The wind was wild, running through my hair, my eyes, pushing back against my body with every step I took. Birders were out in high gum boots and binoculars and small stained cotton bags. They worked - luring migrating birds (and me) with broadcasted chirps in the thicket, catching them gently in expert hands, then pressing a silver bracelet around one spindly leg, measuring their wingspan and letting them loose through a hatch to continue south for the winter. There was such delicacy and precision in their handling and holding of these small, tired creatures.
These encounters have altered my thinking on this island and it's reason, its purpose. When I arrived I thought of this place as an outpost, a piece of isolated rock cast out in the midst of the sea. It now seems entirely more complex - as an integral connection piece between pathways, a place that is possible to know very well within a vast time scale, a collection of narratives all located specifically within the watery perimeter.
