Down three flights of stairs, a quick sixty-eight steps across the yard, and I arrived at the edge of the vacant lot.  Often while on vacation at my timeshare I had walked by this lot usually eager to get to the beach and had paid scant attention to what by all appearances was simply an overgrown and neglected patch of property.

Then two days ago on my way to a beach walk I heard faint seet-seet-seet calls, turned and spotted three small birds flying over and then dropping down into the vacant lot.  Curious, I stepped to the edge of the lot and was surprised to look down into a bowl-like sand dune edged with thick brush.

Merlin Sound ID identified the calls as yellow-rumped warblers.  Scanning the shrubs with binoculars I caught a confirming view of three small, active, brownish birds, with the distinctive bright yellow patch above the tail, the field mark that gives this warbler its common name of “butter butt.”

Satisfied with the identification I continued on my way to the beach.  Yet an impression of the lot lingered in my mind, some sense that this vacant, forgotten lot was a place of vibrant life. The impression grew into curiosity, into questions, and finally evolved into a call to go to the lot, to conduct an hour long sit spot, to explore this tiny chunk of nature. 

Conditions

First light peeked through the window on the last day of my timeshare week.  Now or never I thought.  I was reluctant to get out of a warm comfortable bed before sunrise, but over time I had learned some things about overcoming inertia.  I knew it was important to heed the call of intuition.  I knew if I didn’t explore this place that I would regret it.  And I had an agenda.  I wanted to confirm that opportunities for nature connection were available in nearby and even neglected spaces.

After a quick cup hot coffee, I layered up, grabbed a boat cushion as I had no camp stool, walked to the lot, entered, sat down, settled in, and began to engage in sensory awareness.

Above me a gray dome of clouds.  A chilly steady, strong, gusty northeast wind made the 64 degrees feel colder. The wind whooshed by my ears, rattled the stems of the dune grasses and carried the sounds and hectic energy of the morning traffic on Fort Macon Road.

In front of me I viewed a bowl of sandy terrain covered with slender grasses, bright yellow wildflowers and even a low growing cactus plant.  Extending from the base of the bowl grew bushes that in turn were edged by dark green taller bushes and trees.  Past the rim of the bowl stood a row of beach homes and then a vast gray sky that extended out over the Atlantic Ocean.

I notice the faint impression of a trail that coursed diagonally down and across the dune.  Some animals, maybe rabbits or raccoons had made and traversed this trail.  This was I realized a place of life, a community of plants, birds and animals.  I began to feel as if I was sitting inside a life-sized terrarium.

From behind, to the left, and from the bushes in the hollow ahead I heard the harsh, emphatic chack, chack, chack calls of three mockingbirds, seemingly egging each other on, taking their job as the morning sentinels seriously.  Further away came the wreeet, wreeet, wreeet calls of a Carolina wren and from somewhere back on the timeshare property I heard the cheerful chirp, shillip song of house sparrows. 

Design

Settling my gaze on the nearby sand I noticed that the surface was dimpled by rain drops that had fallen overnight. I studied the blades of beach grass emerging from the sand, slender, flat, slightly waxy surfaces, green, moist and growing at the base, tan to withered brown at the top. This plant, American Beachgrass, was, I learned later, the ultimate dune pioneer, an intrepid dune stabilizer with intricate rhizomes penetrating three feet deep and webbing out beneath the sandy soil.

Clusters of yellow daisy-like flowers bloomed atop low growing slender leafed plants, Camphorweed, another dune native. I spotted another yellow flower, with bright golden sprays, Seaside Goldenrod, shorter than the typical goldenrod and with waxy leaves, an adaptation to dune life. 

Spreading across the sand, beneath the wildflowers and grasses, almost serpent like in appearance grew low prickly pear cactus with  light green sections, thin sharp white spines, and here and there a few fading red flowers.  To my right I gazed at cluster of orange yellow beach blanket flowers.

All of these plants offered a natural, flowing, soil solidifying, wildlife nurturing, visually pleasing landscape design.  It was, I reflected, a stark contrast to the manicured yards and planted palms around the houses beyond the lot.

Motion

The wind blew harder.  According to my Dark Sky weather app the gusts were up to 25 mph.  I watched the wind rise and fall as it blew through the leaves and branches of the bushes and trees edging the lot.  The gusts flipped the leaves of a thorny olive creating a shivering display of silver.  The low stiffer leaves of the wax myrtle moved slowly, ponderously and in unison.

The branches of a loblolly pine swayed and sighed.  The blue green sprigs of a red cedar swung back and forth.  The leaves and twigs of the live oaks rippled in the breeze.  Each shrub and tree had its own unique way of flowing with the wind.  It was of course out of necessity that each of these beach plants adapted to the ever-present coastal breezes, but in this moment as I watched the branches and leaves sway I saw a troop of free-spirited wind dancers each creating their own interpretation.

Movement in the sky caught my gaze, a solitary mourning dove flying and then landing on a utility wire where it sat motionless.  A few minutes later, three stubby winged starlings flew in and landed on the wire near the dove.  Four more starlings arrived and landed nearby.  I watched as the starlings grouped and then regrouped.  Two flew up and moved further down the wire.  Then five lifted up and formed a new group.  The purpose of this movement, I knew not. 

