clouds & mud

Another cloudy morning without a sunrise. Is all this a spin-off from the tropical storms further south? Blue skies later in the day but except for a single persistent love-lorn Titmouse, most of the activity was early. Equally persistent most of the day: bass thumping from some too-loud Memorial Day rock music (the music itself is, thankfully, inaudible, but the distant thump-thump-thump of the bass is unstoppable).

The morning birds: a Red-eyed Vireo that has been singing regularly from the oaks in past week or so; these birds nest in oak woods to the north but never seem to succeed down here. Maybe this time. Eastern Kingbird showed up and there was a Snowy Egret working the pond and the mid-marsh open area at low tide; oddly enough, these birds were both the firsts of their kind that I have seen on the place this year.

There was a live Box Turtle on one of the paths but, alas, another appeared to have gotten stuck sideways in the pond mud. I have seen turtles swimming in the pond but this one may have miscalculated in some fashion and appeared to have drowned. Since I had my boots on, I squshed through the mud and righted the poor thing but I don't think it survived.

Currently flowering: several fruit-bearing species of the rose family including Multiflora Rose, Rubus blackberries and Black Cherry.

Eric Salzman