More fall flowers....

There's something sort of bittersweet about the last flowers of summer and early fall....

Asters abound....

and come in many colors...

some flowers have one last bloom like these mallows...

and these cardinal flowers....

There are a few small sunflowers still blooming, looking lovely against a backdrop of goldenrod...

and then there is this flower, that I don't know the name of....

but which is so beautiful....

This is the time to get out and enjoy the last of the flowers....some will be around a few weeks longer but sadly most will be gone by mid October...

Golden days....

The goldenrod is in bloom again....and painting the landscape with its golden brush...

It can show up just about any where....

and covers whole fields with its golden glow....

Many people say it makes them sneezy but don't blame the goldenrod....blame its good friend, ragweed, instead.....

and, to make matters more complicated, there are actually several different species of goldenrod, including seaside goldenrod in the photo above. Whether you find it in a field, along a marsh side or at the beach, it may look the same at first, but check the leaves and the blossom pattern to see the differences....

There are several different species in this post alone ;-)

Swallows Staging in the Dunes

For the next few weeks you should be able to see an amazing sight--tens of thousands of swallows gathering and staging in the dunes along the Cape shores. See all those little black dots on the sand? Those are swallows--mostly tree swallows though you may see others mixed in as well....

These birds are rising up in flight once again...everything they do seems to be done en masse and when a smaller group finds a good place to feed or rest there seems to be a message sent to others for they arrive by the hundreds from all directions...

here you can see some perching on a small craggy branch...

and here they are swarming on a bush...

I learned yesterday, while out with Wayne Peterson on a Mass Audubon sponsored trip that tree swallows, although mostly insectivorous, eat bayberry berries in the fall. This may explain their attraction to dune areas such as Sandy Neck where this was taken since dune areas are often packed with bayberry bushes. Of course there are still plenty of bugs around as well but after watching thousands of birds alighting in the bushes as well I think they were doing exactly as Peterson suggested--eating the bayberries!

If you are out in Provincetown, at South Cape Beach in Mashpee, at Sandy Neck in Barnstable or any other beach with lots of access to bugs and bayberries, keep your eye out for huge masses of staging swallows as they load up on nutrients and fats to tide them over on their long trip south for the winter. It's quite a spectacular show.

In the Dunes....

This past week I've spent a lot of time out in the dunes at Sandy Neck...

Sandy Neck is a unique coastal habitat in our area that ranges about 7 miles into Cape Cod Bay on one side and borders the Great Marsh of Barnstable on the other. Within its boundaries are many smaller ecosystems including maritime woodlands, vernal pools, salt marsh, dunes, cranberry bogs and coastal heath land. It is huge staging place for migratory birds.

It is also just breathtakingly beautiful. It is managed by the town of Barnstable and is used by local classrooms, both high school and college, as both lab and field school and the town owns a small cottage that is used to house some of the students who come to study there.

Called the Halfway House, it is halfway along the trails from the parking lot to the end of the neck....it is very basic with no running water, electricity, heat, etc. and has recently been opened up for use by artists and writers as well. I was one of the lucky ones who got to go on the first art related trip out there and in fact, ended up being asked to be a leader. This is a completely volunteer effort with all donations going to a fund to  add solar energy to the cottage.

This is actually trail 4 and leads over the hill directly to the beach....from the top it offers a spectacular view....

I wrote about the day we spent out there and my overnight experience in the cottage alone for the Barnstable Patriot and you can read the article here. I will be adding pictures and more stories over the next few days.

Little things....

are often overlooked but can be so rewarding to find and enjoy....

like this composition of a shell fragment on the sand with a few strands of dune grass....

or this perfectly perched crab molt...

or the faded but sweet skeletal remains of this dune plant....

or these rabbit tracks in the sand....

all these little things are the things that make me happy every time I walk in nature...How about you?

Night Herons at Fort Hill

Years ago I happened to be at Fort Hill around dusk waiting to watch the sunset and noticed that all around me black crowned night herons were vocalizing and flying out over the marsh where they feed. And yes, they feed at night or just after dusk, hence their name.

Black crowned night herons are fairly common on the Cape though they tend to secretive by day and some people never seem to see them. There once was a huge colony at Sandy Neck but over the years that rookery was destroyed again and again and if they are once again nesting there it is not in the same numbers that once proliferated there. There is a great account of that old Sandy Neck rookery here.

