August 13

The tide was coming in but had not reached up to this part of Rosie’s pond this morning. There was a gathering of peeps feeding in the mud. I find them fun to watch but impossible to identify with one exception. There were a few Semipalmated Plover in the middle of this group. Semipalmateds have one stripe instead of the two that Killdeer have and are smaller. Further along five Egrets popped out of a puddle that is close to the fence along the T yard. It is screened by the high grass and so who knows what lurks there unless you battle you way through some uncooperative vegetation and thus alerting every bird for miles that you are coming.  It does seem to be a favorite of the Egrets.

The Osprey platform was busy today. There were at least three Osprey popping off and on the platform. One had a fish and seemed unwilling to share. A few people seem to think that one of the chicks is no more. I’ll try the siphon for a closer vantage soon.

I was walking along the thicket path and found this snake and relearned a lesson about snake poop.

Just an ordinary garter snake which didn’t slither away as I approached. So I picked it up. The snake did not like this and so it pooped all over my hand which then stunk really bad. I knew about this behavior from past experience but had forgotten. So instead of a nice close up of a Belle Isle snake, I got stinky hands, not skunky bad but still very smelly.  Just a word of warning from a relearned experience.

The Overlook panne was full but empty of birds. A flock of Starlings was wheeling about going nowhere in particular. The Boardwalk was quiet except for a few Egrets over on the Winthrop side of the creek.

On the hill in the park, I came upon this clover in all its simple elegance.

By the front gate, I watched this Goldfinch perched on a Phragmites leaf munching on thistle seed.

He leaned over to the thistle plant and chose from the buffet offered to him.

The sun was out and things were drying out. The marsh is still very wet and demands good boots but it was fun to be out and looking things over.

Ciao!

-Jorge

This entry was posted on August 13, 2008 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Daily - the next year. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.