Day 18.201: Broken streak

Yes I’m talking about Wordle, but it’s not my streak that was broken - but the generally infallible Wordle Bot!

I’m honestly shocked to find out that this is a thing. 

Day 18.200: Fortune's Rocks

Here are some of the non-bird observations from our visit to Fortune's Rocks beach yesterday.

This monarch was beautifully backlit by the setting sun

You can see it feeding here

I was trying to take a picture of this flat periwinkle but didn't expect the insect that was crawling over it

Here's the periwinkle in all its glory

There were lots of small hermit crabs like these in the tide pools and some even tinier ones

Rockweed

As we were leaving the beach, we were surprised to see the periwinkles gathering in lines on the sand...

...and on the rocks. It seems they do this to move while taking advantage of the mucus trail left by the one in the lead,

The view as we left the beach

We ended the visit back across the road at the pond. The moon was reflecting in the water.

And with this display, we called it a night

In other news, I've had some identification help and updated the Parker River birds post accordingly.

Day 18.199: Tuesday evening birding

Our nature group gathered for some sunset birding and other nature observations on and around Fortune’s Rocks beach. Here are the birds I photographed:

Common loon

Great blue heron - with a large fish

Double-crested cormorant

Spotted sandpiper

Common eiders

Killdeer

Spotted sandpiper 

Egret flyby (mostly if not all snowy egrets)

Common Tern after a successful dive

Common tern

Day 18.198: Misty woods

Having walked north to Goosefare Brook and then south as far as Ferry Beach, we decided to loop through the State Park trails back to our car in the Bayview beach parking. This is what we saw:

Chipping sparrow 

Pickerel weed at the end of long pond

We noticed how rotten this section of tree was and how deep the pileated woodpeckers had delved in it…

…while the higher parts looked to be completely healthy wood. We weren’t sure why we were surprised, but we were. 

Peck’s yellow dust amanita

Cucumber root

There was a faint mist in the woods and it felt noticeably more humid even though the streams were dry…

…presumably due to transpiration from all the plants

We also heard several red-eyed vireos calling as we walked (six would be a conservative estimate) and at least two black-throated green warblers. 

Day 18.197: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #532

Exile #2 writes...

Along with a trip to the beach, we’ve been pottering about getting some jobs done this weekend. We bought a replacement mini fridge, took at trip to the tip to deal with its predecessor. We put up a blind in the bathroom that had been knocking around for a few months

and drilled some drainage holes in a pot that was suffering for the want of holes. That felt like some kind of weird veterinary procedure, and I was glad not to be in Exile #1's spot when the drill finally broke through. Anyway, all in all a productive weekend. Oh, and there was some football...

Just kidding. Well done to the Lionesses.

Day 18.196: Morning at the beach

Exile #2 and I seized the day with an early morning low-tide walk at the beach. There must have been a lot of fish around because hundreds of cormorants and hundreds of terns had gathered.

Double-crested cormorants on the rocks

A few of the many fishing

The terns were in the same area - and seemed to have a very high success rate

Further up the beach the young terns were waiting near the mouth of Goosefare Brook

A steady stream of parents were bringing the catch to them, calling as they approached. 

Larger gulls down the other way toward Ferry Beach

Eastern bluebird in the trees at the back of the beach

Monarch butterfly

Young crows

A large raft of common eiders

Unlike last time we were overlooking the bay, it was quite misty

Day 18.195: Turkeys lurking

When I arrived home at lunchtime on Tuesday. Exile #2 told me I’d just missed a family of turkeys. The chicks had made two visits with their mother. The first time pecking for food in the grass and the second time apparently getting a lesson in preening by demonstration. Fortunately, although I missed them, Exile #2 took some nice photos.