After Irene-Part I

I write this on my last night in my house, 13 years in a location that would have everything I wanted in a 5-mile radius. What a gift it has been. Now my husband has headed for Texas by way of one last trip to Buffalo to unload a 20’ truck of the endless possessions that represent three generations of Gonser’s, and I remain, first to ride out the storm, then to clean up both the aftermath of the hurricane and the aftermath of our 13 yrs here. Floors to be washed, walls wiped, cellars swept etc. etc. I have a right arm muscle now that would do Popeye proud!

I feel akin to Mark Twain who was born and died as Halley’s comet made its appearance and reappearance. We haven’t had a hurricane on the Cape since Hurricane Bob and I happened to be in the same setting for that. Cleaning an empty house, my aunt having entered a nursing home, only then, I had the three children with me. I was unaware of the hurricane even coming, until we crossed the bridge to the Cape and saw everyone boarding up their homes. But what a grand time we had, mattresses, pails and brooms, we were independent and totally non-electric. The storm was wild but we emerged like Daniel from the Lions den when it was over and proceeded to have one of the most memorable weeks on the Cape ever. Bob had blown away not only all electrical parts of life, but all the tourists too, so beaches were ours for the strolling and I scrubbed each day and read Prince Caspian to the children each night by candlelight. Wonderful.

So here I am again, only without the now, grown children but batteries in a CD player and a lovely voice reading “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” to me while I scrub floors and wash walls. It’s too symmetrical for words! After all these years living a house with too many possessions, I couldn’t be happier as I rearrange a few boxes and one stool to play the part of dining room table one moment, and computer desk another. The simple life is mine, at least for this little while. Tomorrow I shall go to a friend’s cottage that is wonderfully situated on a pond in North Falmouth and let the blogs from there begin. Although I will be back to relying on a library for Internet so my short lived foray into the late 20th century must end.

But Pat, this seems a bit too autobiographical for our taste, what about the nature part to all this? Ah gentle reader, that’s why this is Part 1. We were just setting the scene. Now read on to Part II and we will deal with how the natural world around me responded to being tossed about by tropical winds that seemed to last through a day and a half.

A Gift from my Maker

For those of you who have followed this blog for any amount of time, you might remember that last year I had as a goal for our walking group of seeing a river otter before the year was out. Well, nature, of course, isn’t like that. One can’t demand to see something and then see it. Of course, you can hope to see it, but in our case the year passed and the goal wasn’t met.
The frustrating thing is that we had seen scat that practically had the heat rising off it, it was so fresh, but no otter. We had seen their tracks in the snow, we knew the burrow they wintered in, saw fish scales galore from their digested meals, but never saw them. Frustrating.

Now, I am nearing the end of my time on the Cape, and I kept throwing that request back up to God. Father, you know I would LOVE to see an otter, just once before I have to leave. And don’t you know, about two weeks ago, on a walk around the bog that wasn’t crack of dawn, I think it was around 8 o’clock, I rounded the bend to the containment pond and the loudest snorting noise greeted me. Practically like the blowing of a whale and instantly I thought OTTER! And there it was, right in this small pond, head above water, whiskers bristling, then plunging back under.


Speak about doing the dance of joy! And thanking God! I just couldn’t believe my luck, after trucking through the marsh in freezing winter to visit their den, here it was right in my backyard. It kept surfacing and each time it would snort and blow for a while before diving back under. Whether the snort was to clear its lungs before diving again, or a sound to let me know it saw me, I don’t know. But I stayed there, delighted with the performance for a good 15 minutes. And oh, how I wanted to stay longer, but I was afraid my dog would double back and find me and I didn’t want him to disturb the otter, so I had to leave it, still divining, still snorting, but Wow, speak about a prayer answered.

Answered indeed, right down to the “before I have to leave” part, for the very next day was the day the people called to say that although they didn’t sell their house, they wanted to rent ours until theirs sold and needed to move in by Sept 1. And so, the wheels for my now panic filled life were set in motion. So thank you God, a reminder to me that you are listening, even to my silly nature laden prayers that I might see an otter. As always a buck-up to my faith that if you are faithful in those silly requests, then I know you are listening to the much larger ones. And so, I come by my “Yeah God!” spirit.


As I write this I am in Baltimore, just about to head home after tending to the post surgery needs of my daughter. Now it is back to the Cape, movers arrive the following Weds and I will have an empty house a week after that. If the next blog is a little while in coming, you will know why. Until then, may your days have a blush of faith and grace about them. Enjoy!

