December

 We intentionally came to Nantucket after Stroll weekend because it would be quieter.  Upon arriving, I set off to hike  north up the beach to Sankaty Head and Hoick’s Hollow.  I followed a pair of human footprints to the beach erosion project, but it was me alone and the birds after that. The human activity may be quieter, but ducks and seabirds are more active in winter.  I was lucky to be walking at low tide, and the rocks were well exposed.  My harlequin duck quarry played nearby.  A horned grebe and a razorbill followed me north, while Long-tailed ducks fed offshore and the gulls soared.  Red-throated loon stretched out to fly .  The scoters and buffleheads bobbed. A seal peered at me.  Breath quiets, the world of wars and lack of moral clarity (reaction to Hamas) recedes.

The walk back along the road, away from the sea, to Sankaty Head Lighthouse was quiet.  Low tide at 2:03 and it will be dark by 4:30.

On Saturday I headed out to Madaket to check out the Brant and saw my first common goldeneyes of the year. Dunlin mixed with sanderlings in fizzy flocks. Red-breasted mergansers regally swam by. I flushed a late egret at Jackson Point. A great blue heron languidly flew into the marsh. 

What passion sends me with binoculars and scope out into #wildnantucket?  The landscape is singular, the wild things precious. There is a feeling of being one with the world even as I am alone. The winter brings the deer to the front door, their droppings all over the lawn as they take possession of what is theirs as the humans depart.  The grasses and seed pods are like ghosts of summer. The ducks return and reclaim the sea from humans.  The sun rises far to the south, and will begin its journey north with the solstice.  Will we see a Snowy Owl on Nantucket this winter?

While winter brings more human quiet in Nantucket,  the world of seabirds heats up. We sailed past thousands of scoters, loons and long-tailed ducks on the ferry back to the mainland.  And the black scoters were singing.

Nantucket November

 

Two weeks since my last post, more beautiful browns:  blooming grasses, gone-to-seed goldenrods, scrub oaks. A few leathery mahogany viburnum leaves and maroon hypericum stragulatum, St. Andrew’s Cross. A shock of color from huckleberry and bayberry, and a sliver of sheep laurel. Some green will be with us all winter,  like the hollies and the cedars.

Oaks are usually the last deciduous trees in Nantucket to lose their leaves.  Even half of the scrub oak leaves are down.  There is the fingerprint of the wind on the oaks;  those exposed to the wind in high places or facing the northwest have lost their leaves.  Those close to the ground or in protected spots still cling to theirs.

Norwood Oak

Our winter birds are back:  we saw all three scoters with the birding group today,  and buffleheads, wigeons, ruddy ducks.  Ginger and Louis saw Harlequin ducks off the erosion control viewpoint yesterday! Brant are at Madaket. 

Jupiter rules in the clear night skies.The sun now rises far to the south, and will continue heading that way til the Solstice.  We are entering meteorological winter, the three months of shortest daylight.

October was very dry, with a mean temperature of 58 degrees, and average wind speeds of 9.9 mph and 2.03 inches of rain.  During my last visit,  Almanac Pond was completely dried up.  Last year October's mean temperature was 58.2, wind at 10.9 mph and 7.66 inches of rain.  In 2021 the mean temperature was 59.9, average wind speed  11.3 mph  and  there was 5.1 inches of rain.

First Light November 12 5:55 am

Sunrise 6:25 am

November 11

Stump Pond

Hunter's Moon

Moonrise, October 28

Late October in Nantucket:  Marshes brown, Tupelos leafless, brown scrub oak covering the moors.  The Goldenrod is gone,   leaving ghostly seed stands.  The groundsel/saltbush blossoms are almost gone;  there are few hypericum, aster and sweet everlasting . The firey huckleberry, yellow summer sweet and maples light up the landscape. Green cedar, sheep laurel, bayberry, heather, scotch broom provide the green counterpoint.  Jays cry, crows call, woodpeckers chip. Have the towhees fled?  There is only the sound of 2 airplanes during my 3 mile hike at Norwood Farm.  A doe and fawn dart across the path. There is no hunting on Sunday.  

Hurricane Season

 

Masquetuck

These past two weekends,  Tropical Storms Lee and Ophelia have ruled.  Lee brought high winds but no rain,  and Ophelia brought both.  Equinox winds have averaged in the high twenties,  with gusts in the forties.  The sustained winds have whipped the leaves off the ocean-facing hydrangea and leveled the cosmos and verbena.  White caps and waves crash out front  with fast moving steel-gray clouds.

