As I was walking along Tybee´s North Beach on a cold November day, I noticed a gull flying around with a piece of yellow plastic ribbon attached to it. The ribbon was the kind police use to rope off a crime or emergency scene. On it I could clearly read the word danger.

What a shame, I said to myself, feeling sorry for the gull. I tried to catch it and remove the ribbon but succeeded only in stirring up large, protesting flocks of other gulls, Caspian terns, and black skimmers.

Amid the hubbub, I heard a shrill voice shout, Hey, you big oaf, stop it! I looked around and saw only one other person way up the shore. Then I looked at my feet and saw a small bird, a sanderling.

Yes, you! the sanderling screamed. Don´t you have any sense at all!

Surprised, I blurted out, But I was only trying to help.

If you want to help, tell your neighbors, said the bird, who introduced itself as Sandi Sanderling. That gull is an omen, like a plane flying a banner along the beach. Don¹t you get the message?

About what? I said, feeling incredibly stupid that bird brains‹a gull, no less‹had to explain whatever it was to me.

The marshes are in danger, Sandi replied. The marsh grass is dying in places all along the coast. In a few years there could be one big, smelly mud flat between here and Savannah.

No way, I said in disbelief. The marshes have always been here.

What complacency! sneered Sandi Sanderling. Don¹t you know the marshes exist in a fine balance of nature. Just one little thing going wrong could throw the balance off.

Like what? I said.

That´s for you folks to figure out, said Sandi. You´re so smart.

Wait just a minute, I defended myself and my fellows. We know about the marsh die-offs, and we¹re studying the problem. We have our theories.

You mean, jeered Sandi, like all the Hollywood types moving in and eating up the crabs? Then there are no crabs to eat the snails that eat the marsh grass, so the snails have a feast. You could make a movie about it, The Revenge of the Snails.

I noticed that Sandi had a nervous habit of running back and forth even while talking.

Or maybe, continued Sandi, the developers are spreading Agent Orange to kill off the marsh grass? Then they can fill in the marshes and build condominiums. Think of it, a developer´s dream: Highway 80 lined with condos all the way.

I supposed that dodging waves all your life could develop such an existential response.

Or maybe, Sandi went on, the Russians are sending us their nuclear waste to store at the Savannah River Site, and radiation is leaking down the river and killing off the marshes?

Sandi paused to give me another hard look, then said, Are these some of your so-called theories?

They sound a little familiar, I conceded.

Theories, shmeories, returned Sandi. They´re just excuses for not knowing anything. And you notice the Zoroastrian form that all of these theories take?

Whoa! I said. You¹re beyond me there.

Sandi replied, I´m talking about the Zoroastrian dualism that was adopted by the Hebrews and handed on to the Christians. There¹s always got to be a devil or villain versus a good guy or victim. It´s the limitation of the Western mind.

Are you saying that we´re all to blame if the marshes die off?

All of you folks, replied Sandi Sanderling. Not us birds. Sometimes there are a villain and a victim. Now I hope you can figure out which one you are.

I mulled over what the nervous little bird had told me, then said, It¹s been nice talking to you, Sandi.

Any time.

More Crabbing

Back in the early 90s my younger son and I took a fishing trip up to Nova Scotia. We were after Atlantic salmon. So where else to go but that fisherman´s paradise Cape Breton Island and the Chéticamp River (or so the brochures said)?

We got an omen of how the trip was going to turn out when we took a back road. Signs along the road warned, Watch for flying rocks! We joked, flapped our wings, and had a good belly laugh until a car whizzed by on the other side. Zing! went the flying rock, cracking our windshield. (Or I should say my son¹s windshield, since it was his first new car.)

In Chéticamp it was mosquito season, and you could hardly go outside your tent without getting eaten up. Putting up the tent was another story. But finally, slathered in bug repellent, we found ourselves wading the Chéticamp River, which was low from the drought.

The salmon were few but big and conveniently gathered in a few pools. But, bored, they refused to bite and just ignored us. Then I noticed their backs were all scratched up where other frustrated fishermen had tried to snag them. Did we, I asked myself, drive over a thousand miles for this?

Back in the charming French-speaking village, things were a little better. Lobsters were only two dollars each. Then I saw why: They were hardly bigger than large crayfish. That¹s all they could catch anymore, and the one-time thriving lobster trade had been reduced to the local market.

Crabbing was worse. Snow crabs could be harvested only a few days each year, and only by a lottery. Crabbers who were left out were reduced to taking tourists on whale watches. At least a few whales were left.