Category Archives: cape cod

Watching a front move in…

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When we arrived at the beach around noon the sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue and there were some big puffy clouds on the horizon…

As we walked along the shore the clouds got thicker and thicker…

They looked very dramatic over the dunes…

and on the backside of the dunes the bright light lit up the sand against the violet and blue clouds…

We began to feel a few drops of rain and began to walk a little faster….

and faster….

and the rain got a little heavier but all the while parts of the sky remained bright blue…

Yep, just another day at the beach….

Photos taken today on Kalmus Beach in Hyannis.

Where’s the bear?

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If you’re on the Cape or anywhere near, you know we have a very famous visitor here–a young black bear! Everyone’s talking about it and the jokes and stories are multiplying faster than mosquitoes around here. This guy is on the move and was noted in Brewster early yesterday morning. Well, it just so happened that my daughter, grandson and I were also headed to Brewster yesterday morning and yes, we were pretty excited about maybe seeing the bear along the way.

We were headed to the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History and when we got there we found we were far from alone. A news helicopter was overhead, people with cameras and binoculars were everywhere and down the road were police cars and other official cars from various agencies charged with checking out the bear and keeping people safe.

Behind this scene were several dozen people scanning the marshes and nearby woods. This was taken at the corner of Paine’s Creek Rd. and Rt. 6A. Everyone was in a happy, anticipatory mood and I couldn’t help but feel that this little bear has made a lot of people happy. For all the chatter about how disconnected from nature we all are this moment proved that really, people want to be connected to nature. They are even a bit excited about it. Now, will these same people be excited 10 years from now if bears actually begin to repopulate the Cape? That’s another story. I remember when people were excited that coyotes were here back in the beginning. These days very few people are excited about coyotes and in fact many actually hate them.

In the end none of us saw the bear….

But over the past week we’ve seen lots of other things like this lobster shedding its shell in an aquarium at the museum…

or these lovely Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers in East Sandwich

or beautiful scenes like this one at Sandy Neck

One day this past week I even was witness to a wild swarming of winged carpenter ants that came and went in a matter of hours.

So……no bear photos but a great week to be outside nonetheless!

Late May on the beach….

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It is only a few days before Memorial Day and the Cape Cod beaches are beautiful…and still pretty quiet so come for a walk with me…

First we’ll take a turn by the sweet smelling rosa rugosa’s which are blooming really early this year…

We will stop to admire the beach peas, also blooming really early….and while we’re at it we’ll look out over Nantucket Sound…

Here’s a close up of those lovely beach peas…

We’ll enjoy the view of the sliver that remains of Egg Island, that only shows up at low tide. That’s Great Island in Yarmouth in the background.

We’ll stop to look across Lewis Bay in the amazing light…

Check out some courting least terns…

and smile at the ones lined up at the edge of the water…

And then we’ll take one last long look at the sand, sea and sky before we head back to work…

Painting a few eggs and babies….

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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.

Iceland Gulls Hanging out at Craigville Beach

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One of the fun things about winter birding is that you can go to just about any beach parking lot and check out the gulls, mostly from the warm and cozy blind that is your car. Gulls will let you get pretty close in a car–but step outside it and they’ll be off in a second. Unless they think you are bringing them food in which case every gull within 5 miles will immediately show up.

Anyway, we get a lot of random gulls here each winter, many of whom are out of their usual range but are not all that unusual because each year we get a few and sometimes we get a few in the same place, winter after winter. At first glance all gulls seem to look alike, at least to the unpracticed eye…

but can you see what is different about this gull?

Here it is in flight

If you said it is mostly white with no black on the wing tips and that it has a black bill, not a yellow or ringed one, you would be correct. It is a bit mottled looking so we know it is probably an immature or juvenile bird.

Now look at this one…

Looks sort of familiar, right? But look again…

No black wing tips and very pale gray back….hmmmm….it’s not a Herring gull, a ring billed or a greater black backed gull and it is a good sized bird which rules out a few others.

This beauty is in fact an Iceland gull, as is the immature bird shown in the first few pictures. Both of them have been hanging out with their less fancy cousins at the Craigville Beach parking lot this winter and if you hang around for awhile and check the various gulls you see there you may come across both or one of them quite easily.

These northern beauties usually winter north of us but each year a few seem to straggle down our way. Reports from the north shore and the Plymouth area are not uncommon and they often show up with other gulls in parking lots. Yep, opportunists just like the rest of the gang.

Iceland gulls breed in the arctic, usually on rocky cliffs facing the fjords in Greenland and northern Canada so these guys should be leaving soon. If you’re in the area though, check them out.

