July 2022

 July 2 After a heavy rainstorm, Jamaica Pond at sunset.

July 3 On a morning bike ride through the Arb, saw a family of turkeys snuffling about in the grass.

And the rose garden is wonderful right now.

July 4 Saw a great blue heron fishing by the boathouse, with a perfect reflection in the still water.

Later on in the morning, biked around the Concord - Carlisle loop, getting ready for my upcoming Nova Scotia bike tour.  A biker coming towards me alerted me to this deer ahead. I was amazed that it let me stop the bike, get my phone out and take a photo. It looked a bit nervous at first, but I talked to it gently and it seemed fine with me being there until I finished up and got back on the bike.

This evening, walking by Leverett Pond, saw a great blue heron fishing.  After a bit, it flew along the length of the pond, squawking, then landed in another spot to resume fishing.  I don't think I'd ever heard the squawky noise they make before.  Here's how the Cornell All About Birds website describes their calls - who knew herons have such a vocabulary?

"Great Blue Herons are most vocal on the breeding grounds, where they greet their partner with squawking roh-roh-rohs in a “landing call” when arriving at the nest. A disturbance can trigger a series of clucking go-go-gos, building to a rapid frawnk squawk that can last up to 20 seconds. If directly threatened, birds react with a screaming awk lasting just over 2 seconds. Chicks give a tik-tik-tik call within minutes of hatching."

You can hear the call I heard if you click on the "Listen" button here.

There were also tree swallows flitting about in the diminishing light.  And a group of people playing cricket at the ball field. On Independence Day.

July 5 A juvenile blue jay, feathers looking a little scraggly, not yet the sharp, well defined adult colors, in the linden tree outside my house, squawking, when an adult arrives to feed it.  More squawking as the adult hops over to another branch and waits for a bit. Then the adult flies off, followed by the juvenile.

July 8 Arrived in Halifax Nova Scotia to visit friends and go on a bike tour.  I had to share their equation-filled tissue box with several colleagues at MIT, all of whom thought that the Institute needs an immediate upgrade.

 

July 9 We went to their place on the south shore, near Mahone Bay, for an overnight stay. So peaceful there. This is the view from their dock.

And from our walk down the road from their place.

 I impressed them by showing them the Cornell Merlin sound ID app, which identifies birds by their songs.  Lots of song sparrows, American goldfinches, red-eyed vireos, and yellow warblers. Once they downloaded the app, they kept whipping out their phones whenever they heard a bird sing.

After dark, Pete and I went down to the dock to check for bioluminescence in the water.  Waving a paddle about, we saw a few silver flashes, but not very impressive.  On the way back to the house the light from the nearly full moon was bright enough for our shadows to appear on the road.

July 10 Met up with Freewheeling bike tour in Halifax for the drive to Wolfville, a small university town on an inlet towards the northeastern end of the Bay of Fundy.  Our first stop was the Grand-Pre National Historic Site, commemorating the Acadians, French settlers who first came to this area in the 1680s.  Over generations, they built dykes and desalinated the water to transform the tidal marshland into agricultural land. Around 1760, the British forcibly removed the Acadians from this area; among the Acadians, this became known as Le Grand Derangement.  Louisiana Cajuns were part of this deportation. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1847 poem, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, is set during this time.

Biked from there to Evangeline Beach - the tide was a couple of hours from low tide, but still way out. And from there, we biked to Wolfville.

Sitting in the garden at our inn, chatting with a couple of other people on the bike tour, I saw 2 bald eagles perched at the top of a tall dead tree trunk at the end of the driveway; after a few minutes, one flew off. One of the staff people at the inn said there's a nest at the church up the road. Cool.

July 11 Went out for an early morning walk to see if I could find the eagle nest at the church. After a bit of neck craning, I found it, with a pretty much fully grown juvenile perched next to it.

And, helpfully, this marker was near the tree.

Walking back towards town, I found a little laneway that led to a footpath over the marshy area by the inlet, where there was an adult eagle standing at the edge of the bank. After a few minutes, with some pathetic sounding squawking, it took off. Some raptors have the most wimpy calls.

And here's another view of the inlet this morning.

The bike tour went to Hall's Harbour 42 miles, 2200' elevation gain today (this is an easy tour?). Instead I went back to Evangeline beach on the rail trail, hoping to see lots of shorebirds at high tide, when they get concentrated close to shore.  Saw a pair of adult eagles next to each other on a pole, then a juvenile on another pole a little way down the road. And then another adult flying over the fields next to the road.

Alas, no shorebirds, as the tide was all the way up the rocky bank - no beach left at all.  There was this woman paddleboarding with a dog.

 

I thought I'd wait a while, thinking that the tide would go out and the birds might come in, so I biked around that area, first to a dirt road along the dykes, then to something called the Guzzle (I had to check it out as I liked the name): a strait of water between the mainland and one of the islands.  A bunch of people fishing, but no birds. Saw another eagle perched at the top of a tree on my way back to the main road.  And the juvenile along the main road was still there when I cycled back.  So a great day for eagles!

Biked back into Wolfville along the rail trail, had lunch and then kept going nearly to Kentville, the next town along.

July 12 This morning, there was a juvenile eagle perched at the top of the dead tree by the inn's driveway and another juvenile on the nest at the churchyard; as I walked back to the inn, the first one took off and flew out to the inlet.  

We drove from Wolfville to Port Medway on the Atlantic shore this morning, then headed out for a bike ride. I was feeling a bit off and had to stop and take the van instead; think I got dehydrated.  Had wonderful views, though.  This is our picnic lunch spot.

We made our way to Lunenburg, home of the Bluenose fishing schooner (well, a replica of the original boat), winner of fishing schooner races in the 1920s and 1930s and commemorated since 1937 on the Canadian dime.

 

July 15 Still not feeling well, I finished the biking trip a little early.  Spent another couple of days at Pete and Trish's place on the shore, just relaxing.

I've been spending time in Provincetown with Susan, just relaxing, going for walks and biking. 

July 22 On a trip to the spectacular Wellfleet Mass Audubon sanctuary, with views over marshes and the bay, we saw fencing protecting terrapin nests.  The young are collected shortly after hatching, raised at the sanctuary until they're about a couple of inches in diameter and then released.

Susan sent me photos of an osprey nest she saw on a trip to Brooklyn to visit family. Love seeing her photo of one of the adults coming in to land with the juvenile on the nest.

And Alison sent me a video cam photo, from earlier this spring, of a moose calf on their property near Haliburton, in Ontario, about half way between Toronto and Ottawa.

July 27 Early this morning, at the pond with Maddie, there were about a dozen chimney swifts twittering overhead by the boathouse.  And walking at the Arb, saw three female turkeys with their poults.  On the waya back, I noticed this new sign on my street.  The recent biography of Sylvia Plath talks about her going to the Arboretum with her family as a child.

 

July 28 Biking through the Arboretum,  I noticed this Persian silk tree (Albizia julibrissin) in full bloom, covered in spiky shocking pink blossoms.

July 30 In Ptown, delighted by dozens of monarch butterflies fluttering along past the deck of Susan's place, perhaps attracted by the copious milkweed in the garden. Susan's friend, Liz, collected one of their caterpillars, yellow, grey and black striped.

July 31 Overnight, the little critter ate most of one of the leaves - here is all that remains.  I collected more to put into its container.

 

We went for a hike in Truro, through the oak woods and out along the dunes by the Atlantic shore.  Beautiful.  Heard and then saw a hairy woodpecker pecking on a tree.