September 2024: Terrapins, Blue Lobster, Montreal, Ottawa, Adirondacks

Monday September 2 Love this view over the salt marsh, just out of Ptown.

Tuesday September 3 I joined Susan on her shift at the Wellfleet Audubon sanctuary this evening, checking to see if any of the terrapin hatchlings had dug their way out of their nests and needed to be released from the wire mesh protecting them from predators.

When we stopped to check on one of the self-releasing nests (that hatchlings can get out of on their own) there were hatchling tracks in the sand leading away from it - fun to see the tiny footprints.

Terrapin tracks

 

Jess, the Audubon staff member leading the volunteers, removed the mesh and dug into the sand with her fingers to search for other hatchlings. Unfortunately, she only found one alive; the others had been attacked by maggots and didn't make it.

Another group of volunteers, checking a different area, did find a nest with several hatchlings ready to be released. Our group caught up with them and helped carefully dig the hatchlings out from the nest. Each was rinsed off with water, wrapped in a wet paper towel if the yolk was still attached to the underside and placed in a plastic container. You can see a blob of red yolk attached to the belly of one. Fun to see them start to move their legs, feeling about, trying to be on their way.

Susan rinsing a hatchling

Hatchlings with yolks placed in wet paper towels, making them look like dumplings

Meanwhile, back at the condo, one of Susan's neighbors was wading around in the shallow water near the beach and spotted a huge blue lobster! They managed to catch it for a few photos before releasing it. According to the New England Aquarium website, only one in two million wild lobsters is blue. Pretty amazing!

Heather Musi

Heather Musi

 Friday September 6 On the way back to Boston, stopped at White Crest Beach in Wellfleet, just to watch the waves coming in from the ocean.

Wednesday September 11 Susan and I are on a ten day road trip to Montreal, to visit my friend Sylvia; to Ottawa, to see my niece Emily and her family as well as my friends Alison and Gilbert; and to White Pine Camp in the Adirondacks, where Jeannie and I spent many happy vacations.

My standard routine with Sylvia in Montreal is to walk up "the mountain".  Ok, it's not actually a mountain - 764 feet does not qualify as a mountain in my book, but the Montrealers didn't ask me. The park, covering much of the mountain, has spectacular views over downtown Montreal and the St. Lawrence River; it was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, famous as the designer of New York's Central Park and Boston's Emerald Necklace.  Since it was the day after the presidential debate, we wore Kamala t-shirts and got lots of smiles from passersby.

Sylvia Franke

Friday September 13 On our way to dinner with Sylvia and her partner, Andrew, we stopped at the Jean Talon market in Little Italy - I was tempted by these baskets of wild blueberries, but you're not supposed to take fruit across the US border.

Sunday September 15 In Ottawa, we met up with my niece, Emily, and her two boys, Duncan (age 7) and Charlie (age 3), at the Canadian Museum of Nature. The boys were particularly interested in the dinosaur exhibit - what's not to like about their huge skeletons? I liked that the display included a model of what one species of feathered dinosaur was thought to look like; feathered dinosaurs were the precursors of modern birds.

In the afternoon, we met up with Alison and Gilbert for a walk along the Rideau River.

Alison shared with us a very cute video of a porcupette that is being cared for at a wildlife rehab facility where she volunteers.

Monday September 16 On a walk along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, we noticed a hummingbird stairway, painted on the stair risers.

Drove to White Pine Camp in the Adirondacks in the afternoon.

Tuesday September 17 On my early morning walk around White Pine Camp, I looked out from the main boathouse over the river and spotted what looked like a duck with a white head across the river. But there are no ducks with white heads that live in this area. Looking more closely, through binoculars, I realized that it was a bald eagle, swimming, its head just above the water, body low, doing a kind of butterfly stroke with its outspread wings, heading towards the opposite river bank. I've never seen an eagle swimming in the water and wondered how it got there - perhaps it flew low over the water with its talons out, trying to catch a fish, and went in deeper than it intended. (A June 2019 NPR story said that bald eagles have been known to hang on to a fish with their talons while they swim to shore.) Once it got to the shore, it hopped onto a downed tree branch and perched there for a few minutes, shaking off. A second eagle flew over and landed at the tippy top of a nearby tree. Then the first eagle flew across the river, almost over my head and landed in a tree by the tea house, just in front of me. It stayed there for a while, holding its wings out, trying to dry off. Susan got this photo of the wet eagle drying off.

