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Column: An urge to merge

DON BINDLER
DON BINDLER

We are what you could call grizzled beachcombers.

We’ve lived on both coasts, stalked beaches from Maine to the Caribbean, the San Juan Islands off Vancouver to the tip of Mexico. The Mediterranean. Ushuaia, the “end of the world,” in Tierra del Fuego. The Falkland Islands (penguins only need apply).

Orleans, Massachusetts and its grand Nauset Beach? Been there countless times to visit family — in every season. We are fond of some of the beaches in the Hamptons, particularly Sagg Main and Rhode Island has some little-known gems.

But Nauset, like so many ingredients in the pungent Cape Cod enchantment stew, has its particular charm. So last Thanksgiving, the assembled family group caravanned to the noble old beach on a chilly gray day with rain clouds hovering in the vicinity. In other words, perfect Cape Cod weather.

The gun-metal waves performed their usual hypnotic act and we could not turn away. Some of us were paying more attention than others, alert for the possible sea mammal passing by. These were mostly the women, some of whom had undergone cataract surgery, which gave them enormous advantage over the men, who, as usual, lacked sufficient concentration, cataracts or not, and let their minds wander to other best-undisclosed matters.

The sightings began in short order. “There, a whale!” Beverly cried. I followed her pointed arm and saw nothing. Soon seals were discovered. I couldn’t quite make them out either. Then more whales. Then more seals. I peered intensely and saw only undulating gun metal. I was chided for my literal lack of vision and did what any victim of such derision would do: I excitedly pointed out to sea to a nonexistent whale. Sure enough, most but not all saw something in that patch of gun metal.

To keep up, I spotted a nonexistent seal, but attracted fewer validators. They smelled a ruse but I never ‘fessed up. I stopped at one “whale” and one “seal” as the others’ sightings poured in. Never saw a one of them.

Someone (probably me, bored with the whale watch) looked to the sky. To the north there was something winging its way toward us, a thin black line at first, then a slightly wavy black line and then a classic V overhead of migrating ducks or geese or some such winged creatures making their way to their winter Cancun of choice. It was the first of 10 or so groups that were heading along the Atlantic Flyway, that enormous funnel filled with all manner of south-traveling avian species.

We had all seen migrating birds many times before. But this majestic procession of formations was mesmerizing. Each was different.

There were formations that had momentarily become malformed, with stragglers urgently flapping to get into place; small groups of a half dozen that had lost touch with their main regiment or were determined to make the trip as a commando squadron; large groups in perfect alignment performing an expert change in lead flyer; groups with one bird refusing to fit in; an occasional lonely group of three, out of sync and perhaps out of luck.

Scientists are still learning about these massive migrations and the more they know, the more they are dumbfounded about the precise planning and unerring success of these semi-annual journeys. Recently, according The New York Times, a group of ornithologists studying cuckoos near Beijing wanted to find out where they wintered. They figured Southeast Asia.

But no, they traveled to India to recuperate and fatten up on grubs. One cuckoo named Skybomb, with a tracking sensor embedded, surprised the scientists by heading for Africa, over the Indian Ocean. Flying at 2,600 feet, Skybomb made it to the coast of Somalia in about three days, making the 2,300-mile trip from India nonstop in an amazing straight line. He then promptly flew another 190 miles to zero in on a rainy grub-filled haven that he had mysteriously intuited.

We wondered: What stories were carried aloft by the birds we saw that day? Was the trek viewed as fun? Something grudgingly endured? More likely something whose time simply had come and they were carried away by an urge they were powerless to resist or understand. Probably not fun, but surely a bonding experience that a squad of Navy Seals could appreciate.

We watched them in awe and felt that as humans we are not very special compared to this magnificent, questing journey unfolding above us. Yes, ATMs and dating apps, quantum physics and cheeseburgers, but nothing like this.

We wondered: What in the world are they thinking when they look at our small group of earthlings tethered so tightly to the planet’s surface, staring at them so intently? It may not be pity exactly. But I’d bet it’s something pretty close.