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.
Category Archives: Wanderings
Bad bird photo of the week
Well. This should be an easy one. The field mark I usually look for isn’t visible, but I was thrilled to finally see that bit of blue on the bill. That’s a first! Happy guessing.
Decoys again
Quick – name that duck! I went to a new (to me) decoy show this afternoon hoping to find a nice oldsquaw to add to the growing collection here, but was disappointed. Oldsqauw don’t seem to be popular decoy subjects and I wonder why. I’d thought maybe sea ducks in general aren’t often made, but bufflehead and mergansers are very popular. Anybody know?
As shows go, this one didn’t compare with the Tuckerton show. Very few vendors and very few nicely done decoys. So I came home with the wallet intact, at least.
😉
First thing this morning I was reading an article in the local paper about duck hunting in the area. It seems like every year around this time certain locals get up in arms about something that’s been done here forever. As a birder, duck hunting bothers me, of course, but the folks who live along the local rivers claim that it disturbs their peaceful enjoyment of their homes. I won’t say anymore than that I think the issue is their peaceful enjoyment of the water and the hell with anyone else who doesn’t own waterfront property. Enough said!
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday
St. Mary’s by the Sea – Cape May NJ(a lovely place to watch the sun set over Delaware Bay)
Flock movements
Okay girls… where are we going next? It’s been a month or so since Susan last tried to tempt us to Ohio and Magee Marsh (which sounds pretty neat), but that second weekend in May is something of a sticking point for any of us in NJ as it’s World Series weekend.
Lynne is still quietly floating the idea of the flock visiting frozen Minnesota and Sax Zim Bog (which sounds really, really neat – Great Grey Owls!), but the frozen part is a little scary.
Mary in North Carolina? Delia in Pa.? Susan at Lake Life in North Carolina or is it Florida now? Pam in New York? Want to tempt us your way? Anyone else have ideas?
Where everything is smaller than usual
Firstly, get out your granny glasses because the type on this page has gone all wonky again. Why does Blogger do that?
In addition to the fire tower incident on Friday, I finally drove far enough south to see some of the damage from the Warren Grove fire back in May. There’s a gunnery range there and well… an F-16 dropped a flare during target practice that set fire to 15,000 acres or so. Oops! It all ended well, with no one hurt, and the pines got a taste of fire again.
I took this pic along Rt. 539 and you can sort of get an idea of what the pine plains are like – those are dwarf pines growing in the distance – stunted and twisted from the dry, sandy, nutrient-poor soil to reach no more than 10 feet tall, but mostly they’re shorter. The trees grow so closely together so as to be impenetrable, but here or there is a way in.
It’s worth looking for an opening because there’s a subtle beauty to the plains. There’s pleasure in the absence of people and the stillness. The soil underfoot crunches with reindeer lichen and if you
‘re patient enough to look for it, there’s bearberry, a neat little arctic plant that stayed behind when the ice retreated.
I didn’t spend very much time that day, mostly I was in a hurry to be somewhere else, but it was a worthwhile detour. I think my favorite time to visit the dwarf pines is in the middle of winter with a cover of snow and the company of a few chickadees searching the pine cones for a tasty morsel.
Apple Pie Hill
Ever climbed a fire tower? Well… DON’T!
Wandering around the Pine Barrens today looking for a Northern Shrike or two that have been reported, I came across Apple Pie Hill. It’s supposed to be the highest elevation in Southern NJ (at a whopping 209 feet above sea level) with a terrific view of the Pinelands. I’d always thought you had to hike in on the Batona Trail to find it, so hadn’t worked up the courage to try it alone yet. I often get lost (every darn road down there looks the same – sugar sand and pitch pine – how can you not get lost!), but as often happens, I stumble across something I’d been meaning to find at one time or another.
Anyone care to guess how far up those rickety stairs I got before having a panic attack? Vertigo to the point that I was afraid to move? Very weird. The wind and the dog barking from the car below didn’t help any. 
Here’s the view from the bottom of the tower (when I wasn’t afraid to let go of the scaffolding and raise my arms to take a pic!). Worth clicking for a view of nothing but trees stretching all the way to Atlantic City 30 miles or so to the southeast and Philly 30 miles or so to the southwest.
Another snapshot
Fall pond
Long Afternoon at the Edge of Sister Pond
As for life,
I’m humbled,
I’m without words
sufficient to say
how it has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond,
both of these
and over and over,
and long pale afternoons besides,
and so many mysteries
beautiful as eggs in a nest,
still unhatched
though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen –
a tree angel, perhaps,
or a ghost of holiness.
Every day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled, then to be reflective.
It suffices, it is all comfort –
along with human love,
dog love, water love, little-serpent love,
sunburst love, or love for that smallest of birds
flying among the scarlet flowers.
There is hardly time to think about
stopping, and lying down at last
to the long afterlife, to the tenderness
yet to come, when
time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever,
and we will pretend to melt away into the leaves.
As for death,
I can’t wait to be the hummingbird,
can you?
Mary Oliver, from Owls and Other Fantasies
With time enough for a long walk in the woods and a visit to this hidden pond, my mind quiets with thoughts of the edges where things spill into each other and become their opposites. Looking at things inside and out there is no concern for success or failure or how to make things permanent. Every moment is the perfect moment. Joy is elusive and disappears as we approach, and oftentimes the distance feels enormous and the effort overwhelming. Yet, joy waits, and longs to accompany us.
I try each day to find some means of joy or comfort or delight. My delight today was in the reflections of fall color in this little pond in the woods. Where was yours?
Are we there yet?
The others may be done talking about our weekend in Cape May, but I’m only just getting around to sorting through my photos from the trip. Most are dreary and awful because, well, the weather was, but maybe I can salvage enough to offer up something that you haven’t already read about on their blogs.
I’d intended to get down to Cape May early in the morning on Friday, but decided instead to take my time and stop at a few places on the way south that might make the best of the stormy weather. I visited The Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor to dry out some around lunchtime, but mostly because I knew there’d be nice congregations of great and snowy egrets feeding in the salt marshes along the causeway. I took this pic from their parking lot; you can see through the gloom the type of development that is typical on the barrier islands of the Jersey Shore. The habitat loss has destroyed nesting sites fo
r birds and other critters. The Wetlands Institute does a lot of work to restore habitat for diamondback terrapins and it was this that interested me. Just out of sight in the foreground of the photo is an artificial nesting site created for them as an alternative to nesting on the embankments along the causeway.
About the time that Susan was making a wrong turn on the Atlantic City Expressway and heading for Camden of all places, I was at the Sea Watch in Avalon. Seawatching isn’t for everyone, especially in the pouring rain, but the scoter show was phenomenal on Friday – 158,000 birds passed the counter, most of them scoters! Of course I couldn’t really see them through the rain and the foggy windows of my car, but wave after wave of migrating seabirds is spectacular, no matter the weather, really. I also spotted some newly arrived brant; they’ve been here at Sandy Hook for two weeks or so, but I’m not ready to hear their wintry calls just yet.