier in Greenland last week, becoming the most spectacular event to take place in the Arctic in 50 years. The broken piece will eventually fragment and inevitably melt in warmer waters, contributing to rising sea levels worldwide.
The first 6 months of 2010 were the hottest globally on record. [See Ice Island Breaks Off Glacier at the Weather Network].
It’s dawn and the sandpipers are gathering at low tide along the shoreline in the marsh. They’re so intent on eating that they take no notice of humans next to them on the trail. Their gentle piping calls to one another are a fitting accompaniment to the rising sun.
Sandpipers have always seemed to me to be among the most delicate of the shore birds. Like the endangered plovers, their fleeting movements, whether in flight or along the edge of the water, never give me a chance to appreciate them for long. I wonder if they’ll be affected by the oil spill down south when they migrate this fall. [See BP oil spill could affect Maritime plovers at CBC].
Further along the shore, growing near the strandlines, statice is beginning to bloom. It seems odd that such a delicate flower chooses to grow here along such a rugged shoreline. Yet it manages to survive, despite winter’s stormy waters and winds.
When I think of rising sea levels, I wonder how wildlife such as sandpipers and statice will be affected in the years to come. Will they simply disappear? Or will they find a way to cling to life beyond the present shoreline?
This is a beautiful planet and not at all fragile. Earth can withstand significant volcanic eruptions, tectonic cataclysms, and ice ages. But this canny, intelligent, prolific, and extremely self-centered human creature has proven himself capable of more destruction of life than Mother Nature herself…. We’ve got to be stopped.
~ Michael L. Fischer
Lovely photos, Amy….I used to grow statice and had forgotten about it. It’s beautimous in its natural silvery environment. And the quote by Fischer is so true!
Cindy Lou, I’m impressed that you were able to grow statice. It is beautiful. The plants I found are in protected environments where it’s illegal to pick them. I often wondered if their popularity in dried flower arrangements a few years ago would put them at risk of being overharvested.
Amazing photos especially the first one 🙂
http://ahechoes.wordpress.com
I hope the oil spill won’t be any trouble to the Sandpipers. It broke my heart seeing the wildlife covered in oil. Although the clean up seems to be going pretty well and gulf coast shrimp will be easily available again soon!
Me too Tulum 😦 Thanks for your comment.
Thank you for the pictures and your pondering.
Crystal
http://www.crystalspins.com
Thank you for sharing these images, and the quote as well. We DO need to be stopped, don’t we? Yikes…
Beautiful pictures!
It puts things into perspective, don’t it? Congrats on FP!
That huge ice chunk breaking off was a momentous event and yet we didn’t hear all that much about it.
Every day we delay to take action against human-induced climate change, the more difficult/impossible it will become. There don’t seem to be many politicians in the world willing to take effective but difficult action. They all waffle, promise change for 2050 and leave the mess for successors to deal with. Shame, shame, shame!
http://www.wordsfromawoman.wordpress.com
Wordsfromawoman, I too was surprised that news of the ice break-off didn’t get more attention. Since so much of the world’s population is situated along shorelines, you’d think it would be more newsworthy.
Is statice native to your area? I ask because the rounded clumps look like one of our invasive aliens, baby’s-breath, another popular addition to flower arrangements.
Your images are always lovely.
Pamela, I do believe that this type of statice, aka sea lavender, is native to the eastern shore of North America. I love baby’s breath but it’s not the same. I wish I could have managed a close-up, but there was a barrier of poison ivy between me and the statice this morning.
Glad you liked the photos 🙂
And here in India, the mansoon rainfall that is our lifeline is unwinding in spurts…no longer even and has overshot the whole load into Pakistan.
Yeah Amy, we must be saved from ourselves.
Swaps, I saw that on the news yesterday. What a shame.
These are quite beautiful, especially the sandpiper. I don’t know what to think of us as a species. Perhaps we’re like zebra mussels, proliferating to the point of self-extinction. But we have plenty of competitors, and in the grand scheme of things, might well be an experiment. The Prime Investigator might be having second thoughts about us.
Gerry, we are indeed a strange lot. If I was the P.I. I’d have second thoughts too.
“Amen” is all I can add Amy-Lynn.
Maybe Mother Nature is fighting back. The ‘ice island’ is predicted to move into the Nares Straight where I believe Greenland is currently placing off shore drilling rigs. Hopefully it will get there before they’ve struck oil and scare them off.
missusk76, that would be quite a turn of events. Nature does have mysterious ways of keeping things in balance.
Love the pictures. Reading your post, I felt calm and relaxed…thank you! LB
A sad and beautiful post. There is still time?
Memorizing Nature, I hope there is still time… a dramatic eleventh hour change of heart would be welcome.
The photos are spectacular!!
