Calico Quilty Fall

 

Flax-leaved Aster,
Lonactis linarifolia

Bracken and Black Huckleberry

Finally, rain. After the Commonwealth declared Nantucket in a Level 3 drought in early October, a major nor'easter hit on October 12-13. We clocked 13 hours with average wind speeds over 40 mph and gusts in the 50s. 2 inches of rain fell, bringing the month's total to 2.37 inches.

I ventured out to Beechwood and Norwood Farms to hike and found some pools of water in the former ponds, which had been dry a month ago. So even as deciduous plants are dying, the ponds are reviving. Orange gilled waxcap mushrooms were emerging from the mud, and I flushed a Wilson's snipe.

The hike served up a calico quilty fall. Red huckleberry, stripped gray Tupelo, yellow summer sweet, muddy scrub oak, golden cinnamon fern, brown grasses, yellow maples, green oaks, yellowing switchgrass, green mittens of sassafras, scarlet sumac and sweet everlasting, blowsy  groundsel all stitched together in a crazy quilt.

The moraine with its ups and downs is like a quilt itself: vistas and kettle holes.  Like life. It was a reviving walk after spending the past weeks worrying about and helping Joe and Amy as they cope with her mother's illness, two stressful jobs and children 3 and 6 years old.

Cinnamon Fern

Orange gilled waxcap

Norwood Pond

Almanac Pond

Norwood Oak

Equinox

 

Pearl Crescent

Leonard’s Skipper

As the equinox approached,  I headed out for a hike through Windswept Bog and around Stump Pond on September 9.   The drought predominates:  there is dry mud  in Windswept Bog where  there was ample water earlier in the year.  The source of Stump Pond's place name now is now evident with the water level so low, as the stumps are sticking up through the water all around the route. I follow a kingfisher and his rattle as I walk.  The burgundy tupelos  accent  the green Clethra Alnifolia, ferns, moss and St Andrews Cross. Pops of red huckleberries and yellowing grapes adorn the path. 

Stump Pond

Agalinis purpurea

I remember getting lost here while trying to walk around Stump Pond..now it is  less wild with more well-marked paths.  But there is always something different- a surprise.  Today it is a grove of false foxgloves in the new streambed at Windswept.  And the boneset fuzz flying over Windswept.  I am reading The Land Breakers by John Ehle,  and he describes the Appalachian settlers as using boneset for a tea to cure colds.

Pout Pond

Milestone Bog

On September 12 downy goldenrod and bushy aster are blooming all over the Milestone Bog.

A kestrel poses at the old sand transfer pool;  I flush Bobolinks.  It is a time of migration: those who leave, like the red winged blackbirds and eastern kingbirds ,  once so numerous here,  and those who stay,  like the bluejays and crows.     Two weeks later,  the landscape is brown..the boneset now dark and the sedges deep brown. Some reblooming sickle-leaved asters line the paths.  There are separate fields of sweet everlasting and goldenrod and groundsel.  Shorebirds are taking advantage of the fresh water at Gibbs Pond:  a solitary sandpiper,  greater yellowlegs and 2 late ospreys bathing.

Grass-leaved Goldenrod

Symphyotrichum Undulatum

Liatris, Blazing Star

Knowing that the first pond is dry, I  take the Pout Ponds Hike from Altar Rock on September 15.  It's now Aster time :  some Bushy asters on the way out;  a wavy-leaved aster and a first liatris on the way back.  Euthamia, the flat-topped downy goldenrod predominates.  Meadowhawks buzz near the dry pond.  Tapawshaw bog is completely dry.. I need to follow the streamed in the spring. We didn't pick blueberries, beach plums or grapes this year.  Thankfully still have a trove of jelly from last year's harvest.

At Masquetuck on September 26, I spy Salt Marsh perennial asters and flaming red salicornia.  Oystercatchers, egrets and yellowlegs are perched across the harbor.

Salecornia

Masquetuck

We finally got a slight rain.  At Squam Farm and Swamp on September 28,  Am I hearing Peepers? There has only been .54 inches of rain this month.   Downed tupelo leaves cover the paths while green Clethra still stands along the sides.  The yellowed grape leaves climb over them, along with Virginia creeper and red sumac.  Wavy leafed asters (symphotrichum undulata) are everywhere;  the mockernut hickories are full of nuts.  The Solidagos  are done, euthamia is blooming.   It's more like a winter walk for birds with woodpeckers:  downy, red-bellied and flickers.

  I love the order of the seasons.  Within the chaos and tumultuous world, there is an inner rhythm of the seasons.  The sunrise and sunset are now directly east and west of our house.  Sunrise will now move south from autumnal equinox til the winter solstice and north to vernal equinox and summer solstice. The flowers and birds march with the sun.

