Eel Point

 

Saltmarsh Sparrow

August 1

It's a gray day with sprinkles, perfect for a hike on Eel Point. I catch a quick glimpse of rose mallow on the Madaket Road. At Eel point, there is the ripening sweet pepper, poison ivy and bayberry. As I trek along the beach, with its roped off sections for nesting birds, the common terns calls are the background music. I love to see the flash of piping plovers scuttling across the sand and shells. 

 It's near to dead low tide with many terns on sand bars. Mostly common and least terns, but I search to find an outlier …there’s a laughing gull…and an arctic tern! The babies are begging and being fed by their parents. Semipalmated sandpipers and ruddy turnstones forage the edge. A dozen Egrets are in the bathtub; the oystercatchers show off and reel about.  A northern harrier disturbs the peace.

Piping Plover

Laughing Gull and Common Tern

 As I hike back along the marsh edge, the willets are screaming and a Greater Yellowlegs divebombs me in the marsh. A juvenile night heron Kwok kwoks by. The sea lavender is out, along with the mosquitoes. I am a mosquito banquet. A Salt marsh sparrows pop up.

Yesterday there were 4 monarchs flitting at home. And today I saw the first goldenrod at Norwood Farm, and a peregrine on the bluff. The sweet pepper’s sarsaparilla smell is now wafting, although it was dampened by the rain during my afternoon walk at Norwood Farm. Hints of summer's end and the changes to come.  Josh and I collected 4 cups of high bush blueberries at Mirror pond.  

Goldenrod,
Solidago rugosa

Little Ladie's Tresses,
Sprianthes tuberosa

Slender Goldentop,
Euthamia Caroliniana

Breezy

Afternoon of  July 28.  76 degrees winds S15.

At Squam Farm, a Wood Lily greets me. The lilium philadelphicum is my symbol of summer. Nantucket's beaches might be the symbol of summer for some, but for me, this flower which is sought but might not be seen, is the symbol.

This is the third that I have seen this year: one on the Middle Moors and another at Marvin's Woods, and this one at Squam Farm. So it's a sumptuous summer by that count. They are always a delight and seem to bloom in different places each year...or at least I see them in different places.

The stands of almost-blooming sweet pepper raise an aura of expectation for the future...for their aroma and what lies ahead. The dappled light in the Squam swamp is soothing and the first red Tupelo leaves dot the sandy floor. There is even a look backward with the scent of late swamp azalea. It's so quiet...with sounds of the breeze rather than the birds, and only an occasional fly buzzing by or a jet thrumming overhead. 

Bogs in the Fog

Milestone Bog with Steeplebush

The midsummer weather has swung into high gear, with steamy days in the eighties.   It was 80 degrees by 9 am yesterday and stayed in the eighties until 6 pm.  The nights are foggy and the early mornings, too, until the sun burns off the fog. 

I hiked in the early morning at Windswept Bog on Thursday and the Milestone Bogs today. Neither is today a producing cranberry bog, but the are wonderful wet, open spaces.   Milestone is close to 900 acres including the 190 acres that were the producing cranberry bog.  Windswept is smaller; together with Stump Pond,  it is 231 acres. 

At the Milestone bog,  baby geese were scurrying; parents honking.  The young ones are already 2/3 of adult height. Silk grass  (pityopsis falcata) , which used to be called sickle-leaves aster, is blooming at road edge.  The field grasses are blowing;  here is a wet area that was a field of colicroot (aletris farinosa)  in early July.  Now  the yellowy bases blend in with the grasses. There is a field of dried pasture  thistles.

In the fog,  there are fewer road and plane sounds.  Planes began to land at 7:58 at the Milestone Bog,  and at 9:02 at the Windswept.  I could hear the sound of cars on the milestone road; the bog is surrounded by human activity.  But here the sounds are the honking of the geese, the titters of the swallows,  and the occasional "kir" of the red-tailed hawks.

The Steeplebush (spirea tomentosa) and swamp loosestrife (Decodon verticillatus) are blooming at both the Milestone Bog and Windswept.  Windswept also has Virginia Meadowbeauties (rhexia virginica)  in several wet spots,  mixed with cross-leave milkwort (polygala cruciata), club moss,  and twisted yellow-eyed grass (xyris torta).  I caught a look at an Eastern Phoebe,  considered rare at this time of year,  at Windswept.