Brant geese

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Brant geese are locally common on the Cape throughout the winter and their arrival in our coastal waters in the late fall is a sure sign that the seasons are changing. Found in areas where there is a good amount of eel grass brant can be found in many of our south facing beach areas, especially around estuaries. You may also find them in marshy areas and occasionally grazing in grassy areas. These brant were hanging out with the gulls at the Sandwich Marina on the canal on a recent blustery day.

Many people see brant and just think they are Canada geese but if you look closely you will see they have a dark front whereas the Canada goose has a light front (photo by NaturePhoto.com)

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Canada geese are also quite a bit larger which is easy to see if you see the birds together. Imagine a herring gull and a Canada goose standing next to each other and what the medium size bird between them might be and you will have an idea about the size of a brant.

Here you can see them in relation to the gulls around them.

Brant don’t nest here but are arctic nesters, like many of our winter visitors. They come here because our coastal waters often stay open and their favorite foods are plentiful They will eat seaweeds, especially sea lettuce if their favored eel grass is in short supply. Back in the 1930s when eel grass crashed the brant population crashed along with it but they have steadily been increasing in numbers and are once again flourishing.

And if you are an old school birder, yes, brant used to be spelled brandt 😉

Picture Perfect Morning

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at Sandy Neck…

Ever since I was a little girl it has been one of my favorite beaches…

Even back in the day the snow/sand fences were there to keep the parking lot separate from the beach. You can walk along the beach into Sandwich toward the canal or you can walk back toward the tip of the neck to the point that protects Barnstable Harbor. In either direction you can walk for miles. The towns of Barnstable and Sandwich co-own this beach and I remember sitting up late at night waiting for my mother to come home to see if Barnstable had bought the land that extended out into the dunes and behind the great marsh. It was a long and hard battle and an expensive purchase and no one knew for sure which way the votes at town meeting would go.They had bought it! It was the largest piece of conservation land Barnstable had bought and managed at that time and today it is a true jewel in the Barnstable conservation and recreation system.

Even in winter the mystery and romance of the dunes lures walkers, horseback riders and hikers out to explore. The area is great for birding and other sighting of wildlife. Beware of hunters at certain times, however, for the area is also open to certain kinds of hunting. It is open as well to overland vehicles and campers, an agreement that irks some but has made huge supporters of the area in the larger community.

When I was in high school and college I spent untold hours roaming in the dunes, sitting in the sun with friends sharing bad poetry and hopeful dreams. We talked, we napped, we drew pictures, we rolled down the dunes in the warm sand. In winter we hid in the dunes to stay warm on sunny but cold days, days we should have been in a math classroom or history classroom but we were out in nature’s classroom instead. At least that’s what we told ourselves and in many ways it was true. The dunes are wonderful in the summer of course but they take on a very different quality in the winter, a quality that reminds young minds of quests and queries and questions about the meaning of life, survival and death.

Every time I walk on Sandy Neck there are layers and layers of memories of previous years, months and days spent walking here. And yet, as all good beach walkers know, no walk on the beach is quite the same as the one before, the one last year or 20 years ago….Like the birds flying above and the crabs buried below the beach is a living, breathing, ever changing thing….

Every visit is special but some days, like today, the morning is just picture perfect….

Ospreys

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I know ospreys are more and more common here but I still get a thrill when I see one. They are one of the environmental success stories from my youth. I didn’t see one until I was well into adulthood and I think I saw my first one in Florida…

This osprey platform was built by the utility company after several nesting attempts atop the bare utility pole ended badly for the ospreys. For the first year ospreys visited and perched there but it wasn’t until this year that they actually have showed some nest building interest beyond a few random sticks.

Not far from where this bird was perched I could see another one.

Can you see the osprey? It is the black dot on top of the pole and yes, that is what it looked like from where I was standing. I have learned to look for a second bird nearby the first and they are often on a pole so I zoomed in on this one…

And this is what I saw…

and this….

Later on I headed to a different spot where I knew I would probably see multiple birds nesting. The Centerville River is a popular osprey hang out and sure enough….

I saw this pair (the second one is hidden in this picture but is behind the first)

This pair….and I especially love this pair because the homeowner has obviously gone to some lengths to keep them off…

And this one was a loner for the moment though there were other birds in the air. There were 2 other nests along the river as well, both with birds but I would have had to go on private property to photograph them so I left it for another time…

When this bush blooms…

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it means it is time for something wonderful to be going on….See the little white blossoms?
I’ll give you a hint….
This is called shad bush….and I’ll write more about what it signifies tomorrow.

This spring we have had such good weather that the shad bush was not the first blooming wild bush, which it often is. Most years it is the first sign of life along the ponds and streams and in the yore of old it meant something very special….do you know what it was and still is?