Susan Brand

The second eagle flew off, too; later we saw it perched on one of the side branches of a tree across the pond, where they have their nest. I also heard a loon, with its eerie call, then saw it.

After breakfast, we went to the Visitor Interpretive Center for a walk around the marsh. Saw three wood ducks at the edge of the pond. The colors were starting to turn in some of the trees. 

Lots of mushrooms by the side of the path - this tree had three different types of mushrooms growing up its trunk.

I liked the way you could see some of the mushrooms had pushed up through the bed of pine needles along the path.

We passed a huge tree that had fallen and were impressed by the size of its roots.

After lunch, we took out one of the camp canoes and paddled over to get a closer look at the eagles' nest - huge stick nest up against the trunk of the tree, supported by branches.

Driving home from dinner in Saranac Lake, we stopped to look at the full moon over the mountains.

Later on, around 10:30, we looked outside to see the (very) partial eclipse of the moon - looked like it was wearing a yarmulke.

Wednesday September 18 We rented e-bikes and rode along a new section of the Adirondack Rail Trail, opened just two weeks ago, from Saranac Lake towards Tupper Lake. It's not quite finished all the way, but we went 30 miles, there and back. Lots of lovely views of ponds and lakes interspersed with riding through the woods.

Thursday September 19 We hiked up Mt St Regis, near Paul Smiths, this morning. Perfect hiking day - sunny, only a slight breeze, cool, 60s to start, then warming up to the low 70s by the time we reached the top. Lots of mushrooms along the trail, some in huge clumps at the base of a tree.

Wonderful views from the bare, rocky top, looking out over lakes and the High Peaks behind them.

And either the mountain got taller or I got older since the last time I climbed it in 2018, but even though it's one of the smaller mountains in the Adirondacks, it was definitely an effort for me to get to the top.

Saturday September 21 Boston's 29-day dry spell has come to an end, with a little drizzle last night and a full on hard rain today. The tomatoes and peppers in my garden look happy.

Friday September 27 Went to Mass Audubon's Brewster's Woods sanctuary in Concord this afternoon for a walk. Warm, sunny day, making you want to bask in it before the cold weather that you know is coming sets in. 

 

View of the Concord River from Brewster's Woods

 Brewster's Woods is one of Mass Audubon's newer sanctuaries and has quite a story. 

The 130-acre property borders the Concord River and was once the country home of William Brewster (1851-1919), the first President of Mass Audubon and curator of birds at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. He became interested in birds as a boy, going out into the fields and marshes near his family home on Brattle Street in Cambridge with his friend Daniel Chester French (who went on to become a sculptor, most famous for the Lincoln Monument on the Washington Mall). 

 The Mass Audubon website summarizes the history of the property:

 "In the early 1890s Brewster purchased the 300-acre October Farm in Concord as a respite from his city life in Cambridge. Here he embarked on extensive field work taking full advantage of the forest, meadows, and extensive wetlands on the banks of the Concord River.

After his passing in 1919, Brewster’s land was divided and sold to different owners. 

Decades later, Concord resident Charlene Engelhard began piecing together as much of October Farm as she could and reestablished trails through the riverfront portion of the land. Meanwhile, nearby neighbor Nancy Beeuwkes shared Engelhard's vision for returning to Brewster's roots; she and her husband, Reinier, were living next door in the very home in which Brewster once lived.

When the time came for Engelhard to sell her 131-acre property in 2018, the Beeuwkeses saw the opportunity to protect the land forever. Wanting everyone to experience the beauty of Brewster's landscape, they approached Mass Audubon with the most generous offer in the organization’s 125-year history: Nancy and Reinier would purchase the Englehard land and donate it to Mass Audubon, leave their own home and 12 acres to Mass Audubon through a life estate, and provide a robust endowment to care for it all."