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Daily Bucket: Plum Island in October - coyotes, waves and Hellcat Trail [1]
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Date: 2022-10-25
There have seemed to be far fewer migrating sea ducks, raptors and warblers here than usual, this autumn. But White-winged Scoters and some other sea ducks have started to arrive. Green-winged Teal are migrating through. American Black Ducks are arriving and many will stay for the winter… Plum Island is an important place for these ducks, which MassAudubon says are “strongly declining.” There are still lots of Great Egrets, Greater Yellowlegs, and Myrtle Warblers—the only warbler I’ve seen many of this fall—and at least until a few days ago, Monarch butterflies. I’ve started to see some hawks again, including a familiar pair of Red-tails I was relieved to see back on Plum Island, and a few Northern Harriers and Cooper’s Hawks.
Our drought status on the North Shore of Mass. has finally been downgraded from “extreme” to “severe.” We’ve had lovely fall color this year, although some days the leaves still look (and sound) disturbingly dry. Red and gold Greenbrier and Sumac and yellow Winterberry bushes with bright red berries are adding more color to Plum Island. The marsh grasses are turning more russet.
The first part of ocean boardwalk #2, early October, 2022
A seven-minute video I made (feel free to skip my videos if you find them too long!) of boardwalk #3 and the refuge beach one evening last week. There were a couple people surfing. The darker vegetation on the dunes is Beach heather. Volume warning: there are wave sounds starting at :53. (Note to any fellow Doctor Who fans here: every time I see the area in the dunes which is at :22 in the video, I think it’s a perfect landing place for a Tardis.)
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Coyote, Plum Island MA, October 2022 zoom
A 2 ½ minute video I made a few days ago of one of the coyotes (a female, I think, because she looked smaller and had a more delicate face), Hellcat Trail (more about Hellcat Trail below) and some recent still pics from other parts of Plum Island...
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Another coyote, a few days later
Coyote, Plum Island MA
One of my favorite places on Plum Island is Hellcat Interpretive Trail (also called Hellcat Boardwalk Trail). My parents took some trips to Plum Island from Western Mass. with me when I was four or five…all I clearly remember of it from that time is a bit of the refuge road, but my mother tells me I loved this trail, and that it was much more open then, with many of the trees just saplings. The boardwalk was reconstructed last year to be more accessible. One spur (used to be a loop, now just a spur) of the trail leads into the salt marsh where there are tall cattails and phragmites, another spur leads to a dune overlook with a view of the ocean, and another leads to a marsh overlook in the forest. A 3-minute video I took there a few days ago…
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Saltmarsh Fleabane and Green-winged Teal, Bill Forward Pool, Plum Island MA
Dune with beach heather, Plum Island MA
In warmer seasons the heather has yellow flowers
A 41-second video I made of Boardwalk #3 on another evening...at :20 there are Double-crested Cormorants flying south. At this time of year, we have these pastel colors— the “Belt of Venus”—in the eastern sky at sunset almost every evening. (And spectacular sunsets in the west! It can be hard to decide which direction to go :)
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The American Avocet who visited from late July to mid-September, and then in October (zoom)
with a Greater Yellowlegs, October 2022. This is a nice article about her with much better pics than mine.
looking south at Sandy Point State Reservation, at the southern end of Plum Island
Great Black-backed Gull and Herring Gull
North Pool Overlook just before sunset
cherry tree by the North Pool Overlook
Pines Trail, Plum Island MA, October 2022
Pines Trail, Plum Island MA
Pines Trail
across the refuge road from Pines Trail is the Pines Connector Trail, which has a boardwalk to the ocean
Pines Connector Trail
Pines ocean overlook
sign at that overlook
view from the Pines overlook
Field Sparrow? on Stage Island, Plum Island MA
Stage Island observation tower, Plum Island MA, October 2022
looking north from the top of the tower
Great Egrets at sunset over Stage Island, Plum Island MA zoom
Lots of purple asters are still blooming on the island
in the area of boardwalk #7, Plum Island MA, October 2022 zoom
The southern end of Plum Island, October 2022
The female of the pair of Red-tailed Hawks I’ve often seen before on Plum Island, back in her territory on Plum Island Turnpike. I think I saw the male too, flying nearby.
It’s 61° F and cloudy here on the North Shore of MA this morning. A family of five Mute Swans has been on the pond in my backyard every day for weeks, and I’ve seen some Eastern Bluebirds and Tufted Titmice in the maple trees. We’ve gotten more rain the past couple days.
YOUR TURN, BUCKETEERS: WHAT’S UP IN NATURE IN YOUR AREA?
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