This beautiful Northern Lapwing has been residing in Ipswich; it is thought at least since the violent storm of December 22nd.
The Lapwing was so interesting to watch as it foraged in the pasture using the same foot tamping technique that we see Piping Plovers exhibit when hunting for mini mollusks and sea worms at the beach. The Lapwing was using its feet to instead stir up worms in the muddy field.
Also called the Green Plover, the Lapwing is very elegant looking, with glossy green plumage (when caught in the right light), and a fine crest accented with long wispy feathers. It’s quite a bit larger than the Piping Plover, several inches larger than even a Killdeer.
The adorable chicks look like a cross between Killdeer, PiPl, and Semi-palmated Plover chicks! Chick images courtesy Wiki Commons media
Typically, the wind in the North Atlantic flows in a positive phase from west to east. We occasionally see Lapwing vagrants when the wind in the North Atlantic changes its pattern to a negative east to west flow.
To better understand why New England, Newfoundland, and Labrador are occasionally “invaded” by Northern Lapwings, read this easy to comprehend article by author Amy Davis here:
Charlotte and I visited Tip Top Tulips and were we ever wowed! Not only are the tulips that are blooming perfect for picking and photographing but there are rows and rows of tulips that are about ready to burst into bloom at any moment.
Paul Wegzyn and his Dad, also Paul, have outdone themselves with combining colors and creating lovely vignettes for photos. Wonders of wonders, Tip Top Tulips is now home to a menagerie of adorable farm animals. We met Midnight the pony, very feisty and fun, along with the more laid back Fancy, the donkey. Next to become acquainted with were nine six-month old Nigerian goats, two tiny baby lambs (and their Moms), and Chad, the sweetest Border Collie puppy you can imagine.
Chad
While Charlotte and I were picking tulips, Midnight decided to cut loose and have a frolic in the tulip field, which made for some very funny moments. Tip Top Tulips is the most wonderfully kid-friendly flower farm and certainly gets Charlotte’s award for the best farm animals ever!
Midnight
Tip Top Tulips is open seven days a week and on weekends, there are extra fun activities, including goat yoga for kids and adults. This coming weekend, the weekend of April 30th – May 1st, a brand new batch of baby goats are arriving to join the menagerie.
Tip Top Tulips is located at 20 Lowes Lane, Ipswich, just off 1A, behind the Dairy Queen.
Friday Charlotte and I stopped by School Street Sunflowers, as much to see the sunflower fields as to visit their beautiful, sweet, adorable, friendly goats.
Befitting this year’s theme at School Street Sunflowers, which is Light, the entrance to the field is flanked by a pair of Egyptian sphinxes.
To purchase tickets and for more information GO HERE.
This Sunflower field is located at a NEW LOCATION: 20 Lowes Lane in Ipswich.
To get to the field, go to the Dairy Queen in Ipswich (158 High Street) where you will see a sign for the sunflower field and Lowes Lane.
Please drive down all the way to end of Lowes Lane. Parking will be clearly marked.
School Street Sunflowers will be in peak bloom over the next week or so, the field is dried out from all the rain, and there are armfuls of flowers to take home! For tickets (which include sunflower stems!) visit School Street Sunflowers here
School Street Sunflowers is located at 16 School Street in Ipswich.
With a broken leg unfortunately still preventing me from visiting my friend’s farm fields, Paul Wegzyn from School Street Sunflower and Dahlia Fields writes that despite the pending storm, the fields are opening today!!!
School Street Sunflower Field and Dahlia Field
Open Saturday, August 21st – 9am until sunset.
16 School Street, Ipswich
With our sunflower field, we have lost over 50% of the field because of all the rain in July. With another 2.5 inches of rain yesterday, our sunflower field is very muddy right now. It looks like even more rain on Sunday and Monday with Tropical Storm Henri.
We still have thousands of beautiful sunflowers in bloom and there are some excellent spots for photos.
Usually we have an admission fee and don’t cut sunflowers in this field, but with the many sunflowers that were flooded, we will have no admission fee. We will be selling tickets for bunches of sunflowers.
Each ticket will get you one bunch of sunflowers (3 stems) and you can walk around and find the best spots to take photos.
Our dahlia field is looking amazing and we will be open on Saturday. The location of the dahlia field is also on School Street. Almost across the street from the tennis courts at Ipswich High School.
There is no admission fee to the dahlia field and you can buy dahlias there.
We will have events throughout the summer and fall where Paul and award winning Dahlia grower, Bart Kellerman aka “Doc Dahlia” give talks about growing dahlias.
The hours for the dahlia field are still TBD, but you can find us there on the weekends and some weeknights.
For everyone that loves sunflowers, we have another sunflower field planted that will open up in Mid September! We are really excited to open up this field to the public for the first time and we will have more information in September.
See you Saturday!