Backtracking to June- Belted Kingfishers-The Hole in the Wall Gang

In the continued spirit of looking back over early summer, today’s blurb will be about and yet another example of a time when the cranberry growers altering of the land led to new sightings.

I think I have spoken before about the need for every bog to have a sand supply nearby to add new layers to the bog over the winter and this bog is no different. Around the west side of the bog there is a mini sand mountain range, probably the remnants of his excavating the bog in the beginning. Mostly, it is covered over with sumac, dewberry and blackberry vines. This summer, when he was installing a new pumping system, he excavated an entire road out of the backside of these mounds, making a great trail to walk through that brought you a little closer to the tangle of brier and pines that rim the actual pond. A great place to more surreptitiously watch the comings and goings of the birds who favor the edge, Goldfinch and House Finch in the pines, Kingbirds and Phoebes on the exposed branches, Blue jays, Catbirds, Green Herons etc. and this year, a daily encounter with the rattling call of the Belted Kingfisher.

Ah, but this year, rather than the lone Kingfisher I usually see, there were two. Chasing each other about, making a racket as they did so, and when I got a closer look, indeed, this was a pair of Kingfishers. In Belted Kingfishers the name must derive from the fact that the male has a blue gray “belt” across his breast and the female has a second rusty colored band beneath that. So, voila, we had a pair.

Now Kingfishers are loners, and quick to rattle and chase anyone away from their territory, including you, so the sight of two that were tolerating each other, more or less, led me to hope it would be a nesting pair.

And yeah, for the cut the grower had made in the sand hills, provided the perfect home buying situation for these two. Next time I walked, there it was, the hole that leads to their nesting tunnel looking like a textbook Kingfisher home, with an entrance about 4” across that would lead to a tunnel that could go anywhere from 3-7’ back into the cliff. At the end of the tunnel is the nesting chamber, which is just plain sand. One of the ways you know this is a Kingfisher nest and not that of some larger mammal is that it is on a pretty vertical cliff and the only tracks you would see are two lines at the entrance made by their feet as they drag the dirt backwards.

Pretty amazing when you think of it, they excavate this with just their beaks, which are really sturdy looking, and their feet. One can understand why sand is the preferred medium, no little depth charges available for blasting through rock. And the nest is generally pretty close to their fishing grounds, so you know with this great set up, they had to be applauding the grower too.

So now, each day I would head back that way, often hearing the rattle call when my dog got there ahead of me, tipping them off, so I never did see either of them entering the nest and of course unless you have some hidden camera, all that goes on inside is out of sight. And man, they would be cute to see, for according to the articles about them, the young chicks are born completely naked, not that unusual, but what is different is that when the feathers begin to grow they remain in the shaft for up to two weeks making them look like miniature porcupines! Ouch, hard to imagine nestling down to brood that crowd! Then at about 18 days all the feathers “boing” out of their shafts in a 24 hour period! Then they assume the little fluff-ball look of other young birds.

And, although this may be more info than you want, the wee babes rather than having fecal sacs, where the mom can just remove the whole package from the nest, just fire at will into the sand of the wall around them, and then instinctively peck away at the wall so that the sand sprinkles down covering any untidy remains. Amazing isn’t it! And, because I believe in a God who thinks of everything, these young birds are equipped with a blunt, hardened tip to their bill for the first half of the nesting life so that this pecking doesn’t wear down their growing bill that will be so important to them later for catching fish. Again, I stand amazed.

Even though I never saw them enter or exit the nest, I did see that the pond was crowding up with noisy Kingfishers. Last time I walked there, a week or so ago, there were only three, but now that they are properly fledged they will head out to defend their own smaller territories, rattling down on anyone or anything that has the audacity to get too close. This pond isn’t very large so I wouldn’t be surprised if when I return from my daughters it could be back to just one Kingfisher on patrol.

Once again, I am indebted to this kind grower who lets me walk his bog as though it were my own. I can’t tell you how much I will miss this when I move. Shockingly someone has decided to move into our house in a matter of weeks and my daily bog walk will end, but you and I shall continue to walk new areas, seeing new things and it will be all right. Repeat after me Pat, through watery eyes, it will be all right. Besides we still have backed up sightings to relate, one of which will always seem a direct gift from my Maker to me, but more about that next time. Until then, may each day you have, have a touch of Glory in it. I guarantee it will, if you just look with eyes to see it. Pat

The Bog in Summer-the Cliff Notes

There has been so little time to blog this summer that I think I shall resort to a Cliff Note presentation, at least for this first return to writing. I know I have explained several times that we are soon to move to Texas, which is a trial enough in itself, but we also had a home in Buffalo to prepare for rental, a house full of deceased relatives possessions to be sorted through and now, the added twist of a daughter in Baltimore who has just had foot surgery and can’t use it at all for three months. Consequently, time to stroll the bog and then write about it has been a tad limited. Well, the strolling happened through much of the summer, it’s the writing about it that suffered. So what do you say to covering a few quick topics here, then, going in more depth later? Agreed? Agreed.

