One of the best seats in the house for the naturalist in all of us is Race Point at Fishers Island. Walk southwest from the runway and find a warm rock to lean on or, better still, a salty, soft berm of kelp, sea lettuce and mixed greens and reds to squish your toes through. Watch the Orient Point ferry returning to New London and listen to the eerie pulsing of a passing submarine as it dips through chop behind the lighthouse.

On recent afternoons, the tree swallows were swooping, nipping at insects, and red-winged blackbirds are clinging to cattails.

During the last few years, I have looked forward to meeting ruddy turnstones in this ecosystem, specifically in early June. These island locals are larger sandpipers, sometimes wading and wearing breeding plumage with hungry slender bills poking, sifting and leaving no stone unturned.

Justine Kibbe is a naturalist for the Fishers Island Conservancy. A lifelong environmentalist, Kibbe spent 6 years on Alaska’s Island of St. Paul among the native Unungan people, studying fur seals. Now a Fishers Island resident, Kibbe offers wildlife snapshots from her observations around the island. She can be reached at bjkibbe@gmail.com.