Post 71-The Killing Post

                                           

                                                         Photos by Kim Zahan of the post in the marsh, Ocean City, NJ

                                                Contact this blog if interested in contacting K. Zahan for more nature photos

            This is Easter weekend and we’re down the shore in Ocean City, NJ.  While it may look like spring outside, it doesn’t feel like it. I just returned from the local Starbucks to get some blueberry muffins and the temperature is only in the high 30s at 7:30AM. While it doesn’t seem like it today, Easter down here is almost like the unofficial start of spring, especially when it is this early.  Lots of families celebrate this sacred holiday by returning to their favorite vacation site each spring to kick off the new, forthcoming summer. Memories are waiting to be made, but only after people go to church wearing a coat or jacket and dream of the warmer weather to, hopefully, come soon.

            Ocean City’s prides itself on being “America’s Greatest Family Resort.” It has one of the best boardwalks on the Jersey Shore, lots of beaches and a state park with several miles of unobstructed beach and dune structure, a terrific downtown shopping area, and alcohol is not for sale on the island. Since it is so flat, bicycles in the summer are one of the main modes of transportation. (For older readers, remember when we were kids and  those big tires that were on the Cadillac of bicycles, the Schwinn Phantom? That style of bike is everywhere down here.)

            Because last night was a full moon, the high tide is higher than normal and the low, lower. Right now it is almost high tide, and the little creeks that wander throughout the marsh are spilling their banks of the incoming, still cold, bay water. The weathered section of someone’s wooden, dock, catwalk is now afloat on the incoming tide. It tore loose during a previous storm and floated into our marsh as so much flotsam and has remained as an eyesore since that time.  But now, a soon-to-be-nesting pair of Mallards are sitting on it warming in what little sun there is.  

            The marsh is brown due to the dead grasses, matted down from a winter of icy high tides and snow from various nor’easters that pounded the East Coast over the past several months. At the end of the marsh, right next to a low tide, mud flat and the bay, is an Osprey nest. While yellow daffodils and exploding masses of forsythia are sure signs of spring, so is the return of the Ospreys to the New Jersey coast.  For those of us fortunate enough to live close to the marsh, seeing Ospreys return to their nest is a welcome site. The nest is a man made structure that initially was inhabited by a lone Osprey about  ten or so years ago. For the first couple of years, there was just one bird. Then one spring a second showed up and also took up residence. Apparently, they were male and female because after three or four years, the first babies were born. (Ospreys mate for life.) And since that time, every year at least one if not two babies have been born.

            Let me digress for a moment. Perhaps some of you have heard of Rachael Carson, if not read her influential work, The Silent Spring, published in September 1962. Her book was met with fierce opposition from the chemical industry because she exposed what synthetic chemicals were doing to the environment and, among other things, the wide spread death of birds. The Silent Spring kick-started the environmental movement in America that in all likelihood began in 1928 with Henry Beston’s book about Cape Cod’s great beach, called The Outermost House. (A note about Beston’s book...for the past six to eight years, I have read this book at least every other winter.)  Among other things, Carson’s research into why birds were dying revealed a connection between cancer in humans and the use of many of the chemical pesticides. (This whole thing makes a fascinating, yet scary read for anyone interested not only in environmental things but the relationship between the natural environment and today the foods we eat, the things we drink and the health products we put on to look better or smell good. Rachael Carson died at age 56...of cancer.)

            A further digression....I began boating on Chesapeake Bay in the mid 1960s. Ospreys, a fish hunting and eating bird that looks similar to the American Bald Eagle, but is a bit smaller and without the white head and with some black feathers, was disappearing due to DDT thinning their egg shells. By the early 1970s when I returned to the Chesapeake, Ospreys had all but disappeared. But thanks to the courageous work of Rachael Carson and then others, chemical companies in time were forced to make changes. Today Ospreys number in the thousands.   

            It’s now evening, and the sun set about an hour ago. The wind has picked up and is blowing from the southeast. Snow!!! is predicted for Easter night. I just lit a fire in the fireplace. When the wind blows at about 15 miles per hour and higher from the southeast, it finds a hole in the caulk that surrounds the living room slider and it causes a whistle; one that is quite loud.  I suppose some people would probably find that increasing and diminishing whistling sound annoying, but to me it adds to the atmosphere of a place near the ocean.

