Spring to it!

Osprey

The Cherry blossoms are everywhere on Nantucket on May 8 and the shad is blooming on the moors and roadsides.  The scrub oaks have catkins and the trees leading out look like baby fuzz on the gray trunks.  There are late daffodils, but it is not as stark a contrast as a month ago.

The Quaker Ladies, Red Storkbills and wood anemones are out at Squam Farm.  I hear my FOY great crested flycatcher, see my FOY Eastern Kingbird and see a male Eastern bluebird. The Red-eyed Vireo isn't back to greet me yet.

Off the bluff, gannets are heading south in the fog to feed.  At dawn on May 9 I hear the plaintive song of a common loon.  The deer take over at night; I follow their tracks on the bluff walk while the ocean murmurs alongside.

I head to Eel Point to search  for the red knot,  but don't see him. I do see  7 piping plovers, 8 oystercatchers, many willets, sanderlings and black-bellied plovers in breeding plumage. A trio of terns: least, common and roseate.

Common tern

Least tern

Roseate tern

I dream about being a time traveler going back and forth from prime warbler time in Cambridge.  Here, the common yellowthroats and northern yellow warblers are singing everywhere on May 17.  We hear and spot several prairie warblers and a pine warbler in Madaket.  I spy my ACK FOY black-and-white foraging in Squam Swamp. I catch a glimpse of a female Northern Parula at Windswept Bog.  There ..it's a rush of American redstarts, black-throated blues and greens and Nashvilles, Magnolias, chestnut-sided, bay-breasted, and singing northern Parulas.

On May 15, I hike to the Pout Ponds.  The Birds Foot violets ( viola pedata) are in bloom, and swathes of blooming bells of low bush blueberries (vaccinia angustifolia).  I am delighted to see them; I missed the mayflowers ( Trailing arbutus) this year. The towhees chorus keeps me company, with a few commmon yellowthroats and pine warblers along my 3 mile loop.  The pond is drying up; Nantucket is back in a critical drought.  Juvenal's duskywings have hatched, along with dozens of spring azures.

Bird’s Foot Violet

Juvenal’s Duskywing

Spring Azure

The killdeer are evident at both Sesachacha Pond and Windswept Bog, and I encounter One in each place doing the broken wing display.  Young or nests must be close. A pair of Eurasian wigeonand a northern pintail are visiting Sesachacha.  It seems every Osprey is carrying a fish.  

By May 18, the Daffodils and Shad are mostly over; the cherries are finishing  with puddles of pink. The Beach Plums starting to bloom, as well as the yellow heather in one sheltered sunny spot on the road to Pout .  I hear a redeyed vireo deep in Squam Swamp and see a pair of Great crested Flycatchers carrying nest material.

Spring has released the world from the constraints of winter as the colors brighten, the grasses green up, warblers rush north to breed, the local  animals pair up and now procreation and fecundity are on display.