Day 19.066: Saturday birding (part 2)

Our second stop was at the middle of Goose Rocks Beach and the nearby marsh where Dyke Road crosses the creek. Here are some of the things we saw there:

Hooded merganser

Two hooded mergansers

American black duck

Two American black ducks

Distant killdeer

Passing mallards

Northern cardinal

Harbor seal

Great cormorant

Horned grebe

House sparrow

Day 19.065: Saturday birding (part 1)

On Saturday morning after a bit of snow shoveling and then seeing E5N1 off on his trip, we went to Kennebunkport to meet our nature group. We did some tree observation and birding at one location and then did a little more bird and nature observation after a short drive up the road. Here are some of our sightings at the first stop near the mouth of the Batson River.

European starling

Song sparrow

American tree sparrow

A gathering of crows

Mallards

Common goldeneyes

Red-breasted merganser

Common eider (young male)

Common eiders (adult male and females)

Common goldeneye

Ring-billed gulls

Timber Island (looking moody)

American robins

Common goldeneyes

American black ducks

Canada geese

Common goldeneyes

Fresh snow and some of the clouds responsible for it

Day 19.064: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #547

Exile #2 writes...

I went down to the basement this morning and discovered this sad sight.



All Brits will know the sorrow of a forgotten cup of tea that has gone cold but this is next level. It’s a fair representation of what has been a mostly good but very busy week. Exile #1 didn’t even get round to mentioning that we had lunch and a fun afternoon playing games with Exile #4 and their friends, who were spending spring break at an Airbnb nearby.

Nor did he mention the all too exciting drama generated by a stolen phone and the absolute need for us to be in communication with each other this week. So it is that we now have a family burner phone...

Day 19.063: Snow surprise

E5N1 got away as expected this morning and has now made the journey by car and bus and plane to Florida. What I wasn't expecting was having to do some snow shoveling before he left at 6:30 am. We only had a couple of inches on mostly (by then) clear ground, but it was enough for the plow to come by which meant that some attention was required.

Day 19.062: Brief visit

E5N1 is here. He arrived this evening and will be gone again at 6:30 tomorrow morning for a trip to Florida with one of his high school friends and her family. In the meantime, we had some urgent laundry, packing and planning for a complicated logistical plan for the next week and a bit. 

Packed bag - one thing checked off the list

Day 19.061: Heat wave

It’s turned cooler now, but a couple of days ago, daytime highs hit the 70’s. As you can probably imagine, snow melting has been rapid. These are from Tuesday. There’s even less now. 

Day 19.060: Stereophonic

Exile #2 and I drove down to Boston, to the Emerson Colonial Theatre yesterday evening to see Sterephonic - a play about a fictional rock band making an album in 1976 - which is on currently on tour after a Broadway run. The play has some strong parallels with Fleetwood Mac around the making of the album Rumours but without the weight of representing the real people and relationships and with excellent original songs to work with.

Here's a picture of the theater:

And here's the excellent set:

The music was excellent, and the cast really shone during the musical parts. The whole stress of the process of making and recording music in the studio was represented very convincingly - honestly as people who have experienced that (albeit in small and relatively low-stress ways) it was a bit too real at times! The play as a whole has some odd pacing and at times intermittently loses its emotional weight. We also struggled at times with the patchy British accents, but overall, it was a great experience and well worth the trip.

Day 19.059: Mid-semester concert

On Sunday evening, we went to E5N1's mid-semester choral concert. It had been delayed by snow storms, but they eventually managed to find a window when it could happen. You can find it here if you want to see (or perhaps more-so hear) it. E5N1 is in the first section as part of the University Chorale, but the second part is also excellent - especially the modern pieces at the end. The Chamber Singers have been working with the composer of those pieces and - we discovered afterward - E5N1 had also attended a composition masterclass with her while she was on site.

Day 19.058: Sunday birding

Our Thursday morning nature group that usually meets on Saturday mornings met on Sunday afternoon this weekend at the mouth of the Kennebunk River in Kennebunkport. Here are some of the birds we saw:

Our first sighting was bittersweet. This is a thick-billed murre. A life bird for many of the group including us.

However, this particular bird was - we suspect - not doing well and seemed rather listless, eventually getting beached on the mud as the tide peaked.

Mallards

We saw several common loons, some in various phases of developing adult plumage

Common eider

Common eider

Common loon

Common goldeneye

Rock pigeon

Horned grebe

Red-tailed hawk

Common goldeneye

Red-winged blackbird - first of the year for me

...and this was the second

Surf scoters and white-winged scoters