Rhexia Virginica

Xyris Torta

Polygala Cruciata

Club moss

A killdeer keening at Milestone draws me to observe ;  A swarm of red winged blackbirds rises up from the reeds.  I then chase  savannah sparrows before heading back to the car, home and the grandkids. 

Eastern Phoebe at Windswept Bog

Windswept Bog , July 21

Savannah sparrow

Killdeer

In the Company of Towhees

Wood lily,
lilium philadelphicum

This morning I went on my Pout Ponds walk at 7 am in a brisk 24 mph wind from the southwest. The temperature was already 75 degrees; the weather changed to mugginess. Southeasterly winds that had kept the weather crisp and in the low seventies for the past several weeks.

I parked near Altar Rock, and the white topped asters filled the open fields nearby. I plucked some low bush blueberries, already fruited and reddening. The sickle-leaved asters congregated in the center of the road. The Bayberries were green and ripening. A few left over ox-eyed daisies inhabit the shady spots, and there is also some remaining St. Johnswort.

Low-bush blueberry

Toothed White-topped Aster,
Sericocarpus asteroides

I was in the company of towhees, because they are the most prevalent bird on the moors, preeting regularly. I heard about thirty of them all along the walk. There were only a few "drink-your-tea"s. A blue jay honked and the common yellowthroat and red winged blackbirds were at the pond.

The first Pout Pond looks to be 10-12 feet lower than usual. A benefit was Virginia Meadow beauties in the wet spots.

As I turned the bend to head back, the heath and lichen field was very dry. Little lichen remained and very subdued. But the groves of golden false indigo were many along the road.

And there is a wood lily!

A young male northern harrier swooped above me, calling and swooping away on the winds.

A new gate has been erected...#wildnantucket continues to be civilized, even in the moors. Planes  coming in to land also remind me of the  hustle bustle of the mainland. I walked back to my car and headed home. There, hundreds of people walk the road up to the Sankaty Light every day. 

The Buck Moon

The moon is at its closest to the earth this month,  its perigee.  The full moon is called the Buck Moon because the male deer begin to grow their velvety antlers this time of year.  We saw just such a buck on the way to the beach near the airport.  In Europe,  it is called the Hay Moon.

 

Early July

I feel like I missed most of June in Nantucket this year.  Josh and I hiked the West Highland Way in Scotland during the first two weeks of June,  and when we came to Nantucket in mid-June I was diagnosed with pneumonia.  That began two weeks of double antibiotics, staying inside and not wanting to do anything.  It had me wondering why I like to bird and walk in nature and spend my time the way I do.  I read The Nature Fix by Florence Williams to cure me of the blues.  The grandchildren arrived to distract me (Joe, Amy, Frankie and new born Simon here for a month!,  and Sam with Arthur and Noa for two weeks).

Today I hiked Norwood Farm to get back in my groove.  It was kind of quiet except for the towhees and catbirds.   The scent of the swamp azalea,  rhododendron viscosum, was the highlight. The common yellowthroats were wichity-ing near the ponds; Easter Kingbirds hunted insects.  I tasted my first highbush blueberry.  

I am looking forward to loving this all again. 

Hoary Frostweed, 
Crocanthemum Bicknelli

Common Yarrow,
Achilliea Millefolium

Whorled Loosestrife,
Lysimachia quadrifolia

Strawberry Moon

June 14, 2022 

 It’s not yet formally summer…but the early sunrises (5:08 this morning) and the late sunsets make it seem so. The angle of the light during the day is different. I was surprised this morning at how north the sun rose from the sea. The sea birds on the ocean outside my window are gone. A few great back backed gulls fly by…the gulls must be nesting out at Coatue and Great Point. The ducks have headed north. The grandchildren will be arriving this weekend…a sure sign of summer. The meadow grass LondonFog has leaped up. The ox eye Daisies are starting to bloom, and the Rosa rugosa is just starting. The contrast between the green grass and the unruffled blue sea seems fresh, as is the breeze from the southeast. The change of the seasons makes change in our lives seem normal, since it happens yearly. What change for me now? I haven’t been as interested in pursuits which once gave me pleasure. Will a new passion perk its way though the newly growing plants? Tonight, the strawberry super moon!