My sanity, such as it is, is tethered to this daily walk, so even when life is booked with things to do from 6 am to 10pm I still manage to get that needed walk in, and early enough, usually between 5am and 6am to catch wildlife doing some of its wild things. Here then are the highlights of what I had the privilege to see over the past months.

-A snapping turtle laying her eggs. I think the only other time I saw a turtle laying its eggs was one of those fabulous encounters on a trip to Hawaii with a sea turtle that had hauled out leaving tractor trailer marks in the sand and commenced laying her over 100 eggs, an unforgettable sight. But here, in my own little bog, on a June day, I came across a large female snapping turtle that had climbed out of the containment pond, up its steep sandy cliff, and, of all places, was laying her eggs, not on the flat surface, but on this sheer drop off at the top! One questions her choice. Clearly though, she had dug into the cliff side and was getting the job done.


Because I was with my dog, who had gone right by her, sometimes he misses the most obvious things, I couldn’t stay to watch her complete the task, for they can lay up to 80 eggs and that would take some time. But now I knew where the nest was and could mark it, which I did. It also meant that now I could fret over her choice for, about a week later, we had some torrential rains that eroded the cliff right where her progeny were. However I saw no sign of washed-out eggs, nor in the ensuing weeks have I seen any sign of predation. I placed large rocks and some blocks of wood like a dam at the top of the cliff hoping to ward off any more washouts. The chance of my actually getting to see a wee snapper hatch out and tumble down to the pond is extremely slim at best. They probably wouldn’t hatch until September for gestation in the snappers is between 60-90 days depending on the weather, which has been pretty warm. Will I still be here walking the bog is the question. Well, we shall just have to wait and see.

By the way, as an aside, no need to play the “Jaws” music if you see a snapper in the pond. They are really docile in the water, but when on land, where they are far more vulnerable, they can be aggressive. In spring and early summer it is common to see one crossing a road, generally en route to her nesting site, and our advice is always, if it is safe, lend her a hand by stopping traffic, but not by picking her up and helping her cross. They weigh more than you would want to lift anyways. If they feel threatened, they can treat you to a display of their famous crushing jaws that can snap a broom handle. Another cool thing about snappers that I have only seen in pictures is that their tongue has a worm like appendage at the end, leading to fatal mistakes by fish that see a tasty dinner than become one themselves.

All right, clearly I don’t have the hang of the abbreviated Cliff Note approach I promised in the beginning. I am in Baltimore tending to my post operative, now non-walking daughter, so free time will be easier to find. Shall we then proceed catching you up day by day with what I saw? Seems a plan. And I did have some fortuitous sightings, so let me clog the blogwaves with my tales once again. Until then, enjoy the summer day spread before you. Pat

The Wild Women of Wednesday Whale Watch

The sands of time are running out on my days at the Cape and I had to be sure I could get at least one more whale watch in before I have to go to more landlocked, whaleless, terrain. And so, bless my walking ladies, who are always game for adventure, they were willing to switch up our usual morning walk to a sunset whale watch out of Provincetown this past Wednesday.

And so, a grand day was planned. One of our members has a summer cottage right across from the bluffs of a Wellfleet beach and she invited us to break our journey there. Then on to the sunset whale watch on what was forecasted to be a lovely night, where the sun would set in one direction and the nearly full moon rise in the other. What could be more perfect?

Well, it was spectacularly beautiful at Pat’s cottage, a home that has been in the family for generations, surrounded by twisted Pitch Pines and the ground covered with Bearberry, Sweet fern and the rare Broom Crowberry. There are only four species in the Crowberry family and they aren’t related to anyone else, but Wellfleet is a place where it does flourish and her yard seems a Crowberry sanctuary. The path across the road takes you to headlands, which open up to a breathtaking view of ocean expanse. And on a clear blue day the ocean reflects a myriad of blues. Gorgeous and it is why these beaches of the National Seashore often make a top ten list of the worlds most beautiful beaches - a propitious beginning.

Next, on to Provincetown and our 5:30 boat departure. Amazingly, some of my ladies have never been on a whale watch though they have lived here most of their lives. So, I was praying this would be the unforgettable experience that it generally is. And again, even if the whales didn’t show in numbers, there would be the beauty of sunset and moonrise to make up for it.