Father and son School Street Sunflowers proprietors, Paul Wegzyn and Paul Wegzyn
Photo gallery from past years at School Street Sunflowers
Tip Top Tulips promises to be a show stopper this Mother’s Day weekend with fields blooming in prime glorious beauty! My friend Paul has created yet another enchanting and magical flower experience for the community (see School Street Sunflowers). Visiting Tip Top Tulips to celebrate Mother’s Day is a wonderful way to spend time with your Mom, wife, girlfriend, and family. Well-behaved dogs on leashes are welcome, too. And on a recent visit, if you can imagine, I ran into half a dozen fairy princesses <3
Only a very few varieties of tulips have gone past and there are loads and loads of fresh flowers to pick (I can attest that Paul’s freshly picked tulips last a good ten days!). The array of colors is beyond exquisite, from brilliant jewel tones to softly-hued pastels, along with every imagined shape and pattern, from dippled and dappled, to striped and ruffled. Deanna Gallagher’s adorable and family friendly Shetland Sheep are visiting Tip Top Tulips as well, along with a beautiful young calf.
Paul and friend Liam
There are plenty of times available on Saturday, May 8th. Sunday, Mother’s Day, times are available between 9 and 10, and after 4:30ish. After this weekend, the fields will still be beautiful so I would check with Paul on how much longer Tip Top Tulips is planning to stay open.
Tip Top Tulips is located at 71 Town Farm Road in Ipswich.
You may recall that I have written a number of times about my friend Paul Wegzyn and his stunning and enchanting School Street Sunflowers. Paul has created another magically enchanted flower experience for the community! This past autumn, Paul, and his Dad Paul, planted several hundred thousand tulips at two different fields.
Early red tulips in bloom today!
The smaller field at 22 School Street, Ipswich, is opening on Sunday, April 18th. This field is planted for pick-your-own tulips. Charming wicker baskets are provided and the cost is $1.00 per stem.
The second field, named Tip Top Tulips (located at 71 Town Farm Road, Ipswich ), is going to be the show stopper. Rows and rows of beautiful multi-colored tulips, from early flowering varieties to late flowering cultivars will be blooming over the next two months. Tip Top Tulips is scheduled to tentatively open the following week, approximately April 24th, depending on the weather.
The theme this first year for Tip Top Tulips is Love, in honor of Paul’s Mom, and as with School Street Sunflowers, there will be beautiful photo vignettes positioned around the field.
Deanna Gallagher will have her adorable and friendly Shetland Sheep and cows at Tip Top field, providing even more fun and wonderful photo moments for the family. Charlotte had the best time with Deanna and her goats at School Street Sunflowers last summer and I cannot wait to take her to Tip Top Tulips this spring!
Bluebird courtship is as beautiful as is the bird! Last week my daughter Liv joined me on a film scouting mini adventure. She loves learning about wildlife and living in Southern California as she does, Liv is surrounded by beautiful wild creatures and wild lands. We had a fantastic morning of it. Brant Geese, Piping Plovers, Great Egrets, Tree Swallows, and Eastern Bluebirds were just some of the creatures we observed.
The Eastern Bluebirds were especially stunning in the crisp early morning sunshine. One particular gent had not yet secured his partner’s affections. From tree branches adjacent to nesting boxes, he sang softly and flashed his glorious blue wings to a female that had flown in on the scene.
At first we thought he was preening, but no, the bachelor was clearly enticing his lady friend with lapis lazuli flags, gesturing with quick up and down lifting movements. Called wing-waving, these gestures are part of Eastern Bluebird courtship.
The male first sings loudly from treetops. If a female shows interest, he further shows off his skill sets with wing-waving and soft warbles. He then entices her to join him at a nesting box or cavity, he entering first. After he flies out of the box and if all goes well, she enters the cavity, a sure sign the pair are hitting it off!
Consistently when out in fields, I see Bluebird pairs that appear strongly committed to each other. I wondered, do Bluebirds mate forever? In our region, we see Eastern Bluebirds. Ornithologists found from a long term study of Western Bluebirds that the great majority stay together for life. No such studies exist for Eastern Bluebirds however, field observations suggest that about 95 percent mate for life when both are still alive.
Eastern Bluebird female, left, male, right
Interestingly though, mating for life does not exclude extra pair copulations. Genetic studies of broods show that about twenty percent of nestlings are sired by more than one male.
Pairs softly warble to each other early in the morning, the male brings nesting material to a chosen site, and once she has entered his nesting cavity, she will begin to bring nesting material and he will bring food to her to “seal the deal.” In our north of Boston region, you can see the courtship behavior beginning as early as February and March.
Eastern Bluebirds re-mate with another partner if one dies.
In the photos below, it’s very easy to see the difference between a male and female Bluebird. The female’s blue is a more subdued grayish hue while the male’s blue feathers are brilliantly hued.
