Category Archives: Beauty by the Sea

Happy Mom’s Day!

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To all the Moms, Sisters, Aunties, Great Aunts, Grandmas, and Friends, I hope you have the loveliest of days!  

Yesterday I watched this Baltimore Oriole Mom try with all her might to untangle the slenderest bit of string. The video might be a little long but I wanted you to see how determined she was. At first I thought she was trying to get an insect but soon noticed the string. The string was wound around a tree and stuck in several places. She hopped up and down, from one side of the tree to the other, appraising where the string was jammed. She would then tug at it to release where it was caught. Ever so patiently, she worked. I lost focus with my camera for a moment, but was delighted to catch sight of her from a nearby tree with the string in her beak.

Classic Mom moves, getting the job done! <3

I would post a photo of a female Oriole, but don’t have a good one. This is a male eating naval oranges that we set out in our backyard.

 

Red Maple Tree Giver of Life

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You may have noticed the glowing red tree tops dotting our landscape. What you are most likely looking at are the flowers of the Red Maple (Acer rubrum) tree. One of the earliest trees to come into bloom, the flowers are so small that they are often overlooked.Red Maple Tree in flower

There are countless ways in which this extraordinary tree gives life. Being one of the first trees to bloom in the spring, it is a potent source of nectar for early bees on the wing. Little warblers, like this female Common Yellowthroat, find tiny spiders, insects, and larvae that are attracted to the pollen and nectar found amidst the tree’s blossoms.

Following the tree’s flowering period, pink and green two-toned winged fruits form. Officially called samaras, we mostly know them by self-describing names like helicopters and whirligigs. The wind blows the seeds far and wide where they are eaten by a great variety of birds and small mammals including turkeys, squirrels, and chipmunks.

But it is their yummy foliage that makes Red Maples a critical native keystone species. Somewhere between 200 to 300 species of Lepidoptera feed on the leaves of Red Maples including Giant Silkmoths Luna and Cecropia.

Cecropia Moth CaterpillarsCecropia Moths Mating

To top off the smorgasbord of food for wildlife that this beautiful tree provides, for us humans, autumn brings a gorgeous display of brilliant red foliage.

Red Maples are also called Swamp Maples but that doesn’t mean they only grow in swampy, super wet environments. Red Maples will tolerate average garden soil, just not super dry conditions. Grown in well-drained, loamy and acidic soil, they will thrive. Red Maples are the fastest growing tree in the Eastern US. They may reach a height to 70 feet in the Northeast, adding about 18 inches in height per year. When properly cared for, Red Maples can live up to 100 years.

 

Important Hummingbird Notice for Earth Day!

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Time to get out your hummingbird feeders out. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have been spotted in Rhode Island and Cape Cod! It won’t be long before they begin to arrive at our Cape Ann gardens. Many of the flowering trees and shrubs they depend upon early in the season are slow to awaken this spring and they sure could use the nourishment provided by the sugar water in our feeders. Happy Earth Day!

Joyous Earth Day!

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Treasuring our wild creatures and wild spaces <3

When you’re standing stone still focused on filming a territorial Big Fight between Red-bellied Woodpeckers and a Great Blue Heron in gorgeous full breeding plumage swoops across the water, landing mere feet from where you are perched. Treasuring our wild creatures and wild spaces <3

The Oh-So Welcome Return of Songbirds and Butt Bouncer Warbler!

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The tail-wagging Palm Warbler that doesn’t behave like your typical warbler!

One of the earliest migrating songbirds that we see along our shrubby, woodland edges is the Palm Warbler. He stands a bit more upright, is slightly bigger, and has the unique habit of wagging its tail. Last November I made a video of a tail-wagging Palm Warbler in non-breeding plumage and forgot to share. Several days ago, I was fortunate to to catch a mini flock of four foraging along the ground and low on the bush, another non-warbler characteristic behavior. I write fortunate because when I checked back the following morning, they had already moved on. Palm Warblers breed further north than do most species of warblers, as far north as the boggy boreal forests of Canada and Maine.

