October in Nantucket

Like Thoreau, I have a longing for wildness. The more digital and technological life becomes, the more I love the wild.  It may seem strange to call an island favored by billionaires wild, but it is an island exposed to the winds and waves of the North Atlantic, a precious ecosystem of sand plain grassland, and more than 50% of its area is conserved.

My foraging year has included blueberries, beach plums and fox grapes, and this past weekend we scalloped at Pocomo. Yummy ceviche followed as we celebrated Josh's 75th birthday with his close friends David and Michael and their wives. We sent them home with our wild  fox grape jelly.

We took our first trip of the year to Great Point. Fisherman were catching false albacore when they could beat the seals.  We showed off our favorite Norwood Farm walk. Firey maples, late seaside goldenrod and late asters adorned the landscape.  Most of the pond lilies were gone, but blueberry bushes and cotton grass lit up the ponds .

As I hiked Windswept bog before departing, I chanced upon a rusty blackbird eating viburnum berries.  A clay-colored sparrow mixed in with white-throated and song sparrows. Several sharp-shinned hawks scuffled and sheared through the landscape.  There were late patches of the purple gerardia which was so prolix last month. When next I visit, the bright colors will be gone.

Cain’s Pond

Windswept Bog

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Rusty Blackbird

Green-winged Teal

Northern Seaside Goldenrod
Solidago sempervirens

Summer’s End

 On September 16,  I hiked Norwood Farm. The downy Goldenrod is in full bloom, contrasting with the deep red of the Little bluestem grasses. The Fox grapes leaves are yellowing; the aroma of overripe grapes perfumed the air . I felt like the member of a wedding party walking down the aisle as bouquets of sweet everlasting and downy goldenrod lined the path.

I enjoyed the quiet ( except for the jay's and towhees) after our 5 weeks of kids and grandkids visiting.  I love the hubbub and chance to be with family, and now summer's end signals the beginning of a quieter time.

Black Huckleberry

Aster

Tupelo

Norwood Oak

Sweet Everlasting and
Downy Goldenrod

The red Huckleberry and Crumpled elegant fern livened other spots, amid the spent Sweet Pepper (Clethra Alnifolia )and scrub oak.  An Eastern Garter snake slithers out of the sunny trail and into the brush.

There hasn't been much rain in a month, as evidenced by the dried up ponds:  the Norwood Pond, Corner Pond and Almanac Pond. And  Dried out marsh st. Johnswort at the edges.  There are Few sickle-leaved silk grass  remaining on the road , with a few asters on the side, including Late and New England asters( Symphotrichum Patens and Novo-Angliae.)

The dry weather has meant so many beautiful sunrises...and close to the autumnal equinox, they are due east from our bedroom window!  And with sunrises between 6 and 6:30, a lot easier to get up for!

The berry season now ending has been highly productive for us foragers:  blueberries, beach plums (12 jars of jelly)  and  grapes ( half of our takings has yielded 12 jars of jelly).

American Black Duck

Gull-billed Tern

 

Berry Time

 

Quiet walk this morning, August 26, at Windswept Bog. Fall encroaches. The weather has been crystal. A Merlin flashes from a pine tree top across the bog. An Osprey soars; a red-tailed hawk keers.

Bush clover is leaning and Purple Gerardia (Agalinis purpurea)is blooming in so many places along the edges, including in the "Alder Run."  The Downy goldenrod is starting.

The full grown Grasses are over my height and bending.  I walk through their aisle;  will I walk into another kingdom on the other side, like Narnis? A Sun shower sends raindrops flying.

Grapes are ripe; if they were lower down I would pick them! Instead,I head home to make our beach plums (18 cups from the Pout Ponds bushes) into jelly and watch a passing thunderstorm on the ocean.

Monarch butterflies in the garden daily.   Josh and I foraged for grapes on August 27. More than 6 pounds!  We will get a few more riper grapes when we return on September 8.

I have been delighting in reading Emily Dickinson, thanks to the Wauwinet Book Group.

A something in a summer's Day

A something in a summer's Day

As slow her flambeaux burn away

Which solemnizes me.

A something in a summer's noon—

A depth—an Azure—a perfume—

Transcending ecstasy.

And still within a summer's night

A something so transporting bright

I clap my hands to see—

Then veil my too inspecting face

Lest such a subtle—shimmering grace

Flutter too far for me—

The wizard fingers never rest—

The purple brook within the breast

Still chafes its narrow bed—

Still rears the East her amber Flag—

Guides still the sun along the Crag

His Caravan of Red—

So looking on—the night—the morn

Conclude the wonder gay—

And I meet, coming thro' the dews

Another summer's Day!

