May

Eastern Kingbird!

 

Anticipation is the heart of spring.  I look forward …not just to the daffodils and shad and beach plum blossoms, but also to the delicate reds and yellow-greens of the unfurling ferns and grape vines, swamp maple flowers and oak catkins.  Everything has the potential for growth in the spring. 

The does and fawns are out walking this morning, and  what must be a young yellowthroat stumbles on the path before me at Squam Farm.  Yellowthroats and towhees are the predominant voices of this walk, with those throaty great crested flycatchers wheeping in. Mayflowers, starflowers, Quaker ladies and a few wild geranium line the paths . I felt lucky to see the Eastern Phoebe perching and sallying forth to catch flies.  But then Ginger Andrews looked at my picture and said:  "Isn't that an Eastern Kingbird? Look at the white on the tail feathers..."  And she was right!

Bog Violet, Viola Lanciolata

Low-bush blueberry and Golden Heather

Wild Geranimum

As my fellowship at Harvard draws to a close, I am thinking about what’s next , and how to continue my research.

But  the wonder of the spring migration demands  attention!   I have been up early this month to catch a glimpse of the tiny colorful warblers which make their way  from the Amazon,  Central America or the West Indies to their nesting spots in the northern boreal forest.  They visit us on their way to share their beauty and song and the sheer persistence of their  long distance flight. That they exist and that we live in a world with them is a marvel and cause for delight.

Here on Nantucket, usually a week or so behind the mainland, we’ve mostly been seeing yellowthroats and Yellow warblers, which both will best here. On May 16 , I had a peak warbler experience, seeing 17 warbler species in one day at Parker River National Wildlife Reserve on Plum Island.  Today’s birding highlights for our Sunday morning group were a blue-winged teal and black-bellied plovers in breeding plumage.

The beach plum  and the Russian Olives are blooming, and the combination of golden heather ( Hudsonia erocoides) and low bush blueberry (vaccinium angustifolia) on the moors is a treat.  Blue-eyed grass is blooming in the wetter spots.  I hope the pollinators got to the beach plums so we will have a better harvest of plums for jam this fall.

Blue-eyed Grass

Mayflower

Hudsonia ericoides

Common Yellowthroat

April

Back from “America,” I am eager to see spring arrive in Nantucket. There are insects and pollinators dancing around on the moors. There is more air traffic: as many planes as eastern towhees calling. The dance of the daffodils against the bare oaks makes a statement. Target species: Mayflower aka trailing arbutus , epigea repens, the Massachusetts state flower.

 

Trailing Arbutus, Epigea Repens

 Back in Boston, spring is one week earlier this year than last, say my garden phenology charts. We have trees budding out and a babble of birds, including early migrants like Ruby-crowned kinglets, palm and pine warblers...Here, huckleberry buds, bear berry bells and a few wood anemones. No winter ducks hiding in the ponds, now green along their edges. A daring yellow-masked yellow-rumped warbler peers from the tangle. In the sun: first of year brown elfin butterfly, a Quaker lady (Houstonia caerulea)….a mayflower! 

Quaker Ladies,
 Houstonia Caerulea

 At Squam swamp, barely a fiddlehead… the biggest signs of spring are the maple flowers on the moss. Well, and a few early wood anemones. Stay low to the ground, soak up the sun seems to be spring’s mantra. Milestone Bog harbors killdeers, wood ducks and multiple swallows. I feel happy to get pics of the fast moving northern rough-winged swallow and killdeer ( charadrius vociferous), who is indeed vociferous. And here the Quaker ladies hug the grass in abundance.

Kildeer

Wood Ducks at Miacomet Pond

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Wood Anemone

Early Spring

 The small marks of spring are welcome:  early blooming daffodils along the Polpis Road, the magnolia in bud at the Screenwriters' Colony on Almanac Pond Road.  For the most part,  the green is the green of winter:  the holly, the moss and the greenbrier.  

The birds of winter are still here:  the long tail ducks streaming north in the afternoon,  an iceland gull,  buffleheads and wigeon on Sesachacha Pond.  I caught a glimpse of blue-winged teal on Caleb's Pond and of green-winged teal on Stump Pond.  

The scoters and eiders and red-throated loons, the crows and the jays are here.

The ponds,  which were so low at the end of fall, are refilling.  

Long-tailed duck

Long-tailed Duck

Northern Gannet

Iceland Gull

January 2023

 

Harlequin duck

Bufflehead

Nantucket this Martin Luther King Day weekend is wracked by storms.  The wind slashes rain against the windows and whips sand against the house.  Sunrises at seven are behind banks of clouds and fog.  The gray clouds are moving and humans are hiding out indoors. Sunset is after 4 pm.

Gannets swooping and diving, harlequin ducks  surfing (Sankaty is their Nantucket home), long tail ducks bobbing, eiders flying, gulls soaring along the bluff.  Wigeons, Gadwalls, geese, swans  at Sesachacha ‘s western edge munching what the wind has blown there. Fallout from the weather: Gull carcasses, a woodcock carcass on Barnard Valley Road.Crows and vultures abound.

During breaks in the rain (and sometimes in the rain),  I breathe in the island.  Pine greens, lichen neons, holly, switch grass plumes, bare trees.  Puddles deep but the parched ponds like Almanac and Pout Ponds still low.  Josh and I hiked Norwood farm and  drink in the sounds  of walking in winter.  Tree branches rubbing each other in the wind, deer move through the underbrush, the swish of swans wings  as they fly overhead, and... a tractor mowing the underbrush!

When we head back to the ferry (the first to run after many cancellations because of high seas), it is through snowflakes.

