Wild Nantucket: Early July

July brings the scent of flowering privet; fresh Yarrow and St Johnswort bloom as the arrowwood viburnum fades. Ox-eyed daisies persist. Crescents, wood nymphs and checkerspot butterflies flutter about the Polpis Land Bank meadow. The scent of the swamp azalea (Rhododendron viscosa) is still strong in the wet places.

The rhythms of summer are taking hold: a Northern Harrier is visiting us daily as she hunts along the bluff between 9 and 10:30 in the morning. I see a monarch every day after June 30. I bike or hike most mornings. We see friends in the evening.

Then there are the non-routine sightings that bring surprise and joy because they are unexpected. On June 30 I spied Ghost Pipes ( monotropa uniflora) before post 42 at Squam Swamp. The next day I saw a Black Skimmer feeding in Madaket Harbor. The last time I saw one in Nantucket was 2019. A black tern in breeding plumage sat among the least and common terns on Esther's Island on July 1.

Ghost Pipes

Nantucket has been declared in drought by the state and I can see it in the ponds. June's rainfall was only .43 inches, according to my personal weather station KMANATU15. The town has initiated restrictions on watering lawns to twice a week. We still enjoyed a rainbow in the late afternoon of July 2.

A field of Colicroot (Aletra farinosa) is blooming at Milestone Bog on July 2. Low sheep laurel is scattered in that field. By July 12, I found a Wood Lily (Lilium philadelphicum) at Squam Farm.

The weather has been consistently foggy in the morning with winds from the southwest, but today, July 13, the wind is now from the east.

Young ducklings, cygnets, piping plovers and American oystercatchers are swimming and running with their parents. At Massaoit Bridge, the Osprey pair has three chicks.

I turn to nature's beauty as a balm to the turbulence in the world: tariffs, wars, taxes can't hold a candle to the Nantucket's sunrise or moonrise.