But this is New England, what the weatherman forecasts and what actually happens are often two distinctly different things. No sooner had we left the harbor when, spreading from the land, came a “big, black cloud all heavy with rain”, first covering Provincetown, then overtaking us. Ah well, no matter, I had taken my usual stance right out on the prow of the boat. Perhaps this would just be a passing shower.

It takes about an hour to reach Stellwagon’s Bank where the whales are and en route we saw more Wilson’s Storm Petrels than I had ever seen before. They are a pigeon sized bird, black with a white rump and they seem to dance about on the water. Why they do that I don’t know, but they are pelagic meaning you only see them when you are out to sea, so it is always a treat. Lots of Shearwaters, both Greater and Sooty playing chicken with the waves, they zoom over the water inches from the white caps. So, with a gray/black sky, and rain pelting you at whatever zippy speed the boat was going and the air alive with birds it was pretty cool even without whales yet.

We were spotting whales off in the distance, and Connie, a first timer, was the first to see a breach off in the distance. But what you really hope for, feel cheated if you don’t get, are whales right by the boat, exhaling in your face, breaching within reach. And yeah God, we got pretty close to that. A mother and calf came right along side us and when the mother did her deep dive, the calf stayed at the surface which they often do for they aren’t so good at diving yet. But what was so cool, was how interested in us it was. Three times it did a spy hop where they come straight up out of the water to have a look around. To have the whale that we were watching watch us back was pretty memorable.

We saw a number of mother calf pairs, always good news, but the ultimate 5 star attraction of this trip was when two adult humpbacks breached simultaneously, right off our starboard side. Incredible! I have seen a lot of breaches, but never two erupting from the water side by side, and then arching away from each other so the splash was a mirror image of each other. Sea World couldn’t have trained anything more perfect. They also threw there flukes in unison when they went into a deep dive, and then one started flipper flapping where they slap the water with that long, white, flexible, pectoral fin. It must have done it 8 or 9 times in a row. If those two were trying out for whale Olympics I think they made the team! One of the ships crew who had been on 800 trips said he had never seen, and I add, will probably never again see, such a thing happen!

Wow, so soaked though we were, this was worth it. Coming back with lightning flashing around, driving the hour back to Green Briar with rain still pelting down and roads turning into rivers, was worth it. Trying to get the ladies safely to their doors in pitch dark down narrow trails was worth it. It all was worth it. It always is. I know I have quoted this before, from a song by Michael Card call the Job Trilogy but it is so apt,
“Can you take Leviathan home as a pet? If you merely touched him you’d never forget.”
And so we won’t. Thanks wild women of Wednesday for giving me a great excuse to go. And from now on, I don’t think I will even bother to check the weather!

Wild Suburbia

A few weeks ago we took another trip to our home in Buffalo to finalize work on the house and the yard before the new renters moved in. I am always lamenting that one day my home will be in suburbia and away from the wilder setting of the Cape, however, perhaps I should not despair, for of course, there is a good deal of wildlife that has made the switch to suburbia also.

While my husband tends to the interior work, I have the joy of working the outside. 10 hours of working the outside, for one thing renters do not do, is weed and here the soil is rich enough to grow thistles with trunks the size of Sequoias. And our “grass”, which is probably 10% grass and 90% clover, birds foot trefoil, wild strawberry, Creeping Charlie, etc. was way overgrown, at least by the neighbors standard of 1” perfectly, perfect Scott's cover lawns.

But here is where the cool part of intersecting with nature came in. As soon as I fired up the lawn mower and started cutting, a pair of barn swallows showed up, and like a scene from a Disney movie swooped and flew right along with me as I went back and forth.
Did I have some sort of bird charm working? Did they mistake me for Cinderella in need of a gown for the ball? No, they were simply opportunistic birds. As I passed back and forth over this conglomerate of plants, I was scaring up moths and other flying insects that were instantly snatched up by the swallows. Amazing how they nailed them 90% of the time. And for the most part the moths never saw it coming. And yet, one or two moths, either by coincidence or perhaps picking up a SOS pheromone from the others who had met a sad fate, flew in a straight line, unusual for moths, straight ahead and out of the yard and they were the ones that made it. Also might have been a coincidence but interesting all the same. It’s a large yard, so I would run out of gas, and the swallows would disappear, only to return the second I fired it up again. How cool is that! So even though it took me close to 2 hours to finish the mowing, I was entertained throughout.

We also do a lot of trimming of bushes etc. when we go and when we first got there I thought, what untrained gardener decided to prune the Hostas? Whoever it was they did a horrible job, and who prunes Hostas anyway? Ah…deer prune Hostas without much thought as to what the final job will look like, so out the kitchen window now is a row of normal Hostas and a row of chewed up ones. Deer browse is recognizable by the fact that they leave a ragged looking bite for they only have front teeth on their bottom jaw.

