On this day as we wake once again with great sadness may we find some peace in nature…
Category Archives: cape cod spring
Spring carpets….
By now spring is popping up all over but one of my favorite places to find spring is on walks in our woodlands. The Cape doesn’t have a lot of deep woods but the woodlands we do have can offer many wonderful gifts in the early spring.
Teaberry, also called winterberry, is common here and can always be identified by its sturdy, shiny leaves and its distinctive minty scent. At this time of year we may still find some red berries that made it through the winter but in many areas these little plants will have been stripped clean of their berries by winter birds and small mammals.
Mayflower, also called Trailing Arbutus, is beginning to bloom
Look for the tough, almost furry leaves on sunny banks along trails or other open areas.
Pipsissewa, also called spotted or striped wintergreen, depending on who you’re talking with, is another fairly common woodland plant. It will bloom a little later in the spring but you can find stands of these elegant little plants in many of our conservation areas.
Princess pine is another plant to look for on the forest floor. It actually grows in colonies, with roots extending and spreading out all over the place, but all the plants are attached and part of each other, not separate.
Much less common is the Partridgeberry, though when you find a clump of it you will often find more. I see this here and there but it is nowhere as common as the other plants mentioned here.
All these plants were discovered and photographed on a short walk in the same wooded area on the Upper Cape. Not all woodlands will have the same abundance of plants on the forest floor but they are worth taking a walk and looking for this spring.
More signs of spring…
Every day now there are more signs of spring here on Cape Cod. If you are a life long resident like I am you know that spring can be a real tease around here. Unlike some areas, the signs of spring can be subtle but that’s okay, we’ll take them as they come…
like this little guy getting on his yellow. Many of the male goldfinches that visit my feeders daily are still rather mottled looking but this little guy is almost all the way to his summer breeding plumage and looks quite handsome.
Ospreys are back all over the Cape. This one is in Hyannis…
Piping plovers are also back on the beaches…I photographed this one at Popponessett in Mashpee the other day…
I was in Popponessett helping a friend who is in charge of Mass Audubon’s Coastal Waterbird Program put up the fencing to protect these little fellas as they prepare to nest….
Boats are being cleaned, nets mended and shutters painted. All over the Cape spring seems to be stirring everyone into action. What are some of your favorite signs of spring on Cape Cod?
Bring on spring!
I’ve decided to just say, “To heck with winter….bring on spring…..”
so I went out and found some sweet flowers like these Lenten roses…
I found some nice red buds on a swamp maple, also called red maple….
I watched a swan for awhile…
i watched the full moon tide flood the marsh…
until it came almost all the way to the edge where I stood…
I found an old red winged blackbird nest in the reeds…
I celebrated the male goldfinches who are getting back their yellow plumages…
and howled at the moon…
Never mind that I had on my heavy winter coat, my hat and my gloves….
For me, winter is over…..welcome spring!
So much for spring…
That’s what the calendar said, but….
this is what it looked like when I got up this morning…
At least the birds seemed happy…
It’s been warm enough to melt some of the snow but still….
it sure didn’t feel like spring around here today!
Early spring blooms…
Just thought I’d put up some flowers I found in bloom this week. Today is actually the first day of meteorological spring and I’m going with that thought…
First, here are some snowdrops–in bloom just about everywhere on the Cape this week.
and the lovely yellow winter aconite
but the real prize is a real wildflower…our native skunk cabbage. It’s an odd little plant with an even odder blossom but it’s a sure harbinger of early spring around here….
All these photos were taken this week at Green Briar Nature Center in East Sandwich.
Finding a lovely bog orchid….
One of the pleasures of wandering about with no real agenda or expectations is that one sometimes comes across a real gem….
How beautiful is this little flower? It was just standing there with another of its kind in a little old wild cranberry bog in the middle of the dunes in Sandy Neck in Barnstable and was only about 5-6″ high.. I was there leading an art and nature group this past weekend and we had special permission to do some meandering but this little cranberry bog is actually right off to the side of a main trail going out to the beach from the marsh side–about 4 miles out.
This sweet ‘bog orchid’ is known as Rose Pogonia, Pogonia ophioglossoides and according to Mario DiGregorio is not as rare as you might think. In fact, back in the day this little flower was so commonly found in cranberry bogs that young girls were paid a penny a plant to rid the bogs of these pesky “weeds.”
The other name for this plant is Snakeweed, due to its ragged, tongue like appearance. Look for it in old cranberry bogs, especially in dune areas like High Head and Sandy Neck. You can find more information in the wonderful Cape Cod Wildflowers: A Vanishing Heritage by Mario DiGregorio and Jeff Wallner.
Watching a front move in…
When we arrived at the beach around noon the sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue and there were some big puffy clouds on the horizon…
As we walked along the shore the clouds got thicker and thicker…
They looked very dramatic over the dunes…
and on the backside of the dunes the bright light lit up the sand against the violet and blue clouds…
We began to feel a few drops of rain and began to walk a little faster….
and faster….
and the rain got a little heavier but all the while parts of the sky remained bright blue…
Yep, just another day at the beach….
Photos taken today on Kalmus Beach in Hyannis.
Where’s the bear?
If you’re on the Cape or anywhere near, you know we have a very famous visitor here–a young black bear! Everyone’s talking about it and the jokes and stories are multiplying faster than mosquitoes around here. This guy is on the move and was noted in Brewster early yesterday morning. Well, it just so happened that my daughter, grandson and I were also headed to Brewster yesterday morning and yes, we were pretty excited about maybe seeing the bear along the way.
We were headed to the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History and when we got there we found we were far from alone. A news helicopter was overhead, people with cameras and binoculars were everywhere and down the road were police cars and other official cars from various agencies charged with checking out the bear and keeping people safe.
Behind this scene were several dozen people scanning the marshes and nearby woods. This was taken at the corner of Paine’s Creek Rd. and Rt. 6A. Everyone was in a happy, anticipatory mood and I couldn’t help but feel that this little bear has made a lot of people happy. For all the chatter about how disconnected from nature we all are this moment proved that really, people want to be connected to nature. They are even a bit excited about it. Now, will these same people be excited 10 years from now if bears actually begin to repopulate the Cape? That’s another story. I remember when people were excited that coyotes were here back in the beginning. These days very few people are excited about coyotes and in fact many actually hate them.
In the end none of us saw the bear….
But over the past week we’ve seen lots of other things like this lobster shedding its shell in an aquarium at the museum…
or these lovely Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers in East Sandwich
or beautiful scenes like this one at Sandy Neck
One day this past week I even was witness to a wild swarming of winged carpenter ants that came and went in a matter of hours.
So……no bear photos but a great week to be outside nonetheless!
Late May on the beach….
It is only a few days before Memorial Day and the Cape Cod beaches are beautiful…and still pretty quiet so come for a walk with me…
First we’ll take a turn by the sweet smelling rosa rugosa’s which are blooming really early this year…
We will stop to admire the beach peas, also blooming really early….and while we’re at it we’ll look out over Nantucket Sound…
Here’s a close up of those lovely beach peas…
We’ll enjoy the view of the sliver that remains of Egg Island, that only shows up at low tide. That’s Great Island in Yarmouth in the background.
We’ll stop to look across Lewis Bay in the amazing light…
Check out some courting least terns…
and smile at the ones lined up at the edge of the water…
And then we’ll take one last long look at the sand, sea and sky before we head back to work…