Here you can compare both breeding and non-breeding feathers, from April of this year and from November 2025, respectively. Nicknames for the Palm Warbler include, Butterbutt, Tip-up Warbler, Wag-tail Warbler, and Butt Bouncer. As you can see in the last clip, insects are what they are foraging for in the undergrowth!

 

Urgent – Please Drop a Quick Line to Your Legislator Today to Phase Out the Use of Rodenticides!

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Dear Friends,

On Wednesday, April 15, the State Senate will vote on whether to adopt a proposal to phase out the use of anticoagulant rodenticides that are harming wildlife and pets. 

Adding the bill as an amendment to the Mass Ready Act will help ensure that our state phases out the use of rodenticides that are poisoning thousands of wildlife and pets in Massachusetts every year.

We need them to hear from as many supporters as possible before they vote this Wednesday. Let’s get this amendment passed to protect our wildlife and pets! Please sign the form at the link provided below.

Link to easy-to-fill-out form

​What a difference a few weeks makes compared to the balmy 70 degrees temps today! This ​sleepy pair of Long-eared Owls ​seen in the video are hunkered in​, weathering snow and wind​ during a late season snowstorm. LEOs roost in dense stands of vegetation and are seen in Massachusetts primarily during the winter months. Their diet consists mostly of small rodents including mice, rats, shrews, and voles. LEO’s, along with all birds of prey, are at extreme risk of being poisoned by rat poison. As the rodent ingests the poison, so does the bird, and the consequences are often deadly to the predator.​

Shout Out To Bobby Grady, Andrea Holbrook, and the Gloucester Daily Times for Plover Coverage!

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Many, many thanks to Gloucester Daily Times reporter Bobby Grady and editor-in-chief Andrea Holbrook for the Times continued coverage of our Gloucester Plovers. The story appeared in today’s Times with a gentle reminder to give the Plovers lots of space as they are establishing their nesting territories.

The coverage the Times has provided since the Plovers first arrived back in 2016 has been invaluable in helping to create an awareness about these very vulnerable, yet valiant, threatened shorebirds. Thank you again Andrea, Bobby, and the GDTimes!

Joyous Saint Joseph Pasta-making Day!

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Each year Nina and Franco Groppo open their hearts and home to the community to honor Saint Joseph, the patron Saint of workers, fathers, and families. The house is full of family and friends coming together to attend the nine day Novena and prepare for the feast to celebrate Saint Joseph, which is always on March 19th, a Thursday this year.

Felicia Sciortino and Nina dedicated the altar to honor the crew of the Fishing Vessel Lily Jean that sank on January 30th. Captain Gus Sanfilippo and six crew members were lost at sea. There is a beautiful model of the ship, made by Felicia’s brother Domenic Di Maio, and the altar is decorated with lovely symbols and handmade artifacts (made by Felicia) representing the hardworking men and women who fish the sea.

It is such a joyous day making pasta with these wonderful friends and I so love photographing and filming the event. A video is coming and in the meantime, here are a few snapshots. It’s baby Julian’s first Saint Joseph and Nina and Franco’s first great-grandchild so there are tons of photos of this adorable little nugget. Julian is the son of Steve and Mikaela LeBlanc, the grandson of Maria Groppo, and Steve and Melanie LeBlanc, and the great-grandson of Nina and Franco.

Swan Alert!

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What an uplifting few moments to catch sight of this beautiful young Mute Swan. I believe he is a male because of the good-sized blackberry, or black protuberance, on his upper bill.

It’s been many years since Gloucester and Rockport have had a pair of Swans breeding at our local ponds and frequenting the waterways. Our dear Mr. Swan, a beautiful and rare blue-eyed Swan, passed away in 2019. He had survived two mates and was at least 29 years old at the time of his passing, a simply extraordinary age for a Mute Swan not held in captivity

Let’s everyone keep an eye out for the well being of our visitor. Winter is very tough on young Mute Swans. At this time of year, their parents are often pushing them out of their home territory as they prepare to nest and raise the next generation. Mute Swans don’t migrate however, they do move around from body of water to body of water within a region, especially during the winter.

