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Saturday, August
30, continued The Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is run by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. (It is not affiliated with National Audubon.) As I pulled into the parking lot, Joan made me stop before I could find a parking spot. She jumped out of the car because she had seen a small flock of Northern Bobwhites. It was a lot of fun watching them scurry about. |
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We had been to the sanctuary several times before. Today, we started out on a new trail for us, the Silver Spring Trail. Not birdy, but a really peaceful experience. The only sounds we heard at first were the calls of an occasional Black-capped Chickadee, the chucks of Red-winged Blackbirds, and the mewing of Gray Catbirds. Those were the only birds we saw for a while. As we worked our way around the pond, we eventually saw some other birds—Green Heron and Belted Kingfisher were the two "best." We saw a white egret perched on a branch across the way and had trouble telling whether it was a Snowy Egret or an immature Little Blue Heron. I eventually decided it was the former. |
  After we completed our circuit of the Silver
Spring Trail, we went on the Goose Pond Trail. Here the birding was better. Good
numbers of Greater Yellowlegs and Semipalmated Plovers. We were easily able to
distinguish one Lesser Yellowlegs since it was standing right next to a Greater.
Saw one Killdeer across the pond and another Green Heron. We also had lots of
nice looks at a muskrat rooting around the vegetation. |
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We
looked out over the salt marsh from an observation platform and had a great view
of a Green Heron. We saw twelve Great Blue Herons in the distance. Another
platform gave us a sighting of twelve Snowy Egrets.
We joined up with two other couples and walked through the salt marsh toward the open waters of Wellfleet Bay. I stopped to look at the sea lavender. The trail had some substantial puddles in it and one of the women decided not to go on. She didn't want to ruin her $150 shoes. When the others urged her on, the value of her shoes increased to $200!
A tidal pool produced lots of Greater Yellowlegs and Semipalmated Plovers as well as some Black-bellied Plovers and a Willet. The others left us as we were joined by two women. Joan thought she recognized one of them and asked if she had been there over Labor Day weekend last year. She hadn't but realized that she had seen us at a shorebird workshop in Connecticut two weeks before. As the group was looking at some Short-billed Dowitchers, Joan noticed a bird with a down-curved bill. (You may have noticed that Joan is the one who finds all the good birds.) I identified it as a Whimbrel. The two women were from the New Haven Bird Club and asked if we wanted to join them and some of their friends on a trip to South Beach off Chatham. They had arranged for a boat to drop them at the end of the island instead of at the usual drop off point where they would be picked up for the return. This would allow them to search for birds without having to retrace their steps. We were planning on kayaking the next morning but this sounded good so we had a difficult decision to make. They told us that if we wanted to join them, we could just show up before 9.
On the way back to the parking lot, we saw lots of gulls in the air. Most were fly catching Laughing Gulls. We also saw three "real" flycatchers, Eastern Kingbirds. A highlight was a Green Heron with a raised crest, flying to the top of a tree. We watched it perched there for a while.
Then
we went on to a few places on the other side of the cape to see some shorebirds.
Unfortunately, the tide was in and there were none readily visible. We did watch
two Northern Harriers flying over the marsh. Joan spotted
some seals. She saw four, I saw three. One of the informative signs said that
there were Harbor and Gray Seals there. They didn't look like either to us. The
heads were just too big.
We then went for dinner at Moby Dick's. There was an incredibly long line but the food was worth it. Joan and I shared a Caesar salad. I had a fried seafood platter—everything was very good; Joan had a Nantucket bucket—a pound of steamers and a pound of mussels and corn. No room for dessert, so we went back to the tent and off to sleep.
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© 2003 Richard L. Becker
