At Home without a House

It’s the big dark. Dark heavy clouds blanket our skies, our hills, our spirits; rain turns fields and trails to mud; trees hang brooding above us, dripping, dank and damp, shielding the sky from view.

We had a chore to do near Oak Harbor, and it was low tide, so Kath said, “Let’s go to the beach!” The heart of Oak Harbor revolves around its waterfront, from Freund Marsh stretching all the way around the bay to the Oak Harbor Marina. We parked in the middle, near the modern sewage treatment plant, walked/sprinted into the grassy knolls, then scampered across dozens of driftlogs onto a wide expanse of sand and sea foam. The sky shone like a big bowl of brightness above, and our spirits opened, lifted, and soared.

Seagulls rode the breezes, waves rolled in endlessly, mountains glistened in the distance. After short days and long nights, after three-week-long colds, after a winter of disconcerting world news, this is what we needed, this is what we embraced. The beach restored our souls.

We let Murphy run free and he reveled in it, chasing his ball over and over, flying across the beach, spraying sand when he stopped, gobbling his ball and dropping it at our feet for us to throw it again and again. He loves this, the soft sand, the freedom to run. He wore himself out, which is good.

Kath winds up to throw another ball for Murphy to chase

A murder of crows and one lone seagull stood at the tideline, looking for food. Dunlins flew as a flock above the breaking waves. They, too, were experiencing a long, cold winter, shrinking food supplies, hunger, even starvation. This is their home, and times are tough. Many will die in the coming weeks. Some flew about, dancing with the wind, seemingly strong, photobombing the scenes, freedom on the wing. I wonder what it’s like to live here, every day, all day and all night, sheltered only by feathers and each other from the elements, living off only what the land and sea provide for sustenance. I would starve. It’s certainly not enough for all of them.

Kath and I talked about what we needed to get at the store before we left town. Here it is, the middle of winter, and we can get whatever we need, and then go home to a warm shelter, mostly free from fear or want. We have it so easy.

An unhoused person sat against a nearby shelter, a bag of belongings on the ground beside her.

One summer when I worked at Deception Pass, I saw a grizzled, middle-aged man enter the park on a bicycle, a few belongings in a basket on his handlebars. He hung out at the park all day, just sitting near the lake, then disappeared as evening fell. He came back the next day, and the next, and the next couple of months, always wearing the same clothes, with the same stuff in his basket, spending each day the same way, and disappearing at night. When it got colder, we found him sleeping in a restroom, which scared campers using the facility late at night. I tried to find a shelter somewhere in the community for him, but there was none available. We had to ask him to leave. We never saw him again.

Where did he go?

Eventually, it was time for us to go. We leashed Murphy, walked back through the nearly empty playground, played on some of the swings and stumps for fun, then crossed the grassy knolls back to our car, back to our good lives, our backs turned to the beach, the birds, and the lowering skies as rains threatened to return.

About this place: 

The Oak Harbor Waterfront Trail follows the downtown shoreline from Freund Marsh in the west to the Oak Harbor Marina in the east. The park is a major community hub, featuring baseball fields, basketball courts, picnic areas, a playground, and a splash park during the summer. Visitors can enjoy walking trails, beach access, and a swimming lagoon, making it an ideal spot for family gatherings and outdoor activities. Freund Marsh has wetlands full of birdlife, and meadows leading to the quiet beach of Oak Harbor. The charming and historic downtown of Oak Harbor is just a block away from the park.

It's all well-loved in the summer and shoulder seasons, but relatively quiet this time of year. No one was playing basketball or swinging on the swings, although one brave mom played with her toddler, and another jogged the trail as her son rode his strider alongside. With several miles of trail following the waterfront, and an adjacent natural sandy beach if it isn’t high tide, we enjoy visiting here whenever we are in the area.

But we are visitors.

This is home to wildlife, living life as best they can.

Winter mortality drives the population levels for resident and overwintering bird species in the Pacific Northwest. Only about a third to two-thirds of residential birds such as chickadees and song sparrows will survive the winter. About half of all raptors return each year, though these numbers vary by species. Bald eagles have a much higher survival rate. Juvenile birds of all species, however, face a much lower survival rate. Only about a tenth of all robins live long enough to reproduce.

Some species of birds can enter a state of torpor to reduce their metabolic rate, conserving energy by a third or more. However, it also increases vulnerability. They can also huddle together to share body heat and minimize exposure.

Seagulls, on the other hand, exceed an 80% survival rate in winter. Their bodies minimize heat loss, they have a variety of food sources, including human ‘garbage’, and they can cover a lot of ground, or water, to find new sources of sustenance, such as a fast-food parking lot. And they don’t get cold feet—cold venous blood from the legs is reheated by the arteries flowing adjacent to them; plus, their legs and feet are mostly tendons and bones, with little muscle or other tissue.

The mortality rate of juvenile gulls, however, can be as high as two-thirds.

And for humans? How do we help each other?