The Swan has a deformed left foot but that did not prevent him from using his foot to preen and to take off on the ice, which is not easy for any large-bodied bird, injured or not. With his distinct foot we may be able to track him if he is still in the area. I saw him in the morning and my friend Carlos later in the day but he was not at Nile’s by nightfall. Please email or leave a comment in the comment section and let us know if you see him. Thank you! kimsmithdesigns@hotmail.com

Why We Love Pokeberry (and so do Scissor-tailed Flycatchers!)

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Dear Friends,

Taking a break from thinking about the heart-rending reality of our national politics to talk about a native plant that you may want to encourage to grow in your wildflower garden. Pokeberry is a large, gangly native plant that goes by many names: American Pokeweed, Dragonberry, Pigeonberry, and Inkberry, to name but a few. Although all parts of the plant can be toxic to livestock, the berries are much beloved by a variety of songbirds including Mockingbirds, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Cardinals, Brown Thrashers, Cedar Waxwings, Bluebirds, and many more.

Pokeberry was one of several fruiting plants favored by the exquisite (and rarely seen in the Northeast) Scissor-tailed Flycatcher that was visiting the Spencer-Pierce-Little Farm. The Pokeberry was growing in the pigpen and around the edges of the farm fields. If you plan to grow it in your garden, know that Pokeberry can reach five to six feet and is a good candidate for the back of a border or along property edges.

In our own garden, we never had Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers until I let a volunteer Pokeberry grow where a bird had deposited a seed. Now we have a tribe of YBS stopping over during spring and autumn migration, a male, a female, and even a  juvenile. This past autumn, our “pet” Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, as Charlotte likes to call the male who comes daily, was with us from October through December. He was mostly focused on procuring  sap from our tree garden but I don’t think it would be here unless it had been initially attracted to the beautiful deep purple berries of the Pokeberry plant.

Grow Native and They Will Come!

P.S. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds drink nectar from the tiny white Pokeberry flowers.

Looking to 2026

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Dear Friends,

I hope you are finding renewed hope in the new year.  As we turn the page away from 2025, one thought burns so brightly in my mind and that is to Power On. We’re all in this together and as we become united, we will be empowered to right the wrongs.

This last photo of 2025​, from the 31st, is​ of a Wild Turkey taken in the Wolf Moon a few days before it was completely full. Charlotte and I watched in wonderment as the turkeys took flight at twilight. It takes a good amount of energy for their ungainly bodies to become aloft and ​turkey flying comes with much noisy whooshing and vigorous wing flapping. They sleep in trees for protection from mammalian predators and even young poults learn to fly and roost on low branches, at the ​very tender age of only a week or two.

I have been meaning to share this video of Gray Seals singing. For about ten years or so I have been watching the growing population of seals at Brace Cove, which isn’t really very long in the grand scheme of things. When I first began to notice the congregation there, it seemed as though it was all Harbor Seals. More and more Gray Seals seem to be coming each year. One day in November I counted 14 Gray Seals hanging out together in the water, not on the rocks. Another day, there were 34 all told, both Harbor and Gray, in the water and on the rocks. There possibly may have been many more as they move around the cove and are often emerging from underwater.

The first clips are of a chorus of Gray Seal bull songsters; the last two clips happened several days later when two were behaving very affectionately towards one another. Notice how the more active the males became, the more anxious the small seal in the center of it all became before giving up its spot on the rock. Turn up the volume to hear the full chorus! Gray Seal mating season is happening now and the singing can be either amorous or territorial. Mating takes place underwater but I wonder if the clips where they are behaving affectionately is a form of courtship. Everything I have read states mating is violent but watching the seals playfully rub each other and dive together for fifteen plus minutes makes me think perhaps there is another side to Gray Seal breeding.