            But back to “our Ospreys.” They have built a nest on the manmade structure at the end of the marsh. An Osprey nest looks like a hodgepodge pile of sticks, which they line with moss, marsh grass, or even plastic bags. In fact, earlier this morning when I first began writing, one of the birds flew past our window with about a three foot length of marsh grass trailing from its talons. They often sit on the nest, but when it’s time to eat they take off and start flying over the water near their nest looking for fish. (Other names for the Osprey are fish hawk, river hawk, or sea hawk.) They will fly up to 100 feet in the air. They have excellent eyesight and once a fish is spotted, they dive with their pinpoint sharp talons extended to catch their prey.  Sometimes they will take the fish back to the nest to tear apart and eat, but sometimes they fly back into the marsh, right in front of our deck to eat it on a post that stands upright in the marsh.

 The Osprey with a large flounder, eating it on the post.

            I really get jealous of those birds. They catch one or two fish a day, sometimes flounder or other types that are nearly as long as they are, and an Osprey can be up to 24inches long.  While I haven’t fished much, whenever I do I usually get skunked, while the birds keep on catching. So sometimes they bring the fish back to the post right off our deck. The post is a weathered 4x4” (or a 5x5”) piece of wood. There is no telling how long that post has been out there, about 50 yards away from our balcony. Someone pounded it into the marsh for some reason and it stands upright about 3 ½ to 4 feet high.

            The Osprey land on the post with the fish in its talons. We sometimes refer to it as the “killing post.” Many times they’ll wait before beginning to tear at the fish. As they sit a scene from the movie “Finding Nemo” develops. Seagulls come from out of nowhere and land in the marsh around the base of the post. As the Osprey picks at the fish, sometimes bloody pieces land in the grass and the gulls go after the scraps. Remember the gulls in the movie who kept squawking, “Mine.” “Mine.” This is what it reminds me of.  But because it is Easter weekend, I am reminded of something else.

 

Easter morning at 6:33AM

 

            In the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 24 are these words of Jesus. He said of His return,

²⁷ For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.  NKJV

            Sunrises at the shore can be both beautiful and unique at the same time. Carol is sitting by the fire, reading her Bible and looking out the east facing window. She said, “The sky looks like winter.” Jesus will again be seen, but this time it will be when He comes in the eastern sky. The current sky is all clouds of grey, with but one exception. There is a narrow, clear-of-clouds section, just above the horizon and below the dark cloud line. Although the sun itself has not yet appeared, its early light has momentarily turned that narrow strip an almost blood red. 

            It was a killing post. The shape of the piece of wood on which Jesus was crucified, according to some, cannot be exactly described. It could have been a rough wooden pole or a cross in the traditional sense that many Christians picture when the word is mentioned. But whatever it was, nails were driven through Him and into that rough beam of wood. His blood would have run from that piercing. Then after Jesus died and soldier pierced His side, His red blood again would have run down. Why?

3 We despised him and rejected him;
    he endured suffering and pain.
No one would even look at him—
    we ignored him as if he were nothing.

4 “But he endured the suffering that should have been ours,
    the pain that we should have borne.
All the while we thought that his suffering
    was punishment sent by God.
5 But because of our sins he was wounded,
    beaten because of the evil we did.
We are healed by the punishment he suffered,
    made whole by the blows he received. Isaiah 53:3-5 (GNT)

            There is a somewhat derogatory term in Christian circles that refers to the people who only attend church on the high holidays, such as Christmas and Easter. They are sometimes called “C & E Christians.”  But that is the thing about Easter, it’s not just a high church holiday. The world celebrates this day as the day that Jesus died for us all: those who regularly attend church; those who only periodically attend church; those who never attend church; or those who despise and reject Him. Why?

(Because) all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23 (KJV)

 

²³ (And) the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NASB)

 

¹¹...remember what you were in the past. ¹² At that time you were apart from Christ. You were foreigners and did not belong to God's chosen people. You had no part in the covenants, which were based on God's promises to his people, and you lived in this world without hope and without God. ¹³ But now, in union with Christ Jesus you, who used to be far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For Christ himself has brought us peace....Ephesians 2:11-14 (GNT)      

            In closing, while on the one hand the message of Easter is quite simple—we all sinned so we’ll be forever separated from God but for God’s son Jesus, who died for us to take away our sins—on the other hand, this message has been spoken for a couple thousand years and predicted hundreds of years before that....and people still harden their hearts and turn away. Mankind is still represented by the two thieves who died with Him. One accepted the offer of salvation, while the other hardened his heart. This Easter season, please don’t be like the one who hardened his heart but be like one of whom The Message Bible says this:

^18-20 “Come. Sit down. Let’s argue this out.”
    This is God’s Message:
“If your sins are blood-red,
    they’ll be snow-white.
If they’re red like crimson,
    they’ll be like wool.
If you’ll willingly obey,
    you’ll feast like kings.
But if you’re willful and stubborn,
    you’ll die like dogs.”
That’s right. God says so.  Isaiah 1:18-20 (MSG)