[…] The Delicate Shore (via Flandrum Hill) 14/08/2010 shfwe Leave a comment Go to comments According to the Canadian Ice Service, an enormous chunk of ice, 260 sq.km. in size, separated from a glacier in Greenland last week, becoming the most spectacular event to take place in the Arctic in 50 years. The broken piece will eventually fragment and inevitably melt in warmer waters, contributing to rising sea levels worldwide. The first 6 months of 2010 were the hottest globally on record. [See Ice Island Breaks Off Glacier at the Weather … Read More […]
Hello, a hug from Italy 🙂
🙂
I loved the pics.
Congrats!
A wonderful picture and a welcome reminder of how precious an unspoilt landscape is.
Breath taking pictures…I just love how beautiful the natural wild is 🙂
Lovely post, photos and sobering thoughts, Amy-Lynn. We all need to remember…
The sandpiper picture is really wonderful. Thinking that we don’t have statice here in the Upper Peninsula, but I’ve seen mosses that look similar??
Kathy, it’s not really moss-like. I’ll have to send you a sprig.
Great pictures. Love your post. We all need to be reminded, especially on a daily basis how much damage we are doing to all living things.
Speaking of plovers, I live along the shores of New Brunswick (Canada) where we have nesting Piping plovers.
I have never suceeded in seeing one. They are very rare. Place like Kouchibouguac National Park of Canada only count like 2 to 6 nests per year if I remember things right.
gallantecology, I’ve seen some plovers in the past year. They are dear little birds. Their habitat is so fragile. Twenty some years ago snow fences were put up at a local beach here to protect their ground nests from dogs and foxes. This hasn’t been done locally since then, though I have seen the plovers on other NS beaches where signs warn walkers to stay away from nesting areas.
I really like the post, but don’t overestimate man or underestimate the Earth. Course corrections are inevitable. I wouldn’t pull out any hair over the fate of the planet.
The Ignorant Bystander, like coyotes, one thing we humans do have going for us is our ability to adapt. Unfortunately, so many other species don’t have this skill.
Very beautiful and of course heartbreakingly sad!! This is a sliver of the massive crisis facing the earth. Not just because of Global Warming but on so many other levels — No trees, too much plastic, rainforests dwindling. It is a tragedy and it is hard to know how to address all the crises at once. All I can offer is a cry:
Mt poem: Earth Spirit –
Radhika, there’s too much to address all at once. All we can do is just our part in our corner of the world and hope that others will do the same.
Lovely photos. The world is changing…
I have no reason to be over-optimistic …
it’s a line from l’opéra de Who
(Do you think ’21 is gonna be a good year ?)
great pics
Lovely pictures and beautiful detailing
I love the pictures, they are just gorgeous! The birds are too cute, and it’s all very serene and pretty.
I agree–we’ve got to be stopped–before we kill off everything else and all that’s left is US wallowing in our ignorant superiority. I wonder what becomes of biological organism that destroys its own habitat? Hmm. It ‘dies’.
Enjoyed your choice of photos and how you use the birds to raise awareness of seriousl issues.
Ditto on your remarks about why the breaking of this HUGE chunk of ‘ice’ didn’t get more news coverage. Perhaps because it confirms that the worst is undwerway? The refusal of many to confront reality? Ignoring it won’t change the reality though, will it?
Thank you.
47whitebuffalo, while wondering about why the news didn’t spread, I thought that maybe there are just so many disastrous events taking place these days that everyone is over and underwhelmed.
beautiful pictures, excellent post.
These pictures are beautiful! I love the color in the first pic. Thank you for putting them up!! 🙂
Great pictures of Canada! I’ve always wanted visit Canada, so these pictures helped me to see what I have yet to see!
http://polkadotsock.wordpress.com
Memorizing pictures!!
Yes, I agree beautiful pics. I DO think the WORLD and PEOPLE are OVER whelmed with doom & gloom . . .unfortunately life goes on & yes we people ARE selfish & self-destructive -it’s no secret. . .Good Post!!
evelyngarone.com
Agreed, lovely pictures. I used to work in a place where there is a swampy area and it is beautiful.
Very nice photographs . It is mind boggling to see these pictures
I love freshly pressed because it means you get to see posts and blogs you’d never normally find.
Beautiful pics and a nice short entry that gives so much to think about.
That’s true Rhiella. Freshly Pressed is quite a treasure chest of refreshing new ideas and images. We have such a tendency to reach for the same things over and over again. Glad you liked the post 🙂
The photos you chose for this are wonderful and so is that quote at the very end! Excellent choices and excellent message. Hopefully we humans can figure out a way to be less destructive and fast! Thanks for the above average content!
Thank you ambersibrown. The message is one that needs to be communicated over and over again.
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