When we got back home we got an email from our old renters saying their son would miss seeing the deer with the injured leg that would come and dine at the window. Ah, helping the handicap, guess he can help himself and we shall just have to hope the new renters are as empathetic.

Here on the Cape, as you know, the dog and I head out for an off-leash walk around a bog each day, or now that it is summer, go over to swim at the nearby pond, where, floating on my back, I can watch osprey and swallows and dragonflies do their hunting. In Buffalo it is, of course, a leash walk and probably that is the single most dreaded thing for me about living there. Not the harsh winters, I like snow, but a dog that must be on a leash. Still, by then he will be old and perhaps a slow stroll will suit him. But again, it wasn’t as without excitement as I thought. Each morning, we headed out at dawn, and each morning in the small patch of woods that remain at the end of the street, we encountered a trio of deer, and each morning I about had my arm yanked out of the socket by a dog delirious to join the chase. Beside the deer, in the entrance to the woods there must have been 9 separate woodchuck holes. They were all pretty close together, so either this is the woodchuck version of a trophy home, or a family that normally would spread out, have been forced to live village style, taking a cue from prairie dogs perhaps! This whole area was farmland not that long ago, and so all these species were present and seem now to be managing to remain, thanks to a supply of Hosta and grass and, I imagine, vegetable gardens nearby.

So, perhaps my dread of a lifeless suburbia is unfounded. Besides, after frying for a few years in Texas, I am sure moving to Buffalo will seem like moving to the Rain Forest by comparison. And as I hate the heat, I have also decided I will gladly go garden there each June when the renters move out. For that matter, next year I anticipate it will take me about three months to complete the weeding! Yes, suburbia may not be so bad after all!

The Blogs that are Clogging my Brain

Consider this “Previews of Coming Attractions”. I know I have explained my situation before; programs everyday, a house to prepare to rent in Buffalo, 500 miles from here, and my own house, now on the market, with realtors coming through tomorrow. Yet my daily walks with my dog continue and daily there is glory to be seen but how frustrating to have no time to get it down in print. So this will be a preview of what I hope to write about if the dust ever settles in my life. IF it settles.

“Learning to sing”- I imagine your yard is as full of nesting birds as mine, perhaps where you live the birds are already into a second brood. I still have trouble sleeping, but the delight of that is that I know exactly who the first birds to tune up are. In my yard, that would be the Song Sparrow.
And here is what you can listen for; songbirds, like the Song Sparrow, learn to sing through imitation of their elders and it takes place in the first few months of their lives. Lately, I have been entertained at 4:30 am by what I believe are the early attempts of a young Song Sparrow to get the hang of its theme song. It is still incomplete by a few notes, picture Beethoven’s Fifth with only “ta da da” rather than “ta da da dah”. The complete refrain will come in time, but it lets me know that right now, out my window is a young sparrow newly fledged.

If you have any White Throated Sparrows in your neighborhood, listen for their voice lessons.

As adults their song will sound like “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody” or at least that is the way New Englanders hear it, Peabody was a formidable family in the area throughout our early years. But my young one says “Old Sam Pea” then repeats, “Old Sam Peabod”, then tries again. Ah, such perseverance, and again the complete tune will come in time.

Another topic we will attempt to deal with is finding pictures of the zooid form of sea stars, crabs etc. I had a lot of tide pool programs to do this spring and I always wish I had some way to show the children the “baby pictures”, as it were, of the animals they are finding. As much as a caterpillar looks nothing like a butterfly, neither does a zooid crab look anything like the crab it will become.
So, sometime this summer let’s try to write about that, a “Who’s Who” in the zooplankton world.

And, don’t let me forget to write a word or two about the Marvels of Mummichogs: one of the hardiest fish anywhere, the first fish to blast into space, the one that I am about to go do a program on today.

How does that song about Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin go?

“Help me if you can I’ve got to get
Back to the House At Pooh Corner by one
You’d be surprised there’s so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky”

It feels representative of life these days-so much to be done. But I wish you all well, and my hopes are for slightly more time in July for us to share our sightings and musings together. Of course, at some point we need to go to Texas to look for our house, for, what if the shocking possibility that someone may buy our house, comes to pass? Maybe I would really get a chance to study “in the field” for I would be living in one!

Until then, enjoy the teaming life around you, summer is here, officially and nature is on full display. Now, excuse me while I go “chase a few clouds from the sky”.