Monday, July 26, 2010
on the beach at Harkness
We brought a little picnic lunch to Harkness and it was so nice and cool in the shade. A woodpecker came and pecked at the tree above us. We took a little walk on the marsh trail to the bird blind .. saw the ospreys hunting, a great blue heron, a piping plover (!), egrets, cormorants, goldfinches, song sparrows .. and a pair of oystercatchers .. I was kicking myself for not bringing my zoom lens. Then we took a walk on the beach and talked to one of the park rangers .. unfortunately dogs got to some of the plover nests this year but they were waiting on another nest of eggs so .. fingers crossed. We watched the common terns fishing right along the beach in front of us. Beautiful day.
RI hike
Went for a nice hike along Beach Pond in RI. (Then of course, we made a stop at Buttonwood Farm for ice cream.) We heard lots of thrushes as we walked the trail. We are all listening to bird cds to try and learn bird song .. so we were able to identify wood thrushes and hermit thrushes by song. We also heard a lot of red-eyed vireos as we walked but could not find them in the tree canopy. We did get to watch a kingbird fishing. Very beautiful hike .. hope to make it further next time.