Were the birds merely restless, were they reinforcing flock structure, were they engaging in social alignment?   I knew that wild birds don’t waste precious energy.  There was some purpose.

In the sky, beyond the houses, over the ocean, I spotted a big flock of birds in flight.  Binoculars up, quickly in focus.  It was a flock of cormorants, black compact bodies, strong rapid wing strokes, perhaps 50 or more in the flock.  I watched as they formed and reformed, spread and bunched, ever in unison, coherent motion, a murmuration before my eyes.

Provide

Soft seet-seet-seet calls of yellow-rumped warblers came from the thick shrubs at the bottom of the dune. I scanned with my binoculars and after a minute spotted three of them fluttering in and out of the shrubs, up and down, and along the branches. I heard sharp teee, teee, teee calls, and following the sound located an Eastern towhee, black head and back, dusky orange flank perched on a branch of a live oak.  Listening carefully I heard soft, sweet tchep, tchep, tchep calls, song sparrows and then spotted them, chunky brown-streaked birds hopping between the stems of grasses.

A lot of birds living in this little protected sand dune I thought. Perhaps they found shelter and cover in the thick brush and trees from the wind and predators.  But then I wondered if there was more to the story.

Looking down at a Wax Myrtle or Southern Bayberry plant next to me I saw dark blue berries along the stem. I plucked a berry, crushed it between my fingers and inhaled the fragrance.  A fine fragrance for Thanksgiving candles but these seeds were also good food for birds.  Ahead I saw seed plumes atop little bluestem grasses, more food for birds.  I noticed a patch of bright orange and yellow beach blanket flowers near me, a provider of pollen for the bees and butterflies and another source of seeds for the birds. 

I looked around.  The live oaks dropped tiny acorns, still more food.  The goldenrods, camphor weed offered seeds and the viny dune greenbriers that slithered across the ground offered more berries.  This little lot, this tiny patch of coastal dune was an avian smorgasbord.  No wonder the birds found and filled the vacant lot.

Scale

Through a gap between the houses I a saw a trio of pelicans, strong-winged, in a line, perfect choreography, flap, flap, glide, flap, glide. Two ring-billed gulls flew high overhead, white torsos against a gray sky, long slender black-tipped wings, easy strokes through the air.  Moist, humid ocean air touched my face.

I was writing down observations for each ten minute interval, an exercise in linear time, but as I gazed around the dune I began to feel a sense of timelessness.  I was surrounded by eternal cycles; the increasing illumination of the day, the flowering of the fall plants and the seasonal rhythm of the birds feeding on seeds.  Looking at the sloped dune I felt the even longer time cycle of wind and sand forming and shaping the sand.  I sensed the slow and steady growth and progress from beach grass and blue stem to bayberry and thorny olive  to pine and juniper and live oak—the journey from sand to dune to maritime coastal forest.

My sense of size-scale began to shift. The vacant lot which previously had seemed small and insignificant grew in size, seemed large and expansive filled as it was with varied and vibrant communities of plant and animal and bird life, decorated with myriad textures and forms of trees and bushes each swaying uniquely with the wind.

The world beyond the dune with its rows of trim rigid multistoried rectangular houses, circumscribed paved driveways and schemed landscaping grew smaller, became less significant in my eyes.  The houses, shuttered and empty now for the winter, stood separate and isolated.  No sense of community there.

When I had entered the vacant dune I had felt like the big human surveying a little property, but as I perceived the long waves and cycles of time and the dynamic life processes surrounding me I felt small.  Not bad small, more like good small.

Vision

As the minutes of my last 10 minute interval ticked by I felt a sense of relief.  The wind was relentless and chilly. I wondered if the coffee in the coffee maker might still be hot.  Glancing at a beach house in an adjacent lot I suddenly noticed that there were stickers on the windows.  It was a new house. 

A pang of sadness gripped me.  Was this lot next?  Most likely the opportunity for profit dictated that someone would buy and build.  I pictured the scene; bull dozers leveling the land, vegetation yanked up and cleared, another three story house rising surrounded by a groomed yard. What a loss!

Then, hopeful, probably over-optimistic, but impossible to suppress, another image, came to mind.  A bench placed where I sat, maybe another bench or two scattered around the edge of the lot providing places to sit, watch, enjoy, learn, and connect with nature.  This little lot could be a tiny nature reserve, a place to provide balance, restoration and rejuvenation.

Unlikely perhaps, but who knows what the cycles of time will bring.  Who knows how and when and if a vision might come to fruition.   I did know that I would carry a vision of this vacant lot, this tiny chunk of coastal dune, this rich vibrant nexus of nature within me.

This sit spot was conducted in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina on October 29, 2022. 

You can read about more sit spots and wander walks on this blog and in my book The Stillness of the Living Forest:  A Year of Listening and Learning available on Amazon and through Shanti Arts Publishing.

The Stillness of the Living Forest: A Year of Listening and Learning: Harvey, John: 9781947067592: Amazon.com: Books

The Stillness of the Living Forest, John Harvey (shantiarts.co)