Chapter 5: Winds Blowing Seaward It’s the mullet who are moving now, “excited by the change in wind.” They “began to seek the deeper waters which held the stored warmth of the sun.” (p. 53) Certainly, I would do the same. Poor humans try to net the mullet, but many escape in the process. Their…
Slow Reading: Under the Sea-Wind, Day 5
Chapter 4: Summer’s End It’s September, and the sanderlings are back at Ship’s Shoal in North Carolina, along with eels, shad, shrimp, and mullet. Named characters include Pandion, the fish hawk (an osprey), and White Tip, a bald eagle. The fish, too, are being called to migrate. “On a day when the full harvest moon…
Slow Reading: Under the Sea-Wind, Day 3 & 4
Chapter Three: Arctic Rendezvous We follow sanderlings to the Arctic, encounter a killing snow storm, meet new named characters, watch Silverbar build a nest and protect her chicks from predators, and observe the start of the migration south. Named characters include Silverbar, a sanderling; Uhvinguk, a lemming mouse; Ookpik, a male snowy owl; Blackfoot, an…
Slow Reading: Under the Sea-Wind, Day 2
Chapter Two: Spring Flight Carson’s chapters are like detailed paintings. How can I enter them? I am not sure where to focus, and sometimes I lose track of the setting. Slow reading allows me to find the information I need to comprehend the whole. Setting: 24 hours on the beach on Ship’s Shoal, a barrier…
Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea-Wind, Day 1
Book I: Edge of the Sea. Chapter 1: Flood Tide. So many characters! But unlike Dickens’ Bleak House, I won’t find a list of them in Wikipedia. Rynchops, the black skimmer, is the only named living creature, though Rat makes an appearance. Rynchops is the first part of the black skimmer’s scientific name, Rynchops niger….