Kayak launch

At 8 am, It was already a sunny and warm 71 degrees with a wind from the west at 10 miles per hour.  Polpis Harbor was quiet, except for the oystermen heading out to their farm.  The parking lot was empty, but the stands were now full of kayaks, many forced to share berths.

At first I thought my kayak had been taken by The Land Bank, as their stern sign warns that boats left before April 15 will be removed. But I knew that we’d brought the kayaks in late April ( a Facebook post to prove it!) and I looked more carefully and found my trusty Walden down at the end of the rank.

What a day!  An osprey flew above, clutching a fish. Paddling out to Quaise Point, I spied an oystercatcher on nest next to the marsh.  Two males came to warn me off.  I headed into what I call Medouie Creeks  ( but is called Island Creeks on Google Maps), passing a group of ruddy turnstones.  Ducks flushed, willets called, and how could I be hearing common yellowthroats while kayaking in a marsh?  I guess they can sing as loudly as Carolina wrens!

As I headed back to Polpis Harbor, two fishermen in a small boat were casting lines in the channel. “ No bites yet!” They smiled.  A family of 7 yellow- footed snowy egrets pecked in the sand at the point. It was almost high tide.

The paddles, the boat, the water and sky, the familiar shoreline .  Birds giving birth.  A new morning! 

Ruddy Turnstones

Oystercatchers guarding females

The Spring Procession

The Daffodils.  The shad and mayflowers,  the flowering cherries.  The beach plums and crabapples.  The golden heather. Through it all,  the Quaker Ladies.  The Rosa Rugosa and ox-eye daisies.

Spring progresses, with each of its waves of leafing and blooming.  The nature world changes rapidly,  with winter's gray moors punctuated by green pines and cedars becoming spring's  yellowy greens and fuzzy whites; and the red of emerging leaves and scrub oak catkins.  Soon the trees and shrubs will settle to their summer's green, but the flowers will continue their procession.

Nature is constantly changing, but the rhythms of that change, endure.

Bearberry near Altar Rock

Lichen and Golden Heather

Rosa Rugosa on the Bluff

Stump Pond

Blue-eyed Grass at Stump Pond

Blue Flag at Windswept Bog

The moors from the 4th Milestone to Altar Rock Trail

Golden Heather

 Golden Heather blankets the hills on the middle moors,  and brightens the roads when clumps grow alongside.  Hudsonia ericoides is as much an emblem of spring on the island as the flowering low-bush blueberries and huckleberries.  It' s more beautiful than the catkins from the scrub oak.  And it seems to withstand years of less rain like this one.  The ponds are the lowest we've seen in years.  At Pout Pond,  the viola lanceolata are where they pond might usually be.

The bird's foot violets are out at the intersection of Altar Rock Road and Pout Pond Road.  And we are seeing lots of Beach Plum blooms along the Pout Pond Road.  Hope we will get some for jam!

The first blue-eyed grass is opening on the moors,  and also at Norwood Farm.

Toby Sackton helped me find the black-necked stilt at the Nantucket Harbor Flats,  but I still haven't seen the glossy ibises that have been hanging out there.  They may have flown. 

My biggest find has been the ovenbird in Squam Swamp.  I didn't see it,  but got great recordings of it singing (along with great crested flycatchers and black&white warblers).

Discovering something new in the wild every day just makes me happy.  Is it that I like to search for the new?  Like being in nature?  Like the total absorption in the environment that I need to do to listen for birds,  look for their movement and see the flowers? It is a loss of self and immersion in the world around me,  which never ceases to offer something new and delightful.

Viola Pedata, Bird's Foot Violet

Viola Lanceolata,  Bog Violet

Pout Pond

Black Huckleberry

Low Bush Blueberry

Golden Heather, Hudsonia Erocoides

Bird's Foot Violet

Pout Pond

Black Necked Stilt at The Creeks

Black-necked stilt

Return

 

We took the boat back to Nantucket  on the first day of the new summer-y schedule.  The air is lively with that earlier spring of light greens reaching into a blue sky, red catkins and new growth, crabapple petals carpeting the ground, lilacs blooming.

We’ve missed the amelanchier shad and the cherries flowering, but  now the winds seem less harsh than earlier in the spring.  We even have some late narcissus blooming in the garden, although the island-wide show is done.

The beach plums are in full bloom all over the island;  this year I vow to make a map so that when they ripen, we have lots of places to look.  My Polpis bike loop is with towhees, Carolina wrens, chipping sparrows, pine warblers,  yellow warblers, common yellowthroats- I had forgotten how many of them are singing at this time of year.

Birds are the sounds of the spring, as they declare their territories, find mates,  and declare the dawn.

Spring Forward

April 22, 2021 

Why do I write this blog?

I write because of the surprises I find nearly every day by observing nature closely.  I don't listen to an audible book or a podcast when I walk,  I find myself consumed by the sights and sounds of what is around me.  Today the creaks of the trees in Squam Swamp were as vocal as the birds.  The change of seasons is as fascinating as any change process, and one we can inspect every year of our lives!  A step forward and a step back....

Today started out at 37 degrees with  winds from the west at 25 miles per hour, with gusts up in the  forties. But it is spring and the daffodils are at full bloom.  I found the earliest wildflowers,  wood anemones,  in Squam Swamp this morning. Yesterday I listened to and saw a pine warbler in the piney woods at the bottom on the Sconset bluff. 

I suppose it is my version of meditation.

Northern Gannet off the Bluff

Swamp Maple and Lichen

Early Wood Anemones

Squam Swamp's Vernal Pools

Daffodils on the Bluff

First fern fiddleheads

Pine Warbler

Laughing Gull

Nine Ponds

Even though it stormed last night, with .6 inch of rain in 12 hours, the ponds are low. My "tour de ponds" bike ride of 10.6 miles covered Gibbs Pond (a loon and a swan in addition to the gulls), three Wigwam Ponds (yellow-rumps and scaups), the three ponds on Pout Ponds Road near Norwood Farm, Almanac Pond and Jewel Pond. Sesachacha is now low, but because

the cut has cleaned it over the past week.

Jewel Pond

Pond at the Corner entrance
 to Norwood Farm

Third Wigwam  pond, with lily pads

Second Wigwam Pond

First Wigwam Pond

Norwood Farm, March 28

Red-Tailed Hawk, 
Buteo Jamacensis

 

Hiked Norwood Farm today in some light rain showers. Trees are still bare, highlighting a pearl grey landscape and sky. Peaceful.  Beneath the brown grasses,  there is a  hint of new green. Today I recognized that the path is lined with sheep laurel, and not just on either side of the wooden walkway.  A glimpse of British soldier’s lichen in bloom surprises me. 

Met another woman hiker; neither of us wearing masks and deciding not to put them on as we passed each other.  A flicker wik-wik-wik-ed;  a beautiful red tail hawk perched on a tree. It’s white breast gleamed amidst the grey until it flew off.  Blue jays  were energetic, a flock of 20 robins fed in a field.  No ducks sheltered on the ponds.

Birders are viewing  to report “first of year” sightings:  first Oystercatcher (March 23) first great egret, first phoebe, (March 26), first osprey ( March 27).  It’s a March of firsts.

This is the time of the March full moon, called the Worm moon, but also the Paschal Moon.    Passover starts on the evening of the first full moon after the northern vernal equinox.  Easter is celebrated the Sunday after the Paschal full moon. There is something so comforting in knowing  that the spring festivals and celebrations have been scheduled by human beings for thousands of years by the position of the sun and the moon.

Moonrise

Sunrise

Norward Farm Oak

British Soldier Lichen blooming,
Cladonia Cristatella