Meg Evans

The killdeer nest by the boathouse, which I wrote about earlier this month, has unfortunately gotten its eggs eaten again. The birds only try twice per year, so they have moved on to wherever they go when it’s not nesting season. I’m hoping that their destination is somewhere peaceful, like the landscape shown in this image that I put on my art display this morning:

When I went rowing with my husband on Wednesday, we planned to do two 1K sprints in our double and then just paddle around and enjoy the river afterward. Boat traffic is supposed to keep to the right, so when we turned around after our first sprint, we crossed the river to stay on our proper side. We’d almost reached the end of our second sprint, getting up pretty good speed, when a quad (4-person sculling boat) wandered very far left of center and collided with us.

The quad wasn’t going very fast, thankfully; but we were, and one of the aluminum riggers on the quad struck my husband with enough force to snap the rigger clean off. He wasn’t seriously injured, just bruised—which was very fortunate, considering how hard the impact was. We also were lucky that our double was not damaged. Of course, the quad will be out of commission until a new rigger can be delivered.

Although my husband was still sore on Friday, we went rowing after work anyway, planning to just go slowly. When we took our boat down to the river, we heard a loud commotion going on with some mallards near the shore. A male duck was on his back in the water, moving his legs feebly. (With mallards, gender is obvious because the males have green heads.)

Another duck, very agitated, was quacking loudly and flapping all around. At first glance, I thought perhaps two male ducks had been fighting and the one on his back had gotten the worst of it. After we had rowed a lap, however, I looked more closely and saw that the quacking duck had a brown head and was therefore female. The duck lying on his back was no longer moving, but just floated there like—well, a dead duck.

By the time we rowed another lap, the carcass had floated into the weeds by the shore, and the female duck was no longer quacking or flapping. Instead, the poor thing was perched motionless on a nearby rock, silently grieving for her mate.

I found myself thinking that any day when our family members are still in the world with us, it’s a good day.

I mentioned in the comments to my post last Thursday that at the rowing club, a pair of killdeer make their nest every year on the gravel path between the boathouse and the dock. Whoever is first to notice the nest puts a traffic cone beside it, to make sure nobody steps on the eggs. The boathouse is located on parkland that is full of wildlife, however, and some small predator always eats the eggs before they can hatch.

The eggs got eaten again in early June, but the birds are valiantly trying once more. Their new nest is much closer to the boathouse. Probably because the gravel is thicker there, I’m guessing, and not because the predators are fewer. I took a photo that shows how the eggs match the gravel and are almost invisible.

It looks like an uncomfortable place to sit—but to each their own, I suppose. Everyone is hoping the birds will have better luck with the eggs this time!

Over the Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I rowed in the Dogwood Masters regatta in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  That’s our favorite place to row because it has perfectly straight, well-buoyed sprint lanes, and we like the Southern warmth after our chilly Ohio winters. Of course, we’re out of practice after not traveling for so long, but we much enjoyed getting back in the world again and seeing our friends (and competitors) from other rowing clubs.

I thought that I’d be much slower racing my single, but my time was only about ten seconds slower than in the 2019 regatta. My husband pointed out that there wasn’t as much current this year, which slowed everyone down by about ten seconds, so I hadn’t actually lost any speed.

The boat in the center of the photo is mine (yes, I know it looks tiny, but these boats are so long that it’s hard to get everything in the picture). I crossed the finish line second. Because there were two older women in the race (who are on the left of the photo, several boat lengths behind me), I didn’t get a medal after their age handicaps had been figured into the results. Still, it was a good day in the real world.