The bird above is a black crowned night heron. We also can see yellow crowned night herons here. I don't have one of my own pictures of a yellow crowned night heron but you can see what one looks like here. Immature night herons are pretty stripey and brown and can be confusing to identify by species, especially since they tend to hang out in the reeds and can be confused with bitterns if one just gets a quick look. Immature Green herons are also brown and stripey.

This weekend we had to go to Wellfleet just after dusk so it was a great time to stop at Hemenway Landing in Eastham to watch for night herons. We were not alone. There were probably a dozen other birders there. You can also reach Hemenway Landing by following the trail from the Fort Hill parking lots and there is also a great place to watch where the little pavillion and big rock are along the trail--that is actually where I usually watch them from...

The sky got darker and the almost full moon rose...

and then we began to hear them... quawk!!!! quawk!!! They sound like some funny old man squawking as they fly overhead and in some parts of the country they are actually referred to as quawks....

One after another they flew over our heads, circling around the marsh and creeks looking for a good place to land. We watched several dozen arrive and land before we had to head off. As the sky darkened it was harder and harder to see them through binoculars but we are pretty sure there was at least one yellow crowned among them...

Anyway, if you're in the area around sundown....take a few moments to catch the night heron show before they begin to migrate....it's a sight you won't soon forget...

My pictures of the birds didn't really come out--but here's one of my sad attempts--between the low light and the movement my camera wasn't up to catching them....

but it did catch this...

and this...

Making Like a Squirrel....

It's that time of year....to gather and save what we can of summer for summer is leaving us behind. There are last berries and fruits to turn into jams, vegetables and sauces to can and freeze and so on...

And this year I have been digging out all my old jars and canning tools, replacing the lids and preparing food for the canning or jamming...

Earlier I had made the blueberry peach jam and the kosher dill pickles but this weekend I knew I better get cooking before the rest of the peaches and cukes were gone by....we especially like bread and butter pickles and they are so easy to make!

The hardest part of making jam or canning anything is gathering and cleaning all the jars, pots, funnels and lids and lining everything up so you are ready to spring into action when everything is ready. The actual peeling, cutting and cooking is actually pretty relaxing and fun.

And who doesn't love to open a little yummy jar of summer goodness when the cold winter winds blow?

Katydid Season

Evenings in late summer and early fall here on the Cape are filled with the sounds, songs and chirps of gray tree frogs, crickets and katydids. So called Katy-did because they sound like that's what they are saying, these cousins to our familiar crickets are bright green, helping them be well camouflaged among the leaves they love to chomp upon.

This one landed on the hood of my car in Wellfleet earlier this week and hitched a ride to Marconi Beach.

If you have never seen a katydid, they are about 2" long though the nymphs are smaller and there are also several species. This one was pretty large and was unimpressed by my proximity with a camera.

Check out the extra long, extra fine antennae. Most grasshoppers and crickets have much shorter antennae.

These little critters will be laying eggs soon that will winter over before hatching into nymphs next spring. Katydids eat plants, such as oak leaves, which of course we have plenty of, and are quite common to find in grassy areas near open woodlands such as the National Seashore. Kids especially love them and they are easy to catch.

Here is a blog post by a naturalist, Marcia Bonter, who spent time with Steve Rannels who studies the sounds of katydids as well as other crickets and grasshoppers.

A Gull and Fish Story

The morning after the storm the gulls at the beach were very active. They probably were pretty hungry and there was plenty of food washed up on the shore.

If you look at the picture closely you may notice a dead fish a little left of center. There are two black backed gulls--an adult and a juvenile and the juvenile is in a threatening stance and is calling loudly, letting the adult know that this is ITS fish and it has no intention of sharing....

In this picture you can see that an adult gull has stepped in close to the fish...the young gull is really strutting its stuff but the adult seems less than impressed....

Check out what is happening here....the adult bird is establishing its superiority....check out the young bird talking back...

and you can see here who won this one...and it was none of the birds that were arguing...but the herring gull that was waiting while all the others were posturing and making a racket....

showing us that those that wait patiently often rush in and win in the end...

As you might imagine the story didn't really end there....constant bickering and re-positioning occurred and the dominant birds eventually took over the fish carcass, leaving the younger birds to wait their turn from a distance.