May 18 Walk in Squam Swamp and Squam Farm

 Lance Leaved Violets in the swamp

 Spring Azure butterflies

 Starflowers all over the forest floor

Squam Farm

Carpeted by Quaker Ladies,  Bluets

Early Wild Geraniums

Beach plums blooming abundantly

Cherry Trees is full bloom all over the island

Windswept Cranberry Bog May 10 2014

The Shad (Amelanchier)  are blooming all over the Island.   We missed Daffodil weekend,  but there are still drifts along the roads.  Spring is driving away the long winter.  Water levels in ponds are down from our last visit in late March.  Eiders diving in formation on the ocean off the bluff;  3 Gannets are soaring and diving.

At Windswept bog,  tree swallows and barn swallows swooping and eating insects.  Heard a Great Crested Flycatcher.  Red-winged blackbirds calling.  Wood anemones in the wood;  quaker ladies in the open;  white violets in the bog.

Squam Swamp May 10 2014

Today was a great day  seeing spring come to Squam Swamp.  Josh and I heard a Great Crested Flycatcher and towhees,  and saw a Black and white Warbler. The fiddlehead ferns were pushing winter away;  the wood anemones blanketed the forest floor.  We passed a young boy who was capturing salamanders from under dead logs. 

Snowy Isle

Snow covered Nantucket when we arrived on Friday, and gradually melted over the weekend.    My first time to see seagull tracks in snow!

 Frozen mirror pond in the Middle Moors

This snowy owl was sitting high on the road out to Great Point,  flew as we approached.  We saw him again on the way back

Mute Swans were out at the pond at Great Point.  There were 6 hooded mergansers at Coskata Pond,  and the usual assortment of herring and black backed gulls, sanderlings and eiders. 

A Northern Harrier swooped over the heath and lichen near Wauwinet.  Check out the ice floes at Wauwinet Harbor!

Low Beach view