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Heath Hen Meadow Changes

I'm hardly a faithful blogger. The fact I've written nothing for this blog in six months proves that point.

But I've been a pretty steady walker along the marsh despite my lack of blogging. The beaver are the big story on Heath Hen Meadow Brook. They've built up the dam just above and underneath the bridge. They've even built a small lodge 5 feet downstream of the bridge. And all along the marsh edge, upstream of the bridge, the higher water has given them access to young trees and old. A careless eye cast along the water's edge reveals trees down, on their way down soon or at the early stage of turning into beaver breakfast.

The Land Stewardship Committee has been busy with a set of walkway sections to we can walk across the bridge again. For much of the summer, the northern end of the bridge has been underwater and the 50' approaching it has been eithe a stream or a saturated mud puddle. Now, we can move across the bridge and get into the Heath Hen Meadow land proper.

Thank you everyone on the Land Stewardship Committee. Great work and great caring.

"Haul About Point"

Saturday at noon I walked out onto the grey/pink rock of Rockport's Halibut Point, a shallow point of sloping granite jutting north toward the Gulf of Maine. The "haul about" came from sailing days when schooners and anything else under sail would turn, "haul about", off the point, to head south east toward Rockport or Gloucester harbor or southwest toward the mouth of the Annisquam or Essex Rivers.

I'd just visited Daniel and Deborah, enjoying their company and their eyrie above saltmarsh and the Annisquam just north of the Rt 128 bridge. I don't know another place in the world where you can pick blues, hear bad blues harp (with occasional flashes of brilliance) and watch ospreys and egrets circle and jitter all at the same time. Well, if there are other places, they're pallid inadequacies because they don't have the Delightful and Delovely D's. I've spent a lot of great times in their living room, watching the river, talking and playing music. Nothing better, nothing finer than being with dear friends.

Below is a recording of waves coming ashore on that Halibut Point rock. Small rollers coming in from the NNE broke on the fast shoaling shore with lovely curls adorned by spray veils blown back to sea by the offshore wind. The recording's in mono (one microphone) so you can't tell the direction of the waves but it doesn't matter. Use your imagination.

To make the recording I found a spot right at the margin where the sea quits its claim on the land, the line of barnacles that open and feed only at high tide, amid waves and spray twice a day. While I was sitting there, holding the microphone close to my body to shelter it from the 10 knot breeze, a pair of purple sandpipers kept me company. With binoculars I was able to study their plumage, the large eyes set high on their heads and the few bright russet feathers set among duller gray brown. One bird was particularly calm, just 20 feet away, stepping around his boulder in a sedate, proprietary manner.

As I sat there, a few late eiders, black-backed and herring gulls, and double crested cormorants made their way by the point. I kept hoping for the drama of a gull's cry to punctuate the recording but no dice. They were busy going someplace on this mid-afternoon, using that offshore wind to ease their patrol of the shoreline. I've been there in December, on the highest rock, looking down into clear winter water as a flock of eider, a hundred or more birds, dove for molluscs in the surf. But there were no avian spectacles like that today.

Surf at Halibut Point
Google Earth satellite picture of Halibut Point

RSS Test

While RSS (really simple syndication) is used by only a few, in another year things will be quite different. Microsoft's next release of Internet Explorer, Version 7, will contain a feed reader so subscribing to favorite sources will become very simple. I'm experimenting with FireAnt, a multimedia feed reader that lets me subscribe to video blogs (vlogs), blogs and podcasts.

Flamingoes in the Woods

The last few weeks, on either side of the deluge, I've watched one of the most reliable signs of spring push the ground aside (never trust skunk cabbage, it'll break your heart when winter roars back).

Beauties have unfurled gracefully into shimmering green long-necked wands. The fiddleheads of ferns are everywhere. The most obvious, the Great Ferns, are cinnamon ferns that emerge from the damp earth in a tan velvet wrapper. As I've passed by these flocks of ferns they've reminded me of nothing less than pale flamingoes standing in stillness and unity under the trees.

Given today's warmth and their surging, lately throttled need to grow, those flamingoes will soon loose the long necks and demur curl of the fiddlehead to spread green wings above the marsh edge and woodland floor until the frost wilts those wings and the long winter's silence settles on the marsh again.

Sunshine returns!

After the deluge, the sun. What a blessing.

Louie and I cruised down to the almost submerged footbridge this morning. Actually, we didn't get to the bridge because the water was 50' up the path. But we did see and disturb the resident pair of Canada geese who had, to my delight, a pair of goslings in tow. That's a small number of offspring for this fecund species so I can only assume that the long rainy spell and some fast moving water (or hungry otter?) removed a few downy siblings.

Further upstream I watched a Baltimore oriole sipping the nectar out of the small white bell-shaped blossoms on what I think is high bush blueberry. I wouldn't be surprised to be wrong. This was growing not far from the water's edge. Of course, the water's edge is about 20 to 40 feet or more from its usual location. So, this lovely orange and black bird very delicately worked his way through all the blossoms.

The warblers are here but darn hard for me to see. I did hear a Yellow Warbler and several Ovenbirds, both favorites of mine. A mob of crows made life miserable for some poor raptor, battened down in a pine across the marsh. And the bustle of blackbirds and grackles working the marsh was loud in my ears.

Further along, I heard a scarlet tanager and saw a rose-breasted grosbeak singing away.

On my way out of the cemetary, I heard a loud, only slightly raspy singer in a pine and then in an oak. I worked it for 5 minutes, wondering what kind of oriole or tanager it might be. Well, it was a robin. To call my birding skills rusty would be polite.

