Category Archives: Snapshots

Clever as a …

I went looking for snow buntings this afternoon and instead found this handsome red fox, leaping and pouncing at something unseen among the winter brown grasses at the base of the gun battery at North Beach on Sandy Hook.

Red foxes are easily seen there and even in my own neighborhood – I once ushered a family with youngish kits out of the way of oncoming traffic just up the road from my house, but to see one actively hunting, rather than skulking along the edges of a field or scavenging for leftovers near a garbage bin, was a rare treat. I’m always impressed with just how slight they are; at first from a distance I mistook it for an overfed tabby. (Yes… I do need to wear my glasses more often!)

As handsome as they may be, foxes are bird killers; more specifically at Sandy Hook, endangered nesting shorebird killers. Because Sandy Hook lacks any larger predators to keep them in check, red foxes have a serious impact on the survival rates for piping plovers. While (some) humans may be dissuaded by the fences erected each March to protect the plovers, the sly fox will learn to dig under even the caged exclosures meant to protect the birds and their eggs.

Due to Sandy Hook’s geography, it’s not exactly clear how red foxes have found their way onto the pennisula. I found an article in the NY Times from 1880 that mentioned the possibility that they walked across the ice on the Shrewsbury River at some point or across a frozen Sandy Hook Bay. I don’t guess that much matters anyway, but the idea was on my mind because of a conversation earlier in the day with a couple fishermen who stopped in to the bird observatory.

Birders and fishermen, at the Hook at least, have a relationship based, for one thing, on our acknowledgement of the other’s nuttiness. We’re often the only ones out there in the worst weather or at the most ungodly hour or at the farthest distance from anyplace comfortable. Oftentimes, I think, we read some of the same clues to find our quarry.

I mentioned this to the one guy today, who, incidentally, was shopping for a scope to ‘spot’ fish (?) and he agreed that both groups do indeed have a screw loose, albeit a different screw. He’d asked me if I’d even seen a coyote at Sandy Hook or thought it possible that they might be there without anyone knowing it (or admitting to it). I said no, of course, and mentioned that there were no deer there, even, to which he corrected me with a glut of ‘deer swimming across the bay’ stories which sounded suspiciously like ‘fish stories’ to me. At any rate I was glad for the chance to chat with these two and have a peek at some of what they notice about Sandy Hook besides the good fishing there.

Hints…

Jonquils (aka Daffodils to us more Northern folks) sent by a friend from a place where Spring sounds to be making a bit more headway.

😉

Thanks J. for this peak at what’s to come. Spring will arrive and it’ll be more beautiful than we remember. Can there be anything sweeter than unexpected flowers from far away?

Note to a neighbor

You don’t know me, but might recognize me from the neighborhood. I walk by your house with the silly black Lab puppy in the early evenings; sometimes we wave to one another while you’re out to bring in the garbage cans from the street.

Maybe you saw me this afternoon on my knees in my good clothes in the middle of your front garden. I had the camera with me on the way in from work and couldn’t resist stopping to take some pics, even though I worried you might think me a little nutty for doing it.

You see, those snowdrops you’ve planted have been drawing my eye for the last week or so; in fact, I look for them there every winter around this time. Last year, their blooms were suspended in ice, but my winter weary eyes were reassured at the sight of them.

If you’d noticed my pausing as I drove by earlier this month, it was just so that I might catch a glimpse of the green shoots poking the way through their bed of ivy. That was magic enough the morning I finally spotted them, but last week their blooms lifted my heart some on a day when it was otherwise heavy.

I can see from your carefully-tended garden that you’re as much a lover of the most delicate flowers as I am. But snowdrops aren’t delicate and they’re as generous with themselves as we gardeners tend to be. Yours are slowly monopolizing the small space you’ve allotted them and before too long will be blooming down along the sidewalk. When that happens, I hope you’ll forgive me if you should find me there one afternoon with a small spade in place of my camera.

I’d be happy to return the favor, if only you’d knock at my door sometime and introduce yourself. I think I saw you out there one spring day at the edge of the garden with an eye on my patch of lily-of-the-valley. It’s quietly covering the ground beneath the dogwood trees and making its way towards the street.

If we wait long enough, your plot of snowdrops may meet my patch of lily-of-the-valley, and then our flowers will be neighbors too and we’ll not have to steal glances from one another’s garden any longer.

Just bits

Here’s something I’m learning lately about blogging: it’s really hard to come up with anything interesting to say when you leave thinking about it to the very last minute of the day. I’m days behind with reading all of your blogs and weeks behind with commenting or responding to your kind comments here. I’m sorry… I’ll catch up one of these days!

In the meantime, or today at least, have a peek at some pretty flower bits from last spring. Some type of azalea that I found growing wild at the edge of the woods. Hopefully, the muse will find me tomorrow with a bit of inspiration and a bit more time to write something worth your time.

😉

Away and back

No… I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth! I just wandered away for a day or two and never got here to say that I’d be away. There were ducks for chasing and sunsets to see over Barnegat Bay. If you stretch your imagination past the dock and it’s lonely bench to the marsh on that far shore you’ll see a short-ear or two hunting with the harriers in the gorgeous golden light of late afternoon. I wish I had pics of that to share, but now that I’m back I have only to imagine them there in the far away distance.

Little toot

I roamed around for an hour or so on Sunday at the boardwalk in Point Pleasant Beach, but spent most of the afternoon at the inlet in my car because it was freezing cold along the boardwalk. Lots of people out despite the cold. The draw for me at the inlet there is the chance to see loons up close – I have some awful photos, but wont subject you to them. Point Beach and the inlet, especially, is a favorite spot for locals, I think because of the chance to watch the fishing boats come and go. There’s a still thriving industry there and I get a kick out of seeing the boats and the interesting names people come up with for them. This was a favorite of the day.