Power On Friends,

xxKim

 

Wild Turkey in the Wolf Moon

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Last photos of 2025 –  Just as i was readying to return home after a twilight walk, the local turkeys began migrating up into the trees for their nightly rest.

Good Morning Cape Ann!

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Gloucester’s beautiful Lobster Trap Tree and FV Ramblin’ Rose

Happy Holidays with Rare and Splendid Little White Geese in the Falling Snow

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Dear Friends,

I hope you are doing well and enjoying the holiday season. I feel deeply blessed to have my family home for Christmas-making this past week and we are almost ready for tomorrow morning. I am thinking about you and grateful for our friendship. I hope you are finding joy despite these difficult times.

For the past several weeks a pair of Ross’s Geese has been residing at Parker River. They are really quite exquisite with their friendly little faces and punch pink beaks and legs. Smaller than Canada and Snow Geese, the adult is almost pure white, save for black wing tips, while the juvenile’s plumage is mottled with some gray and brown. I couldn’t tell what they were foraging for until looking at the footage back home, but it appears as though they are eating slender green grass shoots buried under the snow.

 

Seeing the Ross’s Geese reminded me of the beautiful and tender story of The Snow Goose. You can read it here: The Snow Goose by Philip Gallico. If you have never read it be forewarned you may be crying your heart out by the end <3

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and peace and love in the coming year.

xxKim

 

Where you would more typically see Ross’s Geese. 


Map courtesy Cornell.

Spellbinding Woods Walk with a Young Buck

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Walking through a semi-wooded area I came upon a buck that seemed wholly unbothered by my presence. So much so, that he stopped at various points to snuffle through the fallen leaves, reach for branches, and relieve himself. As I crossed the road, so did he, and when I paused to film, he wasn’t spooked. We came to a clearing where another person was approaching. All too soon the enchanted spell was broken and he picked up his gait. I didn’t hurry after him as I didn’t want to break his trust and just watched in wonderment as he loped away.

 

I wonder if he’s the same buck that I filmed in early spring and then again in summer? Here he is with new antler nublets, and later with velvety fuzzy antlers growing in.  I read no two deer antlers are alike, similar to human fingerprints. In the photo below, the buck’s first set of tines are similar to the buck’s tines in the film; the right tine is straighter than the left tine.

Composition by Reynaldo Hahn • “Danse pour une déesse, pour flûte et piano.” Recorded by Jean-Pierre Rampal and Francoise Bonnet form the Internet Archive of Royalty Free Music.

Gloucester Firefighters Rigging the Star to the Lobster Trap Tree!

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Many, many thanks to Gloucester’s awesome firefighters for each year braving the cold and wind to attach the Christmas star atop the Lobster Trap Tree.

Great Horned Owl Rescue

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The Great Horned Owl that has been seen at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge the past several days was found alive but immobile in the Hellcat parking lot this morning. A kind photographer shared the information but that is all she knew. I was just glad to hear of the rescue because when we saw him from the road Sunday morning, he was tucked way back in a tangle of trees and appeared as though his left wing was drooping. I am hoping one of our readers may know more about the rescue. Please write if you do, thank you!

Loving Tribute to Ann Margaret Ferrante

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Several thousand people were in attendance at Ann’s funeral mass this afternoon. Friends and colleagues, including Governor Maura Healy, State Senator Bruce Tarr, and Ann’s chief of staff Dru Tarr, spoke in loving memory, with Reverend Jim leading the mass.  Ann’s profoundly positive impact on the life of so many in our community will be felt for generations to come The service was live streamed by Streamography and you can watch here. The mass starts at about 21 minutes into the video.

Bruce Tarr ended his tribute to Ann with these transcendent words from Emily Dickinson –

Unable are the Loved to die
For Love is Immortality,
Nay, it is Deity—

Unable they that love—to die
For Love reforms Vitality
Into Divinity.

