Nature Walk - Dunes and Marshes

 

 

 

Hi! What a beautiful day it is today! The sky is pristine blue but it's windy and there's just a hint of autumn mist lying low in the hollows. Big waves! Perhaps the oddly balmy air and high surf are from  Hurricane Gonzalo even though that storm is thousands of miles away.

The air is filled with flocks of little black birds, perhaps blackbirds and starlings. For some reason they keep flying east, which is, uh, wrong, as that would eventually send them north.
One day this week all the neighborhood shrubbery was busy with yellow rumped warblers as they too head south. They're just little nervous brown birds, but distinctive because they have the single bright chartreuse spot on their backs above their tails.

The oystercatchers are still here. The peeps---piping plovers and sanderlings have disappeared, though I expect the sanderlings will reappear.
This is the roosting area of a plover flock. They dig tiny hollows as if to mark their nests for next spring:

(The large footprints are maybe OCs'.)
 No egrets in the marshes. Though they have acquired a new fancy sign!

But one night, as Mo and I took a late walk, I looked up and saw a V of big white birds, bright against the black sky. Swans or snow geese. They often migrate at night. I love seeing them on their silent journey.
Other sightings...a hawk over the marsh.

And these funny crows who come to the beach each fall.

The dunes are lush. They roll on forever, it seems. I only walk the margins now. The dunes are still fragile and rebuilding.

 

 

 

 

 

Now that the bird fencing is gone, I can discover intersting treasure, like this driftwood. (My beach doesn't get much driftwood, so I notice it.)

 

 

 

Goldenrod and beach roses are still in full bloom.

 

I find tiny weird dune mushrooms that appear in the sand after a rain.

 

 

 

 

 

By the boardwalk, little footprints, maybe a seaside sparrow, looking for dunes grass seeds. Or  perhaps a toad? The spadefoot toads roost under the boardwalk.

We had the oddest toads sighting one evening a few weeks ago. Teeny tiny toads! Everywhere! Lots of them, no bigger than your little fingernail. 3/8"?
At first I thought they were spiders. It seems local toads evolve from tadpoles to this tiny version, though I've never seen them before. And so strange that they'd hatch and---metamorphose?---in the fall instead of the spring.
Mo was fascinated, then scared, as he chased one and it leaped high in his face.
Can you find the toad?

He's in the right angle, top, of the seawall, above the black pebble.

The marsh is still quite green. Just a hint of amber in the faraway phragmite heads by the saltpond.

 

 

 

In the higher margins the tangled weeds form a medieval tapestry as the days and season go by.

 

 

Enjoy your weekend! I hope you can get out for your own nature walk. Go slow and look closely? Here at the beach we're expecting a beach day! I'll bring my Flag blocks and my tattered sandchair down to water's edge for one last time.

this week's recipe: http://civilizedcavemancooking.com/entrees/beef/bacon-beef-butternut-squash-2/  [sub ground turkey if you like?]
And it was delicious, but I forgot to take pix. Enjoy!



me! me! Yum, yum!

love

lizzy
 
gone to the beach...

Beach Roses and Honeysuckle

Hello! This weekend was glorious, in a chilly sort of way. The sun was bright and the roses and honeysuckle burst into bloom on the dunes. Oh the scent! Salt air and flowers! Take a deep breath...

I wish I could send it to you over the blog-waves.

No fancy French perfume smells as delicious as a June afternoon at the beach, when the dunes are filled with roses and honeysuckle and wild sweet pea.

The bumblebees are drunk with pleasure.

The white roses are much rarer, this is the only white beach rose on my dunes. Behind this dune is the cache of recycled Christmas trees which is building the dune higher and wider.

 

 

 

 

Out by the shoreline, the oystercatchers patiently await the birth of their babies.



mama on the nest, far left edge.
Daddy on guard on right.

 Closer looks, but taken from a distance so not to distress them.

 

 

 

 

And look what self-seeded in my deck planter. What is this pretty weed? I thought it was ragweed, I am glad I didn't pull it out, but waited. Maybe Sweet William?

A fine day. Hope you had a good day too.

love
 
lizzy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~gone to the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

Migraine Weather

 the wind bends the grasses almost horizontal!

waves are huge

Hi! Oh yes, stormy weather here today! And I know some of you had heavy rain and even snow! Here at the beach we're experiencing gale winds of perhaps 45+ mph, full moon flooding, eclipse gloom and doom. And yesterday was so pretty!

My friend and I ran out to the flower store. Brilliant sunshine, high pressure but so windy my house was shaking and her SUV was swaying. A headache threatened. Having migraines is like having a built in barometer [but more painful.]. When air pressure is high but a very low storm pressure is looming on the horizon, the pain can be intense. I'd had a migraine since Friday! Yeesh. A storm is coming!

 

 

By midnight yesterday, the wind had died and dense fog rolled in. The eclipse was not visible. I was very sad. The good news was my headache left along with the clear skies.
Today...oh the wind! It was back. The vibration of wind kept waking me up.
I dressed in waterproof clothes and headed to the beach, of course.

The new dunes are blowing away.

Maybe the treasures in the dredged sand will be exposed?

The very high tide plus gale winds from the south had caused waves to wash all the way to the highest old dunes, sweeping aside and through...over? ---the newly re-created outer dunes of the past two winters.

[not the man-made trucker dunes, they're just kinda blowing away.]

 I tried to capture the wind with my camera during my abbreviated beach walk.

 

 

 

 

I gt about this far and the wind was blowing me backwards. It got a little scary!

Back home I made my Easter ''basket'' with my flowers from the flower market. I used a crock instead of a thrift shop basket because I didn't want it to sail away in the wind.
I had to photograph it  inside because of the wind. Then I put it outside by my front door because it wouldn't survive  on my deck in the storm.

I figured if I had extra pansies I'd plant them in my deck planters, but I can't even open the deck door, the wind is forcing it shut.

So I stuck them into a little old yellow McCoy planter for a few days til things calm down outside,lol.

Last weather note: I ll have to bring the flowers inside later! Freeze warnings now...can you imagine. What a winter this has been....



my Easter Basket

 

inspiration basket from last month's flower show.
 But the stores here have no bulb plants available, Easter is so late.
so I tried for the general look.
I also didn't have any moss so I used Easter grass instead.
I'll remove it after Easter then transplant the flowers in a week or so.

 

 My kids say they're too old for Easter baskets, so I make my own. And I always fill a big Mason jar with pastel sugar coated Cadbury chocolate eggs.  My mom always set out her brilliant yellow silk forsythia wreath, on her Cape Cod blue door;  my dad made Easter baskets very similar to mine, in found baskets from the [freebie] swap shop at the Dump...and they always sent me a bag of foil wrapped little chocoltae eggs. [I am NEVER too old!] How about you? Do you enjoy making Easter Baskets? Or putting out some spring decor? What's on the menu for this week's holidays, anything special? I'll tell you about Easter dinner plans in my next post.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach