Amelanchier

By any definition,  the arrival of the Shad Blow,  or Amelanchier Canadensis,  signifies the arrival of Nantucket's spring.  One day it just pops out,  and that day was yesterday, May 5.  As I cycled the Polpis loop,  it lit up the woody shrubs which have not yet leafed out.  And when Josh and I went to hike Squam Farm,  there it was....along with swaths of Quaker Ladies, Houstonia caerulea.  Many wood anemones, anemone nemorosa,  were along the paths and into the wood in the "hidden forest" there.  I love that the flowers are so small,  yet they gather in great numbers to light up the otherwise greyish brown landscape.

Amelanchier Canadensis at Squam Farm

Wood Anemones,  Anemone Nemorosa

Cinnamon Ferms sprouting in the wet spots

Wood anemones, Squam Farm

Shad at Stump Pond, May 4

Fields of Bluets at Stump Pond, May 4 and Squam Farm, May 5

Colors of Spring

April 26

Some might think the color of spring is green....and it is,  as we watch the bare brown twigs start to leaf out,  growing greener over these weeks.  This privet,  for example.    And the mosses that have been coming alive over the past month.

But I find the other colors of spring equally wonderful:  the red of the new maple buds and the growing huckleberry on the moors;  the white of the earliest wildflowers,  and the yellow,  not only of the daffodils,  but of the yellowy greens that come first.  They can also result in some great color combinations:  like the swamp maple red and lichen.

March 13,  Squam Swamp

Huckleberry on the Middle Moors

White flowers of spring

First Amelanchier,  Shad,  May 4

Quaker Ladies at Windswept bog

Mayflowers on Road from Pout Pond

Ann's Lane

Mayflowers!

I have been waiting for the appearance of spring wildflowers. I  hiked Stump Pond today, April 29,  and was delighted to find 3 different white spring flowers:  Mayflowers, Quaker Ladies and Wood Anemones.  Bring it on spring! 

Mayflower

Also known as Trailing Arbutus

Wood Anemone

Quaker Ladies, Bluets

Massachusetts state flower

Foggy Bog

 Josh and I hiked around Milestone Cranberry Bog in the fog yesterday.  Dreamy.  

Canada Geese with chicks

When April with its sweet-smelling showers....

Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

1         Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
 :              When April with its sweet-smelling showers
2         The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
               Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
3         And bathed every veyne in swich licour
               And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid
4         Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
               By the power of which the flower is created;
5         Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
               When the West Wind also with its sweet breath,
6         Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
               In every holt and heath, has breathed life into
7         The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
               The tender crops, and the young sun
8         Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
               Has run its half course in Aries,
9         And smale foweles maken melodye,
               And small fowls make melody,
10         That slepen al the nyght with open ye
               Those that sleep all the night with open eyes
11         (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
               (So Nature incites them in their hearts),
12         Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
               Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,
13         And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
               And professional pilgrims (long) to seek foreign shores,
14         To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
               To (go to) distant shrines, known in various lands;
15         And specially from every shires ende
               And specially from every shire's end
16         Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
               Of England to Canterbury they travel,
17         The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
               To seek the holy blessed martyr,
18         That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

              Who helped them when they were sick.

No doubt we will all be eager to travel as the weather gets better after 6 weeks in coronavirus quarantine!

As we approach Daffodil Weekend, the north facing daffies are still with us!  It is sunny today,  but the wind is blowing from the West Northwest at 25 mph, with gusts to 45 mph.

Polpis Road near Sesachacha Pond

Pout Ponds

Pout Ponds

Lichen

Blooming Bearberry!

 

Hike to Pout Ponds...with no plane noise overhead!

Canada Geese and Bufflehead at Pout Ponds

The view to Serengeti

Mid-April

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud come over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March."
        Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time, 1926

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.    

       TS Eliot ,  The Waste Land, 1922

We've had sun and clouds and variable showers this week.  On April 16,  I walked the beach and bluff and got caught in a hail storm!  I was drawn out by the gannets heading north,  at least 5-10 every 10 minutes.  They have been regular visitors recently. Somehow their swoops seem joyous.

Easter

 Easter is a time of  rebirth and renewal.  A time of pain and joy.   This is so evident in the natural world around us,  and the spring peepers in the wetlands nearby are very loud about it!  Easter was bright and sunny,  with low winds:  perfect for a Polpis loop bike ride.  The pine warblers were singing in the multiple pine stands I passed.  I saw the buffleheads back in Sesachacha-  I thought they had gone. The  white-tailed deer are bold, running across the road and bike path.

 The gannets, long-tail ducks, loons eiders and scoters visited regularly in the afternoon this week, along with our resident herring,  great back-backed and lesser black-backed gulls.  A merlin visited the yard.  But as I hiked the beach to Hoick's Hollow in the late afternoon,  the pain was also visible-  a struggling red throated loon was beached and unable to move.

No Easter baskets for the grandkids this year,  with our novel coronavirus social distancing meaning Arthur and Noa's  Easter Egg hunt was seen via Facetime. We are lucky to be healthy. A Zoom Rudden Easter gathering and Posner-Semonoff Passover seder brought us together.

On Saturday we had hiked Stump Pond and it didn't look much greener than it did a few weeks ago. Near the bog a flicker and a merlin/cooper's hawk were seen.

Red throated Loon

Common Loon

Black Scoter

Eider

Field station Pond

Arthur's 4th Birthday

Great Egret on Folger's Marsh

S

Pink SuperMoon on April 7,  Arthur's 4th Birthday

Daffodils on the Bluff Walk