Eel Point

 

Saltmarsh Sparrow

August 1

It's a gray day with sprinkles, perfect for a hike on Eel Point. I catch a quick glimpse of rose mallow on the Madaket Road. At Eel point, there is the ripening sweet pepper, poison ivy and bayberry. As I trek along the beach, with its roped off sections for nesting birds, the common terns calls are the background music. I love to see the flash of piping plovers scuttling across the sand and shells. 

 It's near to dead low tide with many terns on sand bars. Mostly common and least terns, but I search to find an outlier …there’s a laughing gull…and an arctic tern! The babies are begging and being fed by their parents. Semipalmated sandpipers and ruddy turnstones forage the edge. A dozen Egrets are in the bathtub; the oystercatchers show off and reel about.  A northern harrier disturbs the peace.

Piping Plover

Laughing Gull and Common Tern

 As I hike back along the marsh edge, the willets are screaming and a Greater Yellowlegs divebombs me in the marsh. A juvenile night heron Kwok kwoks by. The sea lavender is out, along with the mosquitoes. I am a mosquito banquet. A Salt marsh sparrows pop up.

Yesterday there were 4 monarchs flitting at home. And today I saw the first goldenrod at Norwood Farm, and a peregrine on the bluff. The sweet pepper’s sarsaparilla smell is now wafting, although it was dampened by the rain during my afternoon walk at Norwood Farm. Hints of summer's end and the changes to come.  Josh and I collected 4 cups of high bush blueberries at Mirror pond.  

Goldenrod,
Solidago rugosa

Little Ladie's Tresses,
Sprianthes tuberosa

Slender Goldentop,
Euthamia Caroliniana