In the Company of Towhees

Wood lily,
lilium philadelphicum

This morning I went on my Pout Ponds walk at 7 am in a brisk 24 mph wind from the southwest. The temperature was already 75 degrees; the weather changed to mugginess. Southeasterly winds that had kept the weather crisp and in the low seventies for the past several weeks.

I parked near Altar Rock, and the white topped asters filled the open fields nearby. I plucked some low bush blueberries, already fruited and reddening. The sickle-leaved asters congregated in the center of the road. The Bayberries were green and ripening. A few left over ox-eyed daisies inhabit the shady spots, and there is also some remaining St. Johnswort.

Low-bush blueberry

Toothed White-topped Aster,
Sericocarpus asteroides

I was in the company of towhees, because they are the most prevalent bird on the moors, preeting regularly. I heard about thirty of them all along the walk. There were only a few "drink-your-tea"s. A blue jay honked and the common yellowthroat and red winged blackbirds were at the pond.

The first Pout Pond looks to be 10-12 feet lower than usual. A benefit was Virginia Meadow beauties in the wet spots.

As I turned the bend to head back, the heath and lichen field was very dry. Little lichen remained and very subdued. But the groves of golden false indigo were many along the road.

And there is a wood lily!

A young male northern harrier swooped above me, calling and swooping away on the winds.

A new gate has been erected...#wildnantucket continues to be civilized, even in the moors. Planes  coming in to land also remind me of the  hustle bustle of the mainland. I walked back to my car and headed home. There, hundreds of people walk the road up to the Sankaty Light every day. 

The Buck Moon

The moon is at its closest to the earth this month,  its perigee.  The full moon is called the Buck Moon because the male deer begin to grow their velvety antlers this time of year.  We saw just such a buck on the way to the beach near the airport.  In Europe,  it is called the Hay Moon.

 

Early July

I feel like I missed most of June in Nantucket this year.  Josh and I hiked the West Highland Way in Scotland during the first two weeks of June,  and when we came to Nantucket in mid-June I was diagnosed with pneumonia.  That began two weeks of double antibiotics, staying inside and not wanting to do anything.  It had me wondering why I like to bird and walk in nature and spend my time the way I do.  I read The Nature Fix by Florence Williams to cure me of the blues.  The grandchildren arrived to distract me (Joe, Amy, Frankie and new born Simon here for a month!,  and Sam with Arthur and Noa for two weeks).

Today I hiked Norwood Farm to get back in my groove.  It was kind of quiet except for the towhees and catbirds.   The scent of the swamp azalea,  rhododendron viscosum, was the highlight. The common yellowthroats were wichity-ing near the ponds; Easter Kingbirds hunted insects.  I tasted my first highbush blueberry.  

I am looking forward to loving this all again. 

Hoary Frostweed, 
Crocanthemum Bicknelli

Common Yarrow,
Achilliea Millefolium

Whorled Loosestrife,
Lysimachia quadrifolia

Strawberry Moon

June 14, 2022 

 It’s not yet formally summer…but the early sunrises (5:08 this morning) and the late sunsets make it seem so. The angle of the light during the day is different. I was surprised this morning at how north the sun rose from the sea. The sea birds on the ocean outside my window are gone. A few great back backed gulls fly by…the gulls must be nesting out at Coatue and Great Point. The ducks have headed north. The grandchildren will be arriving this weekend…a sure sign of summer. The meadow grass LondonFog has leaped up. The ox eye Daisies are starting to bloom, and the Rosa rugosa is just starting. The contrast between the green grass and the unruffled blue sea seems fresh, as is the breeze from the southeast. The change of the seasons makes change in our lives seem normal, since it happens yearly. What change for me now? I haven’t been as interested in pursuits which once gave me pleasure. Will a new passion perk its way though the newly growing plants? Tonight, the strawberry super moon!

Seeking the new

Brown Thrasher  at Windswept Bog

 I love a new experience. It may be why I love birding.  There is elation at hearing or seeing a bird that I’ve never seen before, or that I rarely see.  It makes the day somehow special and memorable.

I know that soras and rails are at Milestone Bog, but I have never seen one there, despite the hundred times I’ve hiked there.  Until I did..,yesterday!  “You never step in the same river twice,” but hearing  the sora  made it  really true.

Birding also is comforting when birds are where we’ve seen them before…like the killdeer near the sand exchange pool at the bog…or the pine warbler in every pine stand this weekend.

But there is special love for the new…like the brown thrasher in the path at Windswept Bog this morning…the light wasn’t good enough to get a great picture,  but I didn’t even get a picture of the sora!  ( will I be “trimbled” for that, given that it’s a rara avis?)

Birders even go in for “FOY”, first of year  birds , in their hug of their favorite birds and landscapes.  I guess it’s all firsts here  today…

Seeking Spring on Daffodil Weekend

In the mud

In the greening moss

In the fern fiddles pushing up from water

In the unleaved  gnarls of the beech’s arms

And the newly red-budded maples

In the grasping greenbrier

And the blue skies beyond the chickadee ”I-I-I love you” song 

In the warmed places on the trail and in the shaded

In the quiet and the “birdy” spaces

To open the future

And grow up from the past

Prick up your ears  to the sounds of rebirth

Sharpen your vision to the signs of the earth

And the persons trying  to move us all forward

Like the wood anemones and fern fronds

With pent up energy released by the sun

And the stored up desire that justice be won

Like the daffodils prolific against the dead stalks

The shoots undaunted by last night’s frost

Celebrate Easter and Passover and all the spring feasts

Leave behind the old grudges and worries at least

Enjoin this reopening, this greening , this birth

Of the new season and peace for all earth

Wood Anemone

Ferns emerging

 

Maple's red buds

Late March, Early Spring

 

Sunrise, March 26

Spring  arrives with thunder and lightning and rain

In Nantucket

Bolting over the lighthouse' regular beams

The winter friends still here- the buffleheads and even a late snowy owl,

While we wait for the migration of spring songbirds.

Oystercatchers and an egret have been seen

The grackles and red-winged blackbirds

and now the osprey and piping plovers

So close to the sea and the elements

the purist form of life

The daffodils push up to claim the new season,

And every human clings to the warmth of 40 degrees

The hope of renewal

Silver sea sea at first light with clouds

Honeyed light reflected up

The sun now moving north from its winter perch

The beginning of a dawn chorus of song sparrows, wrens, robins

While our winter ducks and gulls show to winter's hold

Winter Birds:  Iceland Gulls

Squam Farm, March25

Winter Birds:  Scaup