Emily Dickinson F104, 1859

August Nantucket Nature Diary

 Milestone Bog, August 8

Little ladies tresses in the grasses, Bush clover waving in the wind, Sickle leaved silkgrass and Early sweet everlasting on the paths, with Downy goldenrod peeking out. Faded yarrow still on  the verges.  There is WaterWillow/ Swamp loostrife in the ditches, faded steeplebush and American Burnweed. 

63 degrees at 3 pm, winds

August 10

See First solidago on road to Bunny Mellon beach ( 29A). Beach Plum picking at Pout Ponds (and August 16 and 22)

August 13-  I woke at 5:30 before the sunrise.  Watched terns rising and sanderlings darting at water's edge "down front".  Three ravens caucussed. Black-bellied plovers skirted the waves. Biked to Low Beach, hiked on the beach to Tom Nevers and back. An arctic tern amidst the flock. The aroma of the Sweet Pepper (Clethra alnifolia is diminishing)

August 15:  Kayak to Quaise Point, Medouie Marsh . Piping plovers and a roseate tern were the specials.

August 20: Eel Point Hike. Hiked out on the beach and back next to the marsh. Always amazed at how the marsh changes from year to year. What used to be a sandy road is becoming part of the marsh. Juvenile yellow-crowned night heron and a little blue heron were the birds highlights. Osprey still here.  The Sturgeon Moon rises after sunset, and the sunrises are now (conveniently) around 6 am.

August 23: Black Swallowtail on the verbena bonariensis in the garden.

Kayak to Medouie Marsh, Island Creek: 60 black-bellied plovers, 4 dowitchers, 2 Whimbrels and a green heron. Egrets roosting. Osprey still here.  The sweet pepper is complete

August 24: a bat on the window and the Milky Way at night. End of 5 weeks with kids and grandkids.

Weather

Mean temperature in August  69.3 (as of August 24) 1.34 inches of rain  (high of  83, low of 56.8)

Last year 68 degrees,  4.62 inches of rain  (high of 79.9 and low of 58.5)

July 2023  70.7, .80 rain, high of 85.9 and low of 61.5

July 2024  70.8, 3.19 inches  rain, high of 83 and low of 57

Whimbrel

Short-billed Dowitcher 

Black Swallowrail

Ruddy Turnstone

American Oystercatcher 

Piping Plover

Ruddy Turnstone

Little Blue Heron

Little Blue Heron

Rarities

Sabatia Campanula

Gull-billed Tern,  Gelochelidon nilotica

Lots of excitement is generated when a rarity is found.  Jacqui Papale,  Nantucket birder extraordinaire,  identified a gull-billed tern at Cain's Pond end of Sesachacha Pond on August 14.  This is sort of my neighborhood,  being about 2 miles from my house.  It is a lifer for many of the Nantucket birders,  and they all started visiting the spot and recording it on eBird.  I finally got there on August 17  and studied the other terns and laughing gulls it was hanging out  with.   It can be confusing because some of the younger birds might have blackish legs or black beaks. But the immature common terns had dark shoulders;  the immature laughing gulls were larger and darker.   The mature laughing gulls have all black heads.

But there was the gull-billed tern:  with lighter gray wings,  a thicker black bill and black legs.  Found it! Added benefit:  a Forster's tern and Roseate tern were in the group.

I had already been enjoying this spot because the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs have been foraging there regularly,  along with 4 killdeer,  and the occasional  Short-billed Dowitcher,  and Spotted, Solitary, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers.

The swamp mallow is blooming and the Saltmarsh Fleabane as well! Today there was also Vervain. 

This weekend I got an excited email from Kelly Omand, the botanist with the Nantucket Conservation Foundation. The Sabatia campanulata I found at Almanac Pond hasn't been seen on Nantucket for 22 years! it occurs right at the edge of the pond, sometimes amidst the bog Yellow-eyed Grass (Xyris diformis) and Virginia Meadow-beauty(Rhex Virginica) and the sand plain grassland. She invited me on a field trip to document my find and report it to the Massachusetts Botanist, which we did today. We found 7 other plants in bloom even though it was 12 days later. More excitement! It must have been perfect conditions for the seeds. The pond has more water this year than last, but the water is far from the edge.

The philosophy regarding sharing location of a rarity  is different forthright botany crowd: Kelly asked me to obscure the location of my find in iNaturalist. I asked about this and heard that it is to protect the plant. Collectors could come and dig up the plant and take it away (and they have). The same is not possible with birds, which are generally moving around and can fly away. 

Adventure!  In all my years of visiting Almanac Pond, I had never seen this Slender Rose Gentian, Sabatia Campanulata before. And that goes back more than 25 years!

Slender Rose Gentian,
Sabatia Campanulata 

Virginia Meadow- beauty,
Rhex Virginica

Almanac Pond