Category Archives: Snapshots

In the neighborhood, Snapshots

Skywatch Friday

15 Comments
The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. — Jacques Cousteau

This weekend marks the ‘official’ end of the summer season here at the Jersey Shore; after Monday, the beaches will be free: free of outsiders and free of daily fees. People begin to flee. They leave the summer rentals towing their sailboats behind them. Birds flee; shorebirds depart as migrating ducks begin to arrive, egrets find maps in their pursuit of summer to the south.

We breath a sigh of relief because the beach can be ours again; ours for a quiet sunset walk along the bay or a day spent oceanside soaking up the September sun. After Labor Day is the best time here. Warm days and cool nights.

Horseshoe Cove at Sandy Hook is one of my favorite places to watch the sunset over the bay. I have hundreds of sunset pictures from there. That trio of similar forms silhouetted against the setting sun is what remains of one of the many coastal defense fortifications from WWI that dot Sandy Hook. In summer, there’s always a tern or two perched there and some cormorants or gulls. Off in the far distance at the horizon is the pier at Naval Weapons Station Earle. There’s often a battleship there on the bay.

Visit here for more Skywatch posts.

Books, Remembering, Snapshots, Wanderings

Skywatch Friday

21 Comments
You have to know how to look at this country. You have to slow down. It isn’t pretty, but it’s beautiful.
–Kent Haruf in West of Last Chance
In the weeks before I went to North Dakota in June, I spoke to a couple people out there and the weather always came up in conversation, mainly the hope for rain to “green things up some.” Green it was, but every so often we’d come across a view like this of a pale ocean of prairie grass laid out to the horizon. More often than not there weren’t any trees to mark the edge of vision, the sky and clouds a kaleidoscope of moods, the play of sunlight on the land the only thing to distinguish one moment from the next.

Visit here for more Skywatch posts.
Birds, In the neighborhood, Snapshots, Whatever

Pausing (tern)

3 Comments


Most of the weekend was spent within view of the ocean, on various benches along the boardwalk. That’s a pretty nice way to watch the world go by, I think.

Anyway… I noticed that some of the Laughing Gulls seem to be pulling back their summertime black hoods in favor of a more undistinguished (or is it indistinguishable?) look. The terns still look the same, though I could imagine this one suddenly remembering an appointment someplace to the south.

There were small flocks of peeps feeding back of the jetty and flying, fragile bits of silver and pale russet, among the beachgoers. Telling one from another is impossible, because even among the normally *easy peeps* like sanderling and semi-palms, no two in a dozen look the same at this time of year. They’re all a scraggly mix of winter gray and spring red. Shorebirds just escape my abilities!

Birds, PSA, Snapshots, Wanderings

Migratory restlessness

13 Comments

There is always something to savor at Cape May… any day, in any weather, at any season… something is always making its way through the skies overhead.

The time that holds the greatest interest for me is from late August until the middle of November: the fabled fall migration period. The variety of habitats: ocean and bay, salt marsh, freshwater ponds, dark swamps, woodlands and upland fields all attract a diverse array of migrants… hordes of butterflies and dragonflies, hawks and falcons, shorebirds, songbirds, bats, seabirds, owls – you name it!

Conveniently, the New Jersey Audubon Society throws out the welcome mat at one of the best times to experience migration at Cape May for its Autumn Weekend this year on October 24, 25, and 26.

Some of The Flock are getting restless and making preliminary plans to attend. Susan and KatDoc are driving from Ohio (and will hopefully avoid a stop in Camden), Lynne, I think, will cash in the ticket she bought last year and fly all the way from Minnesota (Yay!).

Other Flock members are saving their pennies for New River in April, but maybe they can be convinced otherwise. Mary, Delia, Susan, Nina, Ruthie, Jayne (can that be? Really, you’re gonna come?) – why not join us in Cape May, too? That farmhouse in W. Va. is gonna be pretty crowded and loud I think!

I’m also thinking maybe we should harass Larry into making the trip or Dave (hey – Alaska’s not that far and we could all get to meet Ghost!). Maybe Bobbie could join us for lunch and what about Heather in Pa.? The more the merrier!

😉

I’ll sneak away there at least once before October – for the Monarchs that breeze past the lighthouse or the falcons that scream down along the dunes. I just can’t resist… there’s something in the air.