Pectoral Sandpiper

Bobolink 

September

 

Wild Grapes

Huckleberries

I know it's not August because on my morning cycle of the Polpis loop I'm smelling the wild grapes.  The Sweet Pepper  (clethra alnifolia) is gone.  At Norwood Farm, downy goldenrod predominates, and sweet everlasting is popping up.  Asters are fewer this year, perhaps because of the drought. The St. Andrew's Cross (hypericum stragulum) is turning yellow and red and the grasses are brown. The huckleberries brighten the landscape.

The ponds are all mud:  Norwood Corner Pond and  the two on left of Pout Pond Road, Almanac Pond. Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies buzz near the dry ponds.  Th last Virginia Meadow beauties are hidden in the grass. There was only 1.28 inches of rain in August, .74 in July and .43 in June. That's 2.45 inches of rain this year,  compared to 7.54 inches in 2024.  On September 9, the Commonwealth raised Nantucket’s drought situation to a level 2, up from level 1.

Almanac Pond

Around the corner

Deer are everywhere now.  There are 85 per square mile in Nantucket, compared to the Mass Wildlife goal of 12-18 per square mile for a healthy population. They have no natural predators.  Last hunting season only 871 were taken from a herd of roughly 4000. Deer didn't arrive in Nantucket until the 1920s and now they are pulling petunias from the pots on my patio as well as eating the hydrangea and sedum.

The angle of the sun in the fall gives the land a different look.  The groundsel tree (baccharis halimifolia or saltbush) blooms are getting ready to pop on the bluff. The clematis paniculata is blanketing hedges.

Flax-leaved Aster

Marsh St. Johnswort

Sweet Everlasting

Corn Moon rises

Autumn Meadowhawk

Bush Aster

Downy goldenrod

August

 

Full Sturgeon Moonrise

August is a busy month of grandchildren visiting; they are bursting with energy as the natural world of Nantucket starts its journey to fall. By August 1, the sickle-leaved silk grass is along the paths at tge Mikestone Bog.  The steeplebush is brown from the drought and the boneset is straggly.  With the cessation of cranberry farming's water, will the water willow continue to survive in the coming years? Dryness continues.  Only .48 inches of rain by mid- month.  The ponds are baked dry. Will there be any beach plums this year?

At Eel Point on August 6,  the colors  are red and golden brown:  the poison ivy is turning red, the marsh grasses are goldening and beach grasses browning.  Red rosehips are plumping out and silver bayberries shining. Sanderlings and ruddy turnstones forage along the shore.

Crane-fly Orchids

A highlight of my month is a visit to the Crane-fly orchids ( Tipularia discolor)  with NCF botanist Kelly Omand on August 7.  Listed by Massachusetts as endangered, they are found in Nantucket, Dukes, Barnstable and Bristol Counties. How many times I have walked near them on our Beechwood/ Norwood Farm hiking route, without knowing they were there?  The stand of Pearly everlasting is shining and the  first Little Ladies Tresses orchids (spiranthese tuberosa) are blooming.  Another Nantucket rarity, St. Andrew's cross (hypericum stragulum)  is on full display. Soon the downy goldenrod will come.

On August 8, I walked Squam Swamp.  It is so dry, so no mushrooms...end of Clethra Alnifolia, sweet pepper, and its wonderful scent, is near.  I checked out a tip from Kelly Omand that a dwarf clubspur orchid was near the Netted chain ferns (Woodwardia areolata)  between post 20 and 21, but couldn't find it. On August 12, Kelly took a group of us down the deer hunters trail before post 2, to see 5 of Nantucket's 29 fern species:

• New York Fern: pinnae narrow to base
• Netted Chain Fern: solid leaves
• Cinnamon Fern (Cinnamon fuzz where pinnae meets stalk,  and at base)
• Dioptera Wood Fern: black stalk, no cinnamon fuzz, wetter habitat ( vernal pool)
• Bracken Fern Toridium dry upland, Tripartite 

There are 10500 fern species in the world; that close to the number of bird species!

Lesser Yellowlegs, American Oystercatcher, Whimbrel

August also marks shorebird birding time, as the birds which breed in the northern regions start their journey south. Josh and I hiked to Coskata from Wauwinet on August 11. We waded across the inlet and saw hundred of terns, with some laughing gulls mixed in. Whimbrels,  a dozen Semipalmated plovers and Barn swallows were great to see. At The Creeks on August 12, there was a congregation  of great and snowy egrets. More than fifty of them foraged in the pool near the bike path, not bothered by me or dogs walking nearby. 

On August 21, Hurricane Erin brought big seas and Wilson's storm petrels to Sconset beach. I have seen them on pelagic trips, but never before from the land. I saw 20 of them dancing on the water. Young laughing gulls seem to be everywhere on the East end. Are they breeding here now,or coming from Monomoy? Erin brought a bit of a respite to our drought with .72 inches of rain.

August 22 First false foxglove (Agalanis Purpurea) at Windswept Bog.

Semipalmated Sandpipers

Short-billed Dowitcher 

Lesser Yellowlegs

Black-bellied Plover

Sanderlings

Semipalmated Plover

Whimbrel

Ruddy Turnstone

Ruddy Turnstone