Head of the Plains looking to Clark's Cove

But the combination of the goldenrod and the groundsel  beckons me to go walking.  Milestone Bog is now brown with grasses and sedges  and yellow with goldenrod.   The  still green Polpis Road flashes silver as the winds whip the Russian Olive leaves and white with the salt bush (groundsel).   Tupelo leaves are almost down, leaving leaves of brown and gold and red in Squam Swamp.   The rain lights up the Usnea moss on the trees. On the bluffwalk, the autumn clematis blankets are without blooms.

I caught some fall warblers in Madaket:  a palm warbler at Jackson Point with the Sunday birders ,  and a pine warbler at Head of the Plains with Josh.  The shorebirds are active:  a flock of pectoral sandpipers in Madaket with the birders and a  white-rumped sandpiper at Sesachacha, along with semipalmated plovers,  greater and lesser yellowlegs, three kinds of gulls, Gadwalls and wigeon.  At the Head ofthe Plains,  I followed this solitary sandpiper walking down the road!

Pine Warbler at Head of the Plains

Pine Warbler

Palm Warbler at Jackson Point

Solitary Sandpiper

Palm Warbler

Foggy Days

 

Foggy September 10 sunrise

In early September,  the Bluff Walk abounds with  Queen Anne’s Lace, goldenrod, autumn clematis, and rose hips. The showy clematis blankets the shrubs, the grape leaves flutter and the groundsel is budding. At Squam Farm, the cobwebs hang in the fog, while goldenrods, grasses and grapes contrast with the reflowering pasture thistles. Mockernuts have fallen from the hickories. Gerardia and Liatris are a treat, as wells a brown thrasher and a least flycatcher. The Milestone Bog is filled with burnweed and still some sickle-leaved silk grass. Sweet Everlasting is in bloom.

Autumn Clematis on the bluff

Goldenrod at Milestone Bog

Liatris, 
New England Blazing Star 

Gerardia

Whimbrel at Pocomo Meadow

Ruddy Turnstone

Black-bellied Plover 

Norwood Oak on September 8

Summer's End

South Polar Skua,
Stercorarius maccormicki

 It’s hard to believe it’s the end of my Nantucket summer: the northwest wind has not yet begun to blow.  But the goldenrods are opening, and September 1 is the end of meteorological  summer .  As a birthday treat, I indulged myself in a pelagic birding trip with the Brookline Bird Club, to journey out to the Atlantic’s continental shelf.

It’s like an overnight camping trip with 45 bird nerds.   The Helen H leaves Hyannis at 6 am on Monday and returns at 5 on Tuesday.  I met new people and people I know, like Naeem Yusuf, the organizer of the trip who lives across the street from my son Charlie.

It takes hours to journey out to the canyons at the continental shelf…Veatch canyon is our first destination.  The first Shearwater we see is surprisingly a Manx.  Then come the Corey’s and then the Greats and the Audubon’s.  Only a few Sooty Shearwaters were seen.  A school of Common dolphins travelled with us for a while, leaping in synchrony.

Wilson's Storm Petrel

White-faced Storm Petrel

White-faced storm petrel

Approaching the canyons, the Wilson’s storm petrels danced across the water and we got good looks at white-faced, banded and Leach’s storm petrels.

The 2-4 foot seas didn’t bother me. Overnight  I heard yellowlegs calling and saw a prothonotary warbler and ovenbird drawn by the boat lights. Later a black and white warbler landed on the boat.  A small least sandpiper also circled. 

The patches of dense life with mammals and birds are far apart in this vast ocean.   The clouds seem to create a tunnel for us to pass through. My boat is so small and the world so large.

Tuesday brought both more marine mammals and more predators.  A south polar skua wheeled overhead and circled.  They breed close to the South Pole and make the longest migration of any skua, feeding on fish and stolen meals from other birds..  Josh and I saw the Great Skua in the east of Iceland. Too bad this one was seen in Dukes County and not Nantucket!

Our trip home was north between Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, whereas we travelled out over Nantucket Shoals. Roseate Terns and a flock of American Golden Plovers were the highlights. We also got a look at the staging area for Vineyard Wind.

Manx Shearwater