Discovering new places….

Posted on by
6

I love getting out and discovering new places, especially here on the Cape where I’ve lived virtually my whole life. Over the next 7 weeks I’ll be leading art and nature walks on Saturday mornings for the Barnstable Land Trust and while preparing for these walks I’ve discovered some wonderful places. This morning we were at the Sydney Woodlands in Hyannis, a new piece of property for the BLT sandwiched between town watershed land and a very suburban neighborhood. You would never guess it to look at it but this area even has its own crystal clear spring outlet with drinkable water.

The area is off Pitcher’s Way heading south toward Craigville Beach Rd. and you would never know this little gem was there. It backs up to Simmons Pond on one end and Ben’s Pond on the other. We started off looking at the wonderful ground cover plants and doing some sketches. Star flower, Canada mayflower and sarsparilla are all in bloom–among the very healthy poison ivy plants.

We heard a lot of the usual bird suspects you would expect to find in a fragmented woodland and pond area like this–towhees, pine warblers, common yellowthroats, yellowwarblers, robins, catbirds, blue jays, red winged blackbirds, downy woodpeckers, white breasted nuthatches, song sparrows, titmice, grackles and so on….and at one point we heard the sounds of grackles in distress. It didn’t take us long to find their nest, or the cause of their distress….

Their nest was being raided by a Cooper’s hawk! The hawk landed nearby and began to enjoy its catch while the grackles continued making distress sounds.

After taking its fill the hawk turned, the young bird still in its talons, and flew into a tree nearby…

There, up high in the tree was its own nest. We watched it join the other adult bird which then took off, leaving this hawk with the food and the hungry young, which we could hear begging.

Look closely toward the top of the nest and hopefully you can see the hawk–its long tail is sticking out toward the right and just looks dark.

Soon the other hawk was raiding the same grackle nest and it became apparent right away that ma and pa grackle had made a dreadful mistake in their choice of nest location. These grackles will probably build a new nest, lay more eggs and try to raise more young but hopefully they will choose a different neighborhood….

Anyway, it was pretty exciting to find this hawk nest–which is very close to homes and busy paths. We know that Cooper’s hawks have adapted to suburban living with the proliferation of bird feeders offering them easy pickings and this was just one more example of that. Also, don’t feel too sorry for the grackles….they raid plenty of other bird nests themselves…

For more information on upcoming Barnstable Land Trust walks please check their website.

It’s time for the Mass Audubon Bird-a-thon again!

Posted on by

Please consider supporting me and my team as we raise funds for the Coastal Waterbird Program housed at the Long Pasture Sanctuary in Cummaquid. The event begins tonight at 6 p.m. and ends tomorrow at 6 p.m. but you can donate any time in the next week.

You can  donate through my First Giving page online or send a check to Coastal Waterbirds (please note my name, Mary Richmond, in a note, not on the check) to Long Pasture Sanctuary, Box 235, Cummaquid MA 02637

And here’s a quick video of a common yellow throat I spotted at Long Pasture just this morning!

 

 

Painting a few eggs and babies….

Posted on by

Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to go to some wonderful places, including gull nesting colonies, while working with people doing various bird studies, etc. The nest that I painted here was off Plymouth and I did many sketches and took many photos during the few days I was there helping someone weigh and measure baby gulls. These are most likely herring gulls since they were the prevalent bird nesting in that area but I can’t swear to that–when this tiny the baby black backs look similar and so do their eggs. Gull nests are built on the ground and have an average of 3 eggs. The baby in this nest has just hatched and you can see the pip, or hole being made by the next gull that will hatch.

I thought it might be fun to show you my process while I painted this. I don’t pretend it is perfectly done but it was fun to do.

First, I sketch in the basic shapes with a pencil and then lay in the first watercolor wash.

I build up the painting, layer by layer by adding different mixes of colors

Watercolors need to have their layers built up gradually, allowing for a lot of transparency and play with colors and their complements…

I start to add some details…

Continuing to add layers I am darkening the darkest parts but beginning to add more layers to the eggs and bird, too

More details, more layers, another wash or two…

and it’s done! The finished piece is 8 x 10″ and makes a nice addition to my bird painting portfolio. I hope you enjoyed seeing how it was done.

It’s Mayflower Time Again….

Posted on by

Although technically I spotted my first mayflowers in March today I saw them blooming everywhere. Mayflowers are the state flower of Massachusetts and they are a quiet little blossom that many people probably walk right by.

Usually you find them in patches along the sunny side of a trail. They like rather poor growing conditions and are often half buried by winter’s twigs and leaves…in the picture below the mayflowers are in the middle of the frame..

They don’t look like much, do they? But get down close to them and they are lovely and elegant and they smell wonderful…

Their leaves are often tattered and brown looking but you can often find new leaves forming, too. The leaves are tough and sort of hairy feeling. The blossoms are somewhat waxy and able to survive the changing weather that often marks our springs.

