Day 19.207: At Great Pond

Our nature group gathered this evening in Biddeford Pool. We started and ended with a view of Great Pond. Here is some of what we saw there (in the dying light):

There are two black-crowned night herons in this photo

Glossy ibis (later we saw 40 of them in this pond)

Choke cherry

Great egret

Great egret

Double-crested cormorant

Glossy ibis

Snowy egret and great blue heron

Snowy egrets

Eastern kingbird

Sunset clouds

Day 19.206: Garden update

Exile #2 has been busy. Here are some updates:

Also, salad leaves, berries, flowers, zucchini, …

Day 19.205: Boat trip miscellany

Day 19.204: What’s that? Goldenrod?

We noticed several plants that looked like these on our walk at California Fields yesterday. It took us some time to realize how important wasn’t an unfamiliar plant, but just some goldenrod.

We have now discovered what was going on - can you guess (if you don’t know)?

It was the first time we’d observed this phenomenon - amazing what you can miss if you’re not paying attention.

Day 19.203: Very dry in California ... Fields

After the extremely wet week we've had, we were surprised at just how desiccated the landscape was at California Fields Wildlife Area when Exile #2 and I visited this afternoon.

So dry

We saw quite a few monarchs on the Queen Anne's lace

There was quite a bit of common mullein - this was one of the more impressive flower stems

There were lots of Carolina grasshoppers flashing their dark banded wings as they flew and then almost disappearing when they landed

Even if I saw where they landed, they were hard to pick out

A little less dry once we were into the partial shade

This oak sapling had enormous leaves. Maybe black oak?

Morrow's honeysuckle

We heard more birds than we saw: indigo buntings most prominently. We did catch glimpses of eastern towhees and goldfinches and a sparrow (likely a song sparrow). Our best sightings were of cedar waxwings.

This one was having a good "hair" day 

Day 19.202: Wetness day

Our nature group was due to meet on Wednesday evening this week until the weather forecast (for rain) caused a reschedule to Tuesday. 

Well, it didn’t rain on Tuesday…until we’d all walked well away from our cars and then it rained hard enough for us to get very wet. We spent some time looking at trees both while sheltering under them and afterwards.

We also saw a few wet birds:

Double-crested cormorant 

Mallards 

Great black-backed gull 

Canada geese

Great cormorant

American goldfinch

Great black-background gull