The photo of the Snow Moon setting behind Saint Ann’s steeple is for Ann. Despite her wonderfully full life, every now and then she would write to say how much she liked a photo I had shared, usually a harbor scene with a fishing boat or some beautiful Cape Ann building.  She loved this photo, and another Moon one with Our Lady of Good Voyage, and I will try to locate that one too.

On the back of Ann’s program was the poem “On Children,” written by Kahlil Gibran –

Piping Plovers of Moonlight Bay Airing at Prince Edward Island!

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I am delighted to share that The Piping Plovers of Moonlight Bay is playing at the City Cinema of Charlottetown, PEI, on Thursday evening. This is a very special screening to me, brought to you by the Island Nature Trust; special because the INT is a fabulous organization striving to protect species at risk and to conserve their habitats. The Island Nature Trust is a model of great stewardship and I am honored that our film has been selected for screening.

Read more about the outstanding work being accomplished by the Island Nature Trust here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours <3

I am thankful for your friendship and for your support of our film projects, Beauty on the Wing and The Piping Plovers of Moonlight Bay. Both films are continuing to do well and were only made possible because of your generosity and kind support. A most heartfelt thank you!

I may have but don’t think I did, shared this clip of a late hatched Turkey poult. Watch how Mom patiently waits for her poult to take a tiny seed from her mouth. Turkeys are so outwardly cumbrous but have such tender tendencies towards their young.

Happy Thanksgiving!
xxKim

 

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly Depositing Eggs

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We were observing several female Gulf Fritillaries depositing eggs amongst (what i think is) the foliage of Corksystem Passionflower (Passiflora suberosa). To my surprised delight, one had been hovering over a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar!

Gulf Fritillaries are also called Passion Butterflies because they rely on species of Passionflower as their caterpillar host, or food, plant. During the summer months, you can purchase Purple Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) vines at Wolf Hill. Native Purple Passion flower is also called Maypop because the new growth pops up in May, and not necessarily in the same place where you planted the vine. Another popular thought as to the origins of the name is that when the edible fruits are stepped upon, they pop.

In the last clip you can see the large white cells on the underwings of the Gulf Fritillary. The cells are actually iridescent and when the light is captured just right on the iridescent patches, it creates little flashes of light which confuses predatory birds.

 

While we were at a Gulf of Mexico small inter coastal pond for only about half an hour, in that very brief window, we saw Zebra Longwings, a Monarch, Gulf Fritillaries, and a new-to-my-eyes butterfly, a well camouflaged White Peacock. These butterflies are all considered tropical and subtropical species and aside from the Monarch, it would be very unlikely to see the Zebra Longwing, White Peacock, and Gulf Fritillary in the northeast.

White Peacock Butterfly

 

Good Morning!

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One of a pair of Snow Bunting spotted recently, on a sunnier morning. 

Golden-crowned Kinglet – tiny bird with the outsized name!

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A mini flock of mini birds – every few years or so I am fortunate enough to catch the Golden-crowned Kinglets traveling through our neighborhood. In perpetual motion when foraging, they are challenging to film and even more so to photograph. You would think the Kinglets would be interested in the magnificent buffet of ripe crabapples but no, they were devouring the insects and web encased egg sacs found mostly on the undersides of leaves.

One of these days I may be lucky enough to see a Golden-crowned Kinglet with his crown puffed out like this-

Photo courtesy American Bird Conservancy

Best Director at the London Vision Film Festival!

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Dear Friends,

I hope you are doing well. What a lovely weekend weather wise for we in southern New England although we’re getting ready for the big cold snap coming. Right after Dia de Muertos, we plant paperwhites and amaryllis bulbs to force indoors. We switch up the colors of the soft furnishings in the music living room from warm weather blues and greens to white, rose, red, and greens. It’s a cozy (and gradual) way to get in the holiday spirit.

