birds and beach

Fresh Ice on the North Pool

Thursday afternoon was windy and cold with snow flurries in the air. The sun glinting through the clouds highlighted the recently formed ice on the salt pannes and the freshwater impoundments. A northern harrier cruised low over the dunes near Lot 1. Other than that, few birds seemed to brave the wind. I thought I might find a snowy owl in the dunes near Lot 6, so headed down the road in that direction.

American Bittern

I spied a largish bird on the grass next to the road. From a distance it looked almost big enough to be a turkey, which would make sense.  As I got closer, I realized it was a bittern. It proceeded to walk slowly into the road and stopped. I had to stop as did another car coming the other way. It stood there for several minutes. I got the binoculars on it and identified it as an American bittern, not something you normally see in the road -- or in the open at all.  I had to take the photo through the windshield, so it's not perfect. The bittern fluffed up its feathers, then extended its neck in its best imitation of a reed. Had there been any reeds around it, it would have become invisible. Finally, it continued to the other side of the road and into a thicket of brush. A most unusual bittern sighting.

American Tree Sparrows

Near Lot 5, a trio of tree sparrows were doing a much better job of blending in than the normally secretive bittern had. Shortly after I took this photo, the middle sparrow propped itself up on its tail to reach the top of a tuft of grass, a behavior I normally associate with chickadees. Wish I'd gotten a photo of that.

Dune Near Lot 6

The most bird activity I encountered was a roost of American robins and European starlings along the Lot 6 boardwalk. There were about 30 birds, about half robins and half starlings.  A lone herring gull flew over and the starlings changed places with the robins and settled in again.

Icy Shells

The wind was even worse on the beach, and I saw no birds on the ocean. The beach was fascinating as always.

Skate Cartilage?

Moon Snail

Beauty was all around me, small and large. The moon snail shells, little pools of ice inside clam shells, the swirling purple and black patterns of garnet and magnetite sand, the light on the beach grass all made for a wonderful, though really cold, walk. The refuge is beautiful in all seasons in different ways.

As I was coming off the island, I spotted a bald eagle standing on the ice in the Merrimack River. I stopped and watched it until it took off and headed toward Salisbury. Birding is fun even when most of the winter birds are hunkered down out of the wind.