Allens Pond Beach Ramble

On the Ramble

Saturday, June 27 was another beautiful day at Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary.  It was the date of another Beach Ramble, led by Doug and a family of four traveled down from Newton to go on the ramble.  The whole family was very interested, found a number of objects and asked very appropriate questions.  One of the boys had studied about the beach and marine animals in school and knew a lot of answers.  Everybody had an enjoyable day and at the end of the ramble.  The boys got out their Massachusetts Audubon Passports and stamped it with the Allen Pond stamp.

Doug Explaining

There Was a Number of Lady Crab Exoskeletons on the Beach

Searching

In the water right off the beach, common terns were fishing for small baitfish.

Common Tern with Fish in Its Beak

As we were walking in the field back up toward the field station, a newly hatched brood of Baltimore Checkerspots were flying around and landed to give us a good view of them before their wings got beat up.

Baltimore Checkerspot

For an enjoyable instructive day. Please join us for the next Beach Ramble on Saturday, July 11 at 10 AM starting at the field station on Horseneck Road.  Hope to see you there.

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Common Terns Bathing

Sunrise

Sunday morning I left my house at 0-dark-30, so I could arrived at Plymouth harbor at 4 AM.  I joined Mike Milicia group to take the water taxi out to the tip of Plymouth beach.  We arrived on the beach, prior to sunrise and hiked around to the bayside to the location where all the activity was.  Laughing gulls and common terns were flying over us.  As the sun slowly rose in the East, we were able to photograph the birds in the golden light.  A pair of black skimmers were nesting near the edge of the dune which did allow for pictures.

Black Skimmer

I walked down to the waters edge, where I was observing the common terns bathing.  Common terns have an interesting methodology in their dating sequence.  Like most birds.  They set in the water and use their wings this to create a spray of water, or they duck under the water.  But, rather than just a flap of the wings, they fly out of the water and then settle into another area and repeat the sequence, again.  Finally they come on shore, where the common terns preen their feathers.

I photographed a lot more than the black skimmers and the terns bathing, but I'm going to leave what else we found for the next blog.

Nickerson Beach-Finale

Common tern flying along the beach in between photographers

This is the final blog about Nickerson Beach.  The blog will be mainly photographs of some of the other species of birds that we saw while we were there.  Because of the month that we were there, the common terns finished nesting, so there were no common tern chicks, just juvenile common terns.

Common tern in flight

Juvenile and Adult Common Tern

Juvenile Common Tern

Common Tern Flying with Fish in Its Mouth

There was not a lot of different species of shorebirds, mainly sandelings, with a few ruddy turnstones, and semipalmated plovers.  We did find however, a juvenile piping plover and juvenile least sandpipers, with their beautiful rufous coats.

Least Sandpiper

Least Sandpiper

Piping Plover

Piping Plover

Ruddy Turnstone

Sanderling

Sanderling

Semipalmated Plover

A Pair of Sandelings

There were the usual species of gulls, great black-backed gull, herring gull, ring-billed gull and laughing gulls.

Herring Gull, Feeding

Laughing Gull in Flight

Next year, I am planning to make at least two trips down to Nickerson Beach, one in July and one in August so I can capture the different stages of life on the beach.