Summer Solstice

We've been so lucky to see the days grow longer.  After today,  the shortening of daylight begins.  

It's turtle time:  2 at Windswept Bog earlier this week!  And rubrus species dewberries are blooming all over.   The fox grapes have moved from their pink unfurling to wide green leaves and even some fruiting.  The grasses are high and the scrub oak is leafed out.  Summer!  Those Quaker Ladies,  houstonia caerulea,  are still blooming in the shady places. 

Pasture Thistle: Cirsium Pumilum at Squam Farm 

Cinnamon Ferns as big as me in Squam Swamp

White Thistle:  cirsium pumilum

Eastern Painted Turtle at Windswept Bog

Dewberry:  Rubus flagellaris

June 20:  Walking to Sconset on the beach

Rosa Rugosa on the BluffWalk

Summer

I love the Nantucket outdoors.  I am paying the price,  contracting Babesiosis.  I last got it in 2013,  the year my parents died and the year two of my sons got married.  I remembered the symptons...because I didn't get confirmation until after treatment!

I went off-island for what was supposed to be 2 days but wound up being 5.  When I returned a week ago the wild cherry were blooming and the Rubus dewberries were blooming along the Polpis Road.  The ox-eye daisies are going strong. 

On June 18, Josh and I walked with Alan Reinhardt and the Nantucket Conservation Foundation at Massasoit Plains.  Nice to discover a new part of the island where we haven't hiked.  We hiked through the woods to the Plains and then over to Clark Cove.

Massasoit Plains

The next day we headed to Windswept Bog and Stump Pond,  where the sandplain blue-eyed grass and blue flag iris were abundant. 

Blue Flag:  Iris Versicolor

Blue Flag

Sandplain Blue-eyed Grass: Sysyrinchium fuscatum

Stump Pond

Early June

I miss the gannets.  During the winter and early spring,  they and all three scoters, loons, long-tail ducks and eiders were always outside our windows.  Now they are off to the north.  We still have the herring and greater black back gulls with us.  And,  it seems,  thousands of common yellowthroats.

The ox-eye daises are opening,  the rugosa is starting to bloom.  The wild geraniums (geranium maculatum) are in the shade places and the Quaker Ladies continue to bloom.   Yellow iris are in bloom at Reyes Pond,  and scotch broom is ablaze in yellow.   The blue-eyed grass has started.  But most beautiful is the golden heather that is carpeting the middle moors.

We thought the water was high earlier in the spring...but now many of the ponds on the middle moors are flooded into each other,  and the stretch between Pout Ponds Road and Almanac Pond roads is more flooded than I have ever seen it.  And speaking of that,  every time I go on the moors I see people walking and biking now.  And it's only the first week of June!

Wigwam Ponds, June 4

Wigwam Pond, June 4

Golden Heather, Hudsonia ericoides

Golden Heather on the Middle Moors, June 4

Iris  Pseudacorus, Yellow Flag, at Reyes Pond, June 2

Scotch Broom, June 2, Cytisus Scoparius

Sheep Laurel, Norwood Farm Bridge, June 2
Kalmia Angustifolia

SpottedTurtle on the Middle Moores, June 2

June 2, Middle Moors

Oystercatchers at Coskata May 29

Eastern Kingbird on the road to Coskata, May 29

Rosa Rugosa on May 29

Ruddy Turnstones at Coskata, May 29

Egrets in the lee at Coskata Pond, May 29

End of May

Common Yellowthroat, Nantucket Field Station, May 28

Black bellied plovers, May 28

More people are arriving on the island and we have had two straight days with the temperature above 60 degrees!  Although Josh and I saw the first golden heather at a warm protected spot at Stump Pond (close to where we saw our first mayflowers), the moors are not golden yet!  

But during our walk at the Field Station,  there were more common yellowthroats singing than there were robins!  That is a first for me.  2 Oystercatchers and 2 willets and a snowy egret were in the marsh along with these plovers.

Great Egret, May 28, Field Station

Pine Warbler, May 28, Middle Moors

 I tried to hike the Milestone Bog, but it is closed for chemical application.

Wild Geranium,  Sqaum Farm, May 26

Canada Mayflower, May 26
Maianthemum canadense, Squam Farm

Golden Heather, May 24 Stump Pond

Beach Plum Blooming Time

Spring comes to the island in waves.  The shad and cherry waves are so beautiful, and leave the blossoms in their wake.  We now have the beach plum wave,  with the beautiful white blossoms all around the island.  I hope they get pollinated and result in a bumper crop of beach plums in the late summer.  It seems like more blooms this year,  but it is hard to measure,  since the pandemic has us experiencing all spring,  rather than weekends of spring.  


And the ferns are unfurling in the magical fairy swamps.

Beach Plums

Ferns emerging in Squam Swamp, May 18

Cinnamon Ferns emerging , May 18- Squam Swamp 

Beach Plums from the Bluff

Seal lounging

Squam Swamp, May 26

Flower Action

Starflower,  Trientalis Borealis, Squam Swamp

Wood Anemone, Anemone Quinquefolia,  Squam Swamp

Jack in the Pulpit,  Squam Swamp, May 18
Arisaema triphyllum

Viola Lanceolata,  Milestone Cranberry Bog

More flowers are joining the daffodil to shad blow parade.  Josh and I hiked to the Pout Ponds and saw hosts of blueish birds-foot violets (Viola Pedata).  And the swamp violets,  which I saw in the trenches of the Milestone Cranberry bog,  are also blooming in Squam Swamp.  The beach plums are starting to bloom,  as the shad blooms literally blow off.  The wood anemones,  the xxx and of course the bluets are afoot in Squam Swamp.  And I saw a Jack in the Pulpit!

Viola Pedata, Middle Moors

Bird's Foot Violets

Beach Plum,  Prunus Maritima

Huckleberry, Gaylussacia Baccata,  Middle Moors

Viola, Middle Moors, May 16

We have now been in Nantucket for 10 weeks straight,  my longest stretch since  Sam was born 39 years ago.  I am used to being here a lot,  but going off island for work. Although the pandemic is ravaging the lives of many,  it has given me the gift of being here in this beautiful place.  Sam,  who we thought had COVID,  tested negative.  Charlie,  who was sick after visiting NYC in early March,  tested positive for the antibody.  We found out today.  People walking up Baxter Road to the Lighthouse are now wearing masks.  But the Sankaty Light is back on,  if not rotating.