What winter leaves behind….

Tomorrow will be the first day of spring! I think we are all more than ready though it looks like the cold will be with us for another week or so. I’m concentrating on the light and the daily arrival of migrant birds to help keep me in spring mode.

One of the things that happens at this time of year is one big spring cleaning out in nature. You even see this at the beach.

Whelk egg cases and skate egg cases have been tossed up all over the beaches. The long segmented tan or gold colored strand is one kind of whelk egg case. Sometimes you can open one of the little compartments and still find tiny whelk shells but mostly the cases are empty.

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There are lots of old raggedy feathers left behind. Looking at this one you have to wonder how that gull was even flying.

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And the shells of all sorts of mollusks like this whelk wash ashore, creating sweet vignettes against the still cold sand…030

And other times all the shells are gathered up together in big piles….008I always like to think of these days as the days nature does her spring cleaning….now, if only I could be motivated to do the same!

Welcome to 2014

For the last few years we’ve gotten up early on New Year’s Day and headed down Cape just for the fun of it. We walk a few beaches, take a lot of pictures, find a new place to get lunch and just give the year a nice mellow start out in nature together.

Yesterday we began our day at Fort Hill. A car had been driving along behind me all the way up the highway and on Rt. 6 and then followed us right up into the Fort Hill parking lot. It ended up being a birder I know who was out beginning his new list of birds seen in the new year. Sort of funny we ended up at the same place at exactly the same time, right?

001After that stop we went to Coast Guard Beach where it was very, very cold and windy….but beautiful!

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008You can see the clouds coming in over the water, ahead of the storm predicted for today and tomorrow.

We backtracked to First Encounter Beach where the tide was so high the marsh was totally flooded and there was little beach left on the front. Check out the waves–that is ice in the water!

011Race Point was beautiful as well…

014In Provincetown center the lobster pot holiday tree still stands…

023And on the way home we stopped off at Pilgrim Heights in Truro where the view was stunning, as usual.

028It was good to get out yesterday because today it looks like this at the beach…

007We are supposed to get quite a lot of snow and wind over the next two days so after my little jaunt out to the beach this morning I’m ready to snuggle in with my honey and the pets, my sketchbook and a good book or two….