Also called trailing arbutus, mayflowers almost always bloom in April, which somehow amuses me. Maybe they bloom in May in other places but usually by May the blossoms here are gone.

You can find mayflowers in many of the Cape woodlands, especially those that have ponds –which is most of our woodlands.

While looking for mayflowers take note of the little Canada mayflower leaves that are beginning to poke up through the pine needles. Also, watch for the red unfurling leaves of sarsparilla, one of my favorite and most whimsical spring woodland flowers.

This is such a great time of year to get out and about–migrating birds are arriving almost daily, toads are trilling and everywhere you look new life seems to be opening up.

Do keep watch for ticks if you hit a woodland trail–they are everywhere already.

Humpbacks and Gannets in Provincetown

Posted on by

What a day! I spent the day with one of my daughters and a good friend heading down Cape to Provincetown. We hoped to see some whales but were generally happy to get out and about in Provincetown before the crowds hit.

It was much nicer there than we anticipated–the weather forecast had been iffy but when we got there it was pretty sunny. Later we would get clouds but the sun was nice.

Race Point was picture perfect and in the distance we saw hundreds of northern gannets diving and fishing. We even saw an Iceland gull fly by quite lazily. No pictures of these as my lens doesn’t really go that far.

Nice view though, huh?

The tide was very low and the flats went on forever into the horizon from our viewpoint on the edge of the breakwater.

This fellow and his dog were taking a leisurely meander across the sand…

Which seemed like a reasonable response to the circumstances.

Later, when we returned to Race Point we were treated to a fun show of multiple humpback whales spouting, feeding and slapping their flukes before diving. One pair seemed to be a mother and calf but from the distance it was hard to be sure, even with good binoculars. Yes, or no, it was still a spectacular show out there.

It was a great day to be in Provincetown, that’s for sure. If you go, be aware that much of Commercial St. is torn up and being worked on and walking down the street is trickier than usual. Maybe it will be done soon.

 

A day at the beach

Posted on by

is always better than a day at the office, don’t you think? I am very lucky because in many ways the beach, the woods, the ponds and the fields are my offices. They are the places i gather inspiration for my writing and for my art. They are where I work the best.

I love seeing the opreys on their nests

and watching a mockingbird search for food, singing all the while…

I love finding shells that look like the bleached out skeletons they really are….

and I love finding the washed up egg cases of whelks that look like twisted backbones along the high tide wrack…

And I love seeing the little piping plovers running in and out of the quiet waves as the tide recedes…

yep, a day at the beach sure beats a day inside an office….

A little sunshine on a cloudy day….

Posted on by

We really, really can’t complain too loudly about the month of March this year….It was so mild for so long that the little bit of cold, wind and sogginess that we are experiencing this week is nothing but a reminder of what March is usually like.

Yesterday, in fact, I found my first blooming mayflowers, trailing arbutus, in the woods. Technically, my young grandsons found them

and this morning, to counter the dark and dank day full of drizzle I brought a few daffodils inside to paint, to brighten up the day.

You can find this painting on display with many other botanical watercolors at my Mary Richmond Design Etsy Shop.

Signs of Spring are everywhere….

Posted on by

It’s no secret that it’s been an early spring but as I was out and about this week I took some pictures to share…

Skunk cabbage is easy to find around most wetlands and it is way ahead of itself this year…and it has the funkiest flowers.

And the red maples are starting to bloom, always one of my favorites…

Here’s a closeup of the lovely, delicate flowers…

and of course there are plenty of these still in bloom…click on the link to see a very short video…

Daffodil Hill

I am still learning how to use this new site so thanks for bearing with me

I’ve moved!

Posted on by

Thanks for stopping by. Here you’ll find everything about my work as a writer, artist, naturalist and educator living on beautiful Cape Cod. Please check in regularly at the blog for the latest photos, stories and updates about Cape Cod nature and natural history. Browse the shop for cards, prints and gift items made from my illustrations and other artwork. Links to my writing can be found under Writing Links and my latest class listings can be seen clicking the Classes tab.

Taking a "lichen" to the Cape Cod landscape

Posted on by

Have you ever heard the one about Alice Algae and Freddie Fungus? Seems they took a lichen to each other.

Lichens are everywhere here on Cape Cod and many people are confused as to whether they are an algae or a fungus. They are neither, actually, but sort of a combination of the two. They get the advantage of the symbiotic qualities of the fungus as well as the photosynthetic abilities of the algae and can survive in what may otherwise be very tough and hostile habitats.

There are lichens such as the shield lichens that grow on tree bark and lichens that seem to grow in the air off of tree branches, like the dead man’s beard. In the coastal dune areas we also find a lot of reindeer lichen which has little branchlets that resemble antlers and my favorite, the little red capped British soldiers.

Every year I try to learn a little more about these interesting plants. There are thousands of different  kinds and I don’t really know how many we have here on Cape Cod but it would be fun to go out and see how many we could find.

For more information check out Gil Newtons’ Cape Cod Coastal Ecology Website.