Almanac Pond

Lost Farm

Norwood Oak

Harlequin Ducks, Histrionicus histrionicus

Christmas Stroll

 

The slow boat is like a stroll to Nantucket. I like to stand outside and see hundreds of surf scoters “walk away” from the boat. And, oh, to hear the whistling sound of the black scoters in forty-degree sun with no wind. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a razorbill!

Once home, I set out to find my favorite ducks, the harlequin ducks, who hang out near the rocks by Sankaty Head in the winter. They are so beautiful and blessed with the name histrionicus histrionicus. In addition to the scoters, buffleheads, long-tailed ducks and loons, I also spied a red-necked grebe. These gifts of nature make me happy...

...As does the gift of watching the sunrise (and it is not until 6:50 am at this time of year)! The sunrise is now so far south; after the solstice it will begin its march north again. The sea birds are active at dawn. I see thousands of scoters streaming north at dawn, and hear the whistling of the black scoters.

At Sesachacha there are wigeon, scaup and ruddy ducks in addition to the Canada geese and swans. I flush 4 great blue herons. Later I hike Windswept bog and Stump pond, marvelling at the green:  the holly trees, the moss, the trees blooming old man’s beard moss/ lichen usnea in the light rain. The Groundsel is gone, as are the oak leaves. Sometimes they don't get blown off til January.

The birding group on Sunday sees Northern Shovellers, eurasian wigeon, coots, ruddy ducks and the regulars at Miacoment Pond.

On my morning walk down the Sconset beach, there is frost on the beach grass and bushes, like icing on a cake. A mixed flock of redbreasted nuthatches, goldfinches, chickadees and pine siskin loudly greeted me in the Japanese black pines at the foot of the bluff. I head home on the bluffwalk.

I make my journey to the winterberry Holly to decorate the house, before heading "back to America". 

 

Late August

Gerardia, agalinis tenufolia,
at Milestone Bog

 Summer ‘s tail is showing.  The sweet pepper scent is spent and the Tupelo is turning mahogany, the ferns mix brown dead with green, the grasses and sedges sway.  Some fox grapes look like they will be extra juicy.  The sickle-leaved silk grass fills the sandy roads on the moors and the sweet everlasting  stands alone or in shining white gray stands.   The bush clover is leaning and flowering…both white ( lespedeza capita), and pink ( lespedeza Virginia).

Today, August 22,  I saw the late summer flower, common gerardia( agalinis tenufolia), also known as slender false foxglove, in three places at Milestone Bog.  And the little ladies tresses( spiranthese tuberosa) also popped up in two places.   I get a thrill and feel like the walk is “productive “ when I see a special plant or bird.

Little Ladies Tresses,
spiranthese tuberosa

The kingbirds were out in force , and have seemed very visible in the last weeks -  flitting about in groups and hawking for insects. But a small sharp-shinned Hawk stole the show, leaping out of the bog and flying off.  And a group of juvenile Turkey vultures had me guessing … without those telltale red heads.  And it was unexpected, too, to find three least sandpipers eating in a muddy ditch.

Eastern Kingbird

Least Sandpiper

I am starting to appreciate how the grasses make our landscape so beautiful.  The bluestem in particular is colorful, and the switchgrass in the wet spots is stately.  Something new to learn about!

I have observed more and more posts  of the various conservation landowners, kind of like dogs leaving their marks.  Riding along the Polpis Road it seems like a marker a minute! So much for wild Nantucket.

 The marshes are reddening, too.  The spartina alterniflora cordgrass (now called sporobolus alterniflora) is fruited in Pocomo Meadow.  Island Creek  is alive with black-bellied and semipalmated plovers, whimbrels, willets, oystercatchers, yellowlegs and Great and snowy egrets.  The birds range in size from osprey to least sandpiper,  with 3 kinds of gulls and 2 terns thrown in.

This year,  I am ready for the change and look forward to starting as a Visiting Fellow at 

Norwood Farm Oak

Norwood Farm Dried Up Kettle Pond

Island Creek,  Pocomo Meadow

Harvard Graduate School of Education again.  I am working at the intersection of AI and education.

Hike to Sesachacha

 

August 6

80 degrees, winds SW 15

10:30 am -1:30 pm

I hiked north  toward the Lighthouse along the beach. I fell in line with the 120 sanderlings and dozen semipalmated plovers who led the way.  Each time I got close, they winged ahead… their white bellies glinting in the sun as they banked over the ocean.  A spotted sandpiper kept a bit separate, bobbing incessantly. 

The herring and black backed gulls must have been fishing elsewhere. Normally there are large groups of them “ down front”, but not today.  And the lesser black backed gulls, which are always here in winter, are not around in summer. A small group of cormorants relaxed at the shore.

A semipalmated plover played “king of the hill”  on the rocks , which were exposed as low tide approached (12:44 pm at Great Point).  These rocks are the gathering spot for the harlequin ducks in winter.

Sanderlings

I followed the sanderling plover parade past Sankaty Light  and midway to Quidnet they headed back south….to be replaced by a new group of sanderlings heading north,  as well as terns winging over the sea.

Spotted Sandpiper

More cormorants, Canada geese and terns congregated on the Sand bars at the cut.  I headed along the rim of Sesachacha Pond, past the Greenhills and the osprey nest, toward the Audubon property. Four lesser yellowlegs fed at the foam edge .   The marsh fleabane (pluchea odorata) grew out of the sand. The osprey warned me to get lost. 

 Least sandpipers and snowy egrets bathed in the inlet near the swamp.  Mallards floated and sixty-ish Canada geese honked.    The pond is low...13 steps from the edge to where the path leads up.

Lesser Yellowlegs

Least Sandpiper

I was rewarded with a pearl crescent and an Eastern black swallowtail during my walk home.

Least Sandpiper

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