Day 19.217: Biddeford Pool

It was sunny this afternoon and not unreasonably hot, so Exile #2 and I decided we needed to get outside for a while. We decided on a trip to Biddeford Pool which - accidentally put us in the path of the River Jam festivities near the mill and then a wedding party as we arrived at Lester B Orcutt Boulevard.

In the end, we did a 2.5 mile circuit that took in East Point Sanctuary, the coast road, South Point Beach and Great Pond. 

I’ll share some of what we saw later, but here we are on the boardwalk to the beach. 

Day 19.216: Riverside eagles

Our other sighting on Wednesday evening were three bald eagles - two adults and a juvenile.

Day 19.215: Evening sights

Before the heron-in-the-dark, we saw some other things:

Mallards

Double-crested cormorant

Hooded mergansers

Great black-backed gull

Great blue heron

Canada goose

American herring gull with a fish (probably not a herring)

The great black-backed gull tried to steal the fish but failed

Spotted sandpiper (spotted)

Harbor seal (also spotted)

And one otter species, I’ll save for tomorrow. 

Day 19.214: Night; heron

…but not a night heron.

Great blue heron in the dying evening light

Day 19.213: Abe Emerson Marsh

On our way home from Manchester, we stopped in Candia (definitely a real place in New Hampshire, not an offshoot of Candyland) to visit Abe Emerson Marsh. It was the middle of the day, so not ideal for birding but we had a nice walk and saw some cool things:

This pond was between the parking area and the trail head and was full of interesting plants

Cardinal flower

On both sides

Pickerelweed (or - apparently - pickerel weed in the UK)

White water lily

White meadowsweet

There was a lot all along the side of the marsh and its sweet smell was quite intoxicating 

Also attractive to the monarchs apparently 

Great blue heron

Two quiet eastern phoebes snuck by. We also heard at least two of their eastern wood pewee cousins

It’s also peak mushroom time

Day 19.212: Currier Museum of Art

Here are a few slightly random images from our visit to the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire yesterday. I was rather poor at noting the artists and names of works, apologies for that. 

I think this work is called Family by Marisol Escobar, wonderful and disturbing:

I loved this in a gallery of Realism. I think it is called Hudson Valley or Hudson River but I could be projecting. 

Here is one I took a wide and a close-up of. Perhaps we should have encouraged our kids’ bead phase more?!

Amazing work!

A terrible picture of the three Picasso works they told us about as we arrived:

Another special exhibit was of “Contemporary Drawings of Nature”. Here is one work by Victoria Elbroch:

And a close-up:

Just a few small tastes of a wonderful visit.