April 27, 2018
Coffee of the Day: Sumatra Mandehling
Bird of the Day: piping plover
Weird Wrack Item of the Week: a Hooksett disk
Coast Guard Assets: 1 Jayhawk helicopter
Invisi-bird Status: Refuge: 34 pairs, 1 loner, 0 nests. Sandy Point: 7 pairs, 0 nests. Town Beach: 3 pairs, 0 nests. Number actually seen by me: 2.
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| Looking South |
Horseshoe crab shells of all different sizes were everywhere: beach, dunes, boardwalk, parking lot ... just all over the place. I thought the big season for horseshoe crab molting was July and August so it seemed a bit strange. They come ashore to mate in the spring but I don't think there's molting associated with that. I guess I need to consult some horseshoe crab reference materials.
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| Huge Horseshoe Crab Shell |
I found a Hooksett disk in the wrack line. It was the first one I've found this year. I can't believe I'm still finding them after 7 years! The incident at the Hooksett waste water treatment plant was in 2011! I guess with 4 million of them, it's going to take decades to find them all. The
Blue Ocean Society is still keeping track of where they're washing up.
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| Pieces of Horseshoe Crab Shells in the Wrack |
The best part of today was that I finally saw piping plovers at the northern end of the beach. Two of them were hanging out together. I didn't see any mating behavior but they did seem to be scouting out scrape locations. Maybe there' will be a nest on this end of the beach this year after all.
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| Pine Cone |
In other interesting wrack line news, there were a lot of pine cones in the wrack. It's amazing how much the wrack line reveals not just about what grows in the Great Marsh, but also what grows upriver along the Merrimack.
Had my first northern gannet sighting of the season and my first Coast Guard helicopter sighting of the season too.
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