and the days go by

Saturday July 4
AM Shift
Coffee of the Day: Ethiopian Harrar
Bird of the Day: Surf Scoter
Weird Wrack Item of the Week: some weird looking thing with a light on the end.
Invisibird-status: haven't seen an official report. Number seen by me: 1.

Loomings

The weather was hazy to start off the morning. It was the kind of haze that causes looming. Boats that were actually below the horizon appeared to be flying above the horizon line.  It's kind of a fun thing to try to photograph.

July already? Is time speeding up? This is the key time for plover wardening because there are chicks on the beach who need to feed before they can fledge and this is prime beach time for humans. That said, it was a much quieter shift than I expected for the 4th of July. I answered the usual piping plover breeding cycle questions for a few visitors who were all very nice and genuinely interested.

Stand-up Paddle Boarders

Whether it was the tide, the wind conditions, or just the holiday weekend, the day drew stand-up paddle boarders in droves. They even outnumbered fishermen. At one point there were 10 stand-up paddle boarders and only 3 fishermen within my line of sight. One paddle boarder paddled south from the town beach and landed on the closed area of beach. It's OK if he stays in the water, but this guy walked on the beach.  I called Gatehouse and she got Unit 62. The guy did land again, but by the time 62 arrived on the boardwalk, the paddle boarder was gone.

Kelp

The incoming tide was bringing in lots of interestingly shaped pieces of kelp. It was a good day for people who like to identify different types of seaweed.

Seaweed

Most of the bird action of the day was least terns chasing great black backs out of their territory. The terns were definitely winning. The most interesting bird sighting I had was two surf scoters just off shore. I usually see them more in the spring and early summer, not so much in July. They're really cool looking birds, but of course they were too far away for me to photograph.

Weird Wrack Item of the Week

The strangest thing I found in the wrack -- between two piles of absolutely normal-looking wrack -- was some kind of long articulated metal thing with what looked like a light on one end. I think it might have come off a boat -- maybe some kind of visibility thing -- but I really have no idea.

Joppa Penguins

The Joppa Flats penguins on their plastic ice floes are back in the Merrimack River just in time for peak kayaking. And yes, kayakers were doing selfies with the penguins.

life is a beach

Saturday June 27
North
AM shift

Coffee of the Day: Ethiopian Harrar
Bird of the Day: common tern
Weird Wrack Item of the Week: black thing with holes in it
Invisi-bird Status: haven't seen any numbers in a couple weeks. Number actually seen by me: 1.

Adult Piping Plover in the Haze

The line for coffee at Plum Island Coffee Roasters was out the door and into the parking lot. That's fairly unusual but it's happened a few times recently. Not sure if it's regulars or tourists. In any case, I eventually got my coffee and was only slightly late for my shift.

The day started out really hazy but otherwise a nice beach day. Not too hot. Not too humid. Not too many greenheads yet. No greenheads came anywhere near me and I only saw 2 visitors doing the dance of the greenheads. This is probably the last weekend before the total greenhead onslaught.

Still Hazy to the South

I only had to remind a three people of the boundary to the closed area: one toddler and one young couple walking along the water line focused on the horizon. All were cooperative. A couple of people were full of questions about piping plovers, so I got to do the whole life cycle speech. After that, things were very quiet. I would have expected the beach to be busier as the day grew brighter, but I guess people had already decided where they were going to spend their Saturday and the beach wasn't it.

I saw one adult piping plover, presumably one of the two that I've been seeing regularly.  The most interesting bird of the day was the common tern, even though they are always around. The interesting part was that I watched a common tern try to steal a fish from a double crested cormorant. This was not a small fish suitable for a common tern. The tern failed to get the fish before the cormorant swallowed it, but it did make repeated attempts. I've never seen that before. I've read that common terns do indulge in kleptoparasitism with their own species, but I never heard of them robbing other species.

Weird Wrack Item of the Week

The weird wrack item of the week looked like something that might have come out of the inside of a shoe -- like an insole or something -- but the size and shape were all wrong. I have no idea what it was but it was definitely trash and not something that would normally be on the beach.

off to see the chicks

Thursday June 25

Piping plover chicks are the cutest beings on the planet. Period. They define cuteness. I had the opportunity to ride out onto the beach with refuge biological staff this afternoon (Thursday 6/25) to see chicks and nests. This was supposed to have happened last week, but got rescheduled because of weather.  This turned out to be a fortuitous rescheduling because I got to see some newly hatched chicks still in the "fluff ball on sticks" stage.

Nice Shady Nest In The Beach Grass

I gave up on taking photos fairly quickly as I just wanted to watch the chicks all the time.  Even the tiniest chicks do the "run real fast then stop abruptly" thing. At this stage their legs seem outlandishly long in proportion to their bodies, so watching them run is entertaining.

Some of the chicks I saw were close to 3 weeks old and I could see very clearly how much more defined their markings are starting to look. I'm not nearly experienced enough to tell the age of a chick by its feathers, but I was happy to be able to observe the differences.

Camouflage-- See If You Can Find the Adult Piping Plover in this Photo

I saw two nests, one in the shade of the beach grass on the slope of the dune and one in the open on the flat part of the beach.  Biological staff over the past couple of years had begun to notice plover pairs nesting higher up, some even over the crest of the dune.  The one in the beach grass wasn't quite that high up, but it was higher than some. The one on the flat part of the beach was lined with bits of shell. Plover nests are often just plain scrapes in the sand with nothing added at all but it is not totally uncommon for the adults to line the scrape with either shell bits or tiny pebbles or both.

Nest Lined With Bits of Shell

The adult plovers were being very vigilant, watching the chicks and keeping a lookout for possible predators.

Distraction Display

I also found out what happened to the least tern nests I'd been watching: predation by coyote. The least terns have moved farther south along the beach to renest. Said coyote got some of the plover nests too. They will likely renest, as it is definitely early enough. This means a slightly longer nesting season - into August.

I enjoyed this experience tremendously. I can't believe how lucky I am to get to spend time with the cutest beings on the planet.

There Are Two Adults And Three Chicks In This Picture