After Irene-Part II

With a husband driving off, not into the sunset, but into the torrential outer bands of Irene, I was free to stay put for the glory of the storm. I love weather, sorry that indeed it causes so much hardship for so many, but still, there is a glorious side to it when it is as this one, more sound than fury. I sat in the garage sorting more endless piles of possessions into recycle or take along, while the wind made its path visible through the bending and twisting of the trees.

Trees that are accustomed to wind do develop stronger roots and our woods of pine and oak go through this sort of gymnastics regularly. Yet we do have a half dozen, long since dead, Pitch pines, victims of a boring beetle that girdles the tree and then it is done for. We had intended to take them down but never got around to it, and now we have one less to remove ourselves. With a huge crash the top third snapped off, impaling itself in my Rhododendron bushes. It snapped right at the point where the Red Bellied Woodpecker had its nest. I am glad the kids had long since flown. Otherwise, just a lifetime of kindling was deposited all over the yard, and with all garden implements on their way to Texas I had the joy of picking them all up by hand.

But even though I have a yeoman’s share of work each day, I still, more than ever, need to get out for the daily walk. To survey the damage, and to enjoy these last fleeting days where such grand places are just 5 minutes from my house. Today I went to the Game Farm where the path through the White pines was littered with piles of de-scaled pinecones. It looked like a feast was had by a convention of Red Squirrels. No need for aerial acrobatics when your food is delivered to the forest floor.

In other places, limbs dangled, “Sword of Damocles” style, held by the very vines that had made them deadwood to begin with. It is always amazing that although these trees are a good mile from the beach they already where showing the effects of salt burn. All the Cherry trees had curling brown edged leaves and the Tupelos too looked more tan than they should and I will be hoping that this doesn’t spoil the brilliant red they will turn a matter of weeks.

The view of the salt marsh is unchanged by storms for their whole existence is designed to shrug off the effects of salt. Hurricanes and salt laden air, no sweat for them, and in early September they are on their way to glory. A sea of green-gold grass, bordered by the tall Phragmite, whose large plume, seed heads are cordovan colored now. Add two Great Blue Herons winging over it all and you see why I am so reluctant to leave this place.

The very first night after the storm, some of my walking ladies joined me for a quick hike to the dunes of Sandy Neck to see how life was altered there. The dunes get sculpted and re-sculpted with each storm. Sometimes the ocean facing dunes look as though they have been sliced with a knife, other times sand has been lifted and deposited to make new hills where open trails had been.


Irene had come from the south and this beach faces north so the dunes along the beach looked fine, but deeper in some of them had been swept back to reveal the harder sand beneath, sculpted to look like miniature Mesa Verde’s. Beach plums that had ripened and were on their way to being Beach prunes where scattered in a winding path were the wind had blown them. We had gone hoping for swarms of swallows but instead found the main treat to be a young coyote that loped through the valley where we pick our wild cranberries. For once we were seeing not just tracks but the track-maker, considered a 5-star attraction in my book.


So, post Irene, the world remains beautiful. I will soon become nomadic, spending the next few months staying, sometimes at a friends cottage, other times visiting daughters far and wide, an adventure around every bend. May the blog continue, perhaps, in time, under a different name,“ Yankee Naturalist Heads West” or something but not quite yet. No, not yet.

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