I am so very delighted to write that we received the Best Director Feature Film award at the London Vision Film Festival. It’s a wonderful honor and my first ‘Best Director’ award. I thank all of you everyday. Both Beauty on the Wing and The Piping Plovers of Moonlight Bay would not have been made possible without your generosity and I am so very grateful for your interest and kind support.

If you have a chance, there’s a very fun new film about the vibrant music scene in Boston during the 70s and 80s, Life on the Other Planet. Beautifully produced and directed by Vincent Straggas, we went to the premiere at the Regent Theatre in Arlington several weeks ago and it is again playing at the Regent on Thursday, November 19th. Along with a great many Boston musicians, my husband Tom Hauck and Fred Pineau from The Atlantics are featured, as well as local Gloucester musicians Willie Alexander and Jon Butcher. There is talk of Life on the Other Planet coming to The Cut!

The Rat

Here’s a link to a short video and photos of the amazing Pectoral Sandpiper that stopped over for a day on its arduous migration to southern South America. I mentioned the pair last time I wrote and wanted to make the video before too much time had passed. I wonder what the predicted whoosh of arctic weather will bring to our shores next!

Sending you kind thoughts and much gratitude,

xxKim

 

 

The Pectoral Sandpiper – Master of Migration and Don’t Fall Asleep Watching this Short Video!

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A new-to-my-eyes shorebird to love was seen at a local cove. A pair of Pectoral Sandpipers stayed for a day  to refuel on the rich feast of invertebrates found in the wrack of seaweed deposited along the shoreline and as you can see, to get some shut-eye.  I had spotted a Yellowlegs and was heading to the shoreline to investigate when I nearly tripped over one of the Pectoral Sandpipers. It was so well camouflaged in the drying seaweed. Only a few feet away was its traveling companion, also equally as difficult to see. They appeared at first glance to be something akin to a shorter legged Yellowlegs but I noticed right away the clean line between its crisply stippled upper chest feathers and bright white lower breast plumage. I knew it was unique to the shorebirds we usually see and had to be something special.

The Sandpipers hungrily burrowed their long bills in the soft sand, coming up with mouthful after mouthful of opaque white invertebrates. This seaweed and sand habitat is extraordinarily rich with small insects. As the seaweed piles up on the beach, the sand washes over and buries it. You may notice when walking the sand underneath your feet feels squishy. That’s because of the seaweed beneath, which also becomes a veritable hot house for insects.

The pair were sooo tired. They frequently dozed off in the midst of foraging and didn’t seem at all deterred by my presence. Perhaps I was the first human they had ever encountered and didn’t know to be frightened. Pectoral Sandpipers have one of the longest migrations known. They may journey from the far southern end of South America, to the high Arctic tundra to nest, quite possibly a nearly 20,000 mile journey. Not only that, but  once the polygynous male arrives at the breeding grounds, he will criss cross the Arctic looking for females. From satellite transmitters, biologists know that they may stop and mate at as many as 24 different locations. Pectoral Sandpipers are masters of migration and it was no wonder they were so exhausted.

I returned in the afternoon to find the pair had not moved more than a few feet from where they had been seen in the morning. They were still feeding voraciously and sleeping in-between bouts of foraging.

Pectoral Sandpipers are more likely to be seen in the central part of the country during their autumn migration. Because they are mostly foraging in grassy marshes and wet fields on their typical migratory routes, they, along with several over sandpipers, have gained the nickname ‘grasspipers.’ Pectoral Sandpipers are in the same family as Woodcocks and you can sort of see that in the last clip where the male’s chest feathers are puffed out.

Male Pectoral Sandpipers have a special air sac that lies beneath their breast bone. The air sac fills so that he looks like a feathered balloon and while he flies over the female, he lets out throbbing hoots (and many other extraordinary sounds!).

The wind was still blowing hard when i returned the following morning. Neither were seen and I hoped they had taken advantage of the super strong tailwinds to take them to the next leg of their journey,  what seems mighty epic to this wingless human.