Day 18.335: Work do

We had our office holiday party this afternoon. For the fourth or fifth year in a row we had this view:

It’s been quite windy for the last couple of days. Our drive to Boston was quite blustery and - although you can’t tell from the photo, the sea was being whipped up this afternoon. 

Of course the light didn’t last long and we left in the dark even though it was only around 5pm. 

Day 18.334: Drive in; movie

Exile #2 and I took a little road trip this evening to Cambridge MA to see a movie. Yes, we have cinemas significantly closer than that, but not one that was showing The Cure: The Show of a Lost World - a concert film of the launch concert for their 2025 album. They played the new album in full followed by three other sets. 31 songs and nearly three hours in total. It was great to see it on the big screen with some other fans. 

Day 18.333: Saturday's ocean sightings

Well, here - finally - are the off-shore bird sightings from Saturday morning.

Common loon

Red-necked grebe

Surf scoter

White-winged scoters

Mergansers (likely red-breasted)

Common eider

Black scoters

Harlequin ducks

The same group in flight

Red-breasted mergansers

Common mergansers

American black ducks

Canada geese

Long-tailed duck

He gave us a few chances to watch him in flight

And then landed quite obligingly

A second arrival caused some drama

"My tail is longer than yours!" or some such

White-winged scoter

Surf scoters

Great cormorant

Black guillemot

Common eider

Common eider

Day 18.332: Second concert

As I mentioned, we did not have to wait long for the second of E5N1’s college performances. This time Exile #3 joined us and we ran into two of E5N1’s old school friends (one still in high school and the other at the same college) who had come to see the performance. 

Today it was the Composers Showcase - the final performance for the class called Composers Ensemble which starts the semester with a group of student musicians and student composer/musicians but no music and gradually builds to this performance of all new pieces. 

E5N1 sang, played trumpet and even did some percussion  and the group played one of his compositions which was excellent.

The pieces were very varied - a lot of experimental atonal music, but also some jazz, a piece reminiscent of The Beatles and a show-ending prog rock number. E5N1’s was one of the more traditional-sounding pieces - no mean achievement in itself with this slightly curious assemblage of instruments.

Day 18.331: First concert

E5N1’s first public college performance was delayed by the storm last week but they were able to fit it in today and Exile #2 and I were there in the auditorium in the new arts building to experience it. E5N1 was in two of the choirs - the combined choir and the tenor/bass choir but all four combinations (including the treble choir and the selective chamber singers) were on wonderful form.

We don’t have long to wait for the next performance. 

Day 18.330: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #534

Exile #2 writes...

Inspired by the Festival of Trees at our local museum, we dug out the decorations, put on the Christmas playlist, and put up our own. We even managed the somewhat chilly job of putting lights onto our already snow-covered shrub. We couldn’t find the ones to go above the front door. Not until, that is, we realized they were still above the front door from last year. In typical Maine fashion, there was too much snow and ice around to think about getting them down until way past Christmas, by which point we’d switched them off and forgotten about them. They still seem to work, however, and as the snow has come early this year, it’s probably just as well Exile #1 didn’t need to go climbing up any ladders.

Day 18.329: Saturday morning in Kennebunkport

Our nature group investigated the coastline between Colony Beach and Cape Arundel in Kennebunkport this morning. It was cold and snowing lightly for most of our walk but we had a some great views of birds mostly on the flat-calm water off shore.

I'll save the ocean birds for another post, but here are some other photos from the morning.

Bald eagle (and an American crow) in the early morning light

Harbor seal

Hello!

Fly-by - likely from the same eagle

The Gulf of Maine was flat-calm near the mouth of the Kennebunk River today

Our group braving the elements

St. Ann's-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church

Song sparrow

Spouting Rock

House finch

Northern cardinal

House finch