Day 19.219: East Point Sanctuary

Our first stop on our tour of Biddeford Pool was at East Point Sanctuary. Here is some of the “common” things we saw there:

Common loon with a crab

Common eider

Common toadflax

Day 19.218: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #562

Exile #2 writes...

Although we missed the worst of it, this week, close by, there have been torrential downpours, enough hail to look like a covering of snow, and some very damaging thunderstorms. Thankfully, this has been balanced out with one or two really nice days and we’ve tried to make the most of those.

It seems to have perked up the crickets, who are singing very noisily in our backyard right now. It may have also spurred on this enormous sunflower, which survived the storms to tower over us outside church this morning.

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