Here's to more sun and better looks at the warblers!

Water, Rain and Birds

It's Mother's Day so, between speaking with the mothers in my life, I went for a walk in the Jenks conservation land in Acton. Despite the occasional heavy rain and constant drizzle, it was a pleasure because I took along my binoculars and did some birding particularly along the paths through the old orchard and meadow there. The Jenks land is lovely property, lying between (flooded) brook and Idlewyld's farmland.

I saw a bluebird like this one (perhaps even the same bird) as well. This lovely shot was taken by my neighbor Neil Tischleron the Jenks property. Neil's a wonderful nature photographer. His website is http://www.neiltichler.com/.

Here's the list of birds I saw on my ramblings:

Wild turkey
Canada geese
Mallard duck
Crows
Red-winged blackbird
Grackle
Robin
Spotted sandpiper
Yellowlegs (not sure which one) (all shorebirds were in open ground in Idlewyld farmland)
Killdeer
Tree swallows
Yellowthroat warbler
Yellow Warbler
Song sparrow
Savannah sparrow
Rose-breasted grosbeak
Goldfinch
Cardinal
Bluebird

There were other warblers and orioles I couldn't identify. I plan to go back once this long slow storm moves out and the blue sky that frames this bluebird returns.

Evidence of Spring

It's not just that there's no snow. Green is returning to the woods and marsh.

On a walk yesterday, I saw skunk cabbage a foot tall in the sunny places. Low shrubs had leaves the size of the proverbial mouse ear and some even larger (the rat's ear of Yore). And some grasses growing green again at the water's edge. An avian chorus was celebrating spring's return with song - song sparrows, grackles, blackbirds, chickadees - most of the usual suspects were finding their voices. Even the Canada geese and mallards were giving voice.

The Spring riot is, of course, more remarkable where we humans live. Forsythia is blooming in profusion while some showy trees are standouts in neighborhood yards and gardens.

And summer's coming. We were in coastal Virginia for the holiday and I can report full out-loud spring in progress with azaleas blooming everywhere and delicious warmth. At last!

April Fool's Day Recordings

These recordings were made April 1 starting around 0930. The peepers were mostly quiet, the wood frogs almost done with their spring bacchanal.

The first recording is 15 minutes long, a bit of a travelogue, a bit of a dialog on the weather, the chestnut trees and then some blessed silence (in other words, I'm not talking) on the little peninsula on the north side.

The second recording continues with blackbirds, a song sparrow or two and six highly irritated Canada geese who took off in dramatic fashion. Here's the next 30 minutes on the marsh.

It includes a meeting with two very happy and very wet golden retrievers and their owners on the bridge. We were all a little damp as a result.

Much of this recording would be fine if you want to feel like you're sitting by the marsh on a warm day, reading a book perhaps and listening, with half an ear, to what the locals are up to. Well, that and the occasional dog breath from Louie, my footsteps and the aforementioned retriever encounter.

Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain - Beautiful Rain

Cleaning up the yard on Saturday I was appalled by the dust that blew in the air with every rakeful of leaves or grass. March was the 2nd driest on record.

And now, we've had some wonderful rain, even big snowflakes today, and the earth is responding. Maple buds are swelling red, pussy willows are meowing happily, other buds are swelling into their own colors and the grass is thinking about being green.

Here's to Spring!

Forethought in Forestry

While Milwaukee isn't exactly wilderness, the city values the effect of trees on its citizens. When Dutch elm disease wiped out the city's spreading elms during the 60s, the city replanted with maples. Now, 40 years later, the sense of forest has returned. Read Globe columnist Derrick Jackson's article..

It's a pleasure to read a story of American forethought and environmental stewardship.

Very popular in the Maritimes - HenCam

OK, I have a complete soft spot for chickens. Nancy and I kept a dozen layers for years when we lived in New Hampshire. There's nothing quite as soothing as the sound of chickens speaking in low voices and nothing as ridiculous as a chicken's affronted dignity.

Our friend and incredible cook Terry Golson keeps a dozen over in Carlisle and she's got a webcam on her little flock. It's well done, frame rate is 1 per second which is enough to show her chickens aren't any smarter than mine were.

Terry reports that her HenCam site is quite popular in the Canadian Maritimes. I'm sure the folks up there are as amused that someone thinks a pen full of chickens merits its own website as they are by the birds themselves.

One of the very first internet webcam sites was fishcam. Just a camera on an aquarium. It was enormously popular, too.

Heath Hen Meadow land from space

Here's what it looks like from space. Note the footbridge on the right hand side.

Heath Hen Meadow Podcasts

I've made several recordings this week of the wood frogs and spring peepers and other folks who live in the marsh.

A 10 minute listen to wood frogs, spring peepers, the resident pair of Canada geese and a surprise guest toward the end. There's a little talking and much more Gaia music including water rushing through the beaver dam by the bridge.
http://www.climbing-trees.com/per/sounds/10MinutesofSpringEvening.mp3

An hour and more of my ramblings with amphibians, ducks, blackbirds and more. This recording concludes with the 10MinutesofSpringEvening.mp3 above.
http://www.climbing-trees.com/per/sounds/EveningOnTheMarsh032806.mp3

Here's 40 minutes of wood frogs and my thoughts on hunting and the overabundant deer population.
http://www.climbing-trees.com/per/sounds/MONOWoodFrogChorusMarch272006.mp3

More on wood frogs:
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/narcam/idguide/wood1.htm

More on spring peepers:
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/narcam/idguide/speeper.htm