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| Masquetuck |
These past two weekends, Tropical Storms Lee and Ophelia have ruled. Lee brought high winds but no rain, and Ophelia brought both. Equinox winds have averaged in the high twenties, with gusts in the forties. The sustained winds have whipped the leaves off the ocean-facing hydrangea and leveled the cosmos and verbena. White caps and waves crash out front with fast moving steel-gray clouds.
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Head of the Plains looking to Clark's Cove
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But the combination of the goldenrod and the groundsel beckons me to go walking. Milestone Bog is now brown with grasses and sedges and yellow with goldenrod. The still green Polpis Road flashes silver as the winds whip the Russian Olive leaves and white with the salt bush (groundsel). Tupelo leaves are almost down, leaving leaves of brown and gold and red in Squam Swamp. The rain lights up the Usnea moss on the trees. On the bluffwalk, the autumn clematis blankets are without blooms.
I caught some fall warblers in Madaket: a palm warbler at Jackson Point with the Sunday birders , and a pine warbler at Head of the Plains with Josh. The shorebirds are active: a flock of pectoral sandpipers in Madaket with the birders and a white-rumped sandpiper at Sesachacha, along with semipalmated plovers, greater and lesser yellowlegs, three kinds of gulls, Gadwalls and wigeon. At the Head ofthe Plains, I followed this solitary sandpiper walking down the road!
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| Pine Warbler at Head of the Plains |
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| Pine Warbler |
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| Palm Warbler at Jackson Point |
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Solitary Sandpiper
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Palm Warbler
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