Rich and Stephanie Galicki have created a wondrous Magical Kingdom (as our granddaughter calls the display). For over fifty years, the family has kept the tradition going, each Christmas adding more lights and whimsical scenes. You’ll find a snowman and towering candy cane lined driveway, heralding angels, nutcrackers, a patriotic display created after 911, the Grinch, elf sleigh riders, and much, much more.
The Galicki’s were planning to take 2020 off, but because of the global pandemic they decided to go ahead. Spanning nearly five acres, the display is so brilliant, it can be seen from outer space.
The Galciki’s Magical Kingdom is located on Linebrook Road in Ipswich, just before you get to Marini Farm if coming from Cape Ann. With an electric bill at roughly $2,000.00, donations are greatly appreciated 🙂
Posting a bunch of photos for my friend Paul’s Mom, Debbie Wegzyn. Paul, and his Dad Paul, own and operate School Street Sunflowers. I love photographing at their fields, not only because the fields and all the wildlife attracted to the fields are beautiful but because Paul and his Dad love sharing the beauty of the fields with their community.
The photos were taken in September and October. The hay was being harvested and the winter cover crop planted. Most of the sunflowers had been cut down to plant rye, but Paul left several rows standing. The sunflower seed heads were Mecca for every songbird in the neighborhood, including a beautiful flock of Red-winged Blackbirds, Goldfinches, Song Sparrows, Bobolinks, and Blue Jays.
On December 21st, School Street Sunflowers is planning to share wonderfully exciting news that I think all of Essex County and the North Shore will be overjoyed to learn. Please stay tuned <3
While filming at my friend Paul’s School Street Sunflowers late in the summer, a gorgeous flock of Bobolinks appeared on the scene. The sunflowers were just the right height for the birds to perch upon to eat the seed heads of the wildflowers and grasses growing in and amongst the field. Bobolinks perch while carefully extracting the seeds and fly-hop to the base of the plant for insect treats. I love Paul’s fields because unlike many flower fields, wildflowers and grasses grow in with the sunflowers. The insects attracted and the ripening seeds and berries provide a wealth of food for songbirds and all manner of wild creatures.
Especially beautiful to hear from the fields, every evening bells ring. I would love to learn to more about the bells. If any readers have more information about the bells, please write!
Sparrow-like, with more finch-like bills, Bobolinks are wonderfully fun to watch and listen to when seen in fields, with a range of songs and calls from metallic buzzy to chenks and zeeps. In the footage you will see females, juveniles, and males in non-breeding plumage.
The males are amazing looking during the breeding season, sporting striking black and white feathers with a straw colored crown.
Bobolink Male, image courtesy wiki commons media
Bobolinks are a migratory grassland songbird bird in decline. From Cornell – “Long-distance migrant. Bobolinks travel about 12,500 miles round-trip every year, in one of the longest migrations of any songbird in the New World. From their northern breeding grounds they fly in groups through Florida and across the Gulf of Mexico toward their wintering grounds in South America.”
Monarchs are currently migrating, albeit in small numbers, throughout the North Shore. The butterflies arrived several days ago and because of the rainy weather, they are in a holding pattern. When the sun reappears, look for Monarchs on any still-blooming garden favorites such as zinnias, as well as wildflowers. Please send an email or comment in the comment section if you see Monarchs in your garden or while outdoors over the weekend and upcoming week. Thank you!
Many species of asters and goldenrods have finished flowering; instead the Monarchs are fortifying for the long journey by drinking nectar at Black Mustard flowers, and even Dandelions.
Although not native to North America, Black Mustard (Brassica nigra) is beneficial to bees and butterflies for late season sustenance. Don’t you love its lemony golden beauty in the autumn sunlight?
Black Mustard is not the easiest nor most efficient plant for Monarchs to draw nectar from. I never see the butterflies on Black Mustard unless it is very late in the migration and there are few other choices available.
The ray flowers of asters provide a convenient landing pad for butterflies. Panicle-shaped flowering plant, such as goldenrods, also provide a convenient landing pad while supplying a smorgasbord of nectar rich florets. Black Mustard provides neither. You can see in several photos in an upcoming post that the Monarchs are nectaring with their legs gripped tightly around the base of the flower.
Black Mustard is an annual plant native to Eurasia and North Africa. Cultivated widely as a condiment, medicinally, and vegetable, it came to North America via the early colonists. The plant is in bloom from May through October, or until the first hard frost, and grows well in disturbed man-made sites.
Black Mustard is a member of the Brassicaceae, also classically called the Cruciferae (Latin, meaning ‘cross-bearing’) in reference to its four ‘crossed petals’, which is commonly known as the mustard family. Black Mustard is related to cabbage, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, kohlrabi, kale, turnips, and watercress.
Over time historic ditching processes have compromised the resilience of the Great Marsh by destroying its natural draining process, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to floods. The Trustees and partners are working to fortify 330 acres of the marsh in Newbury, Essex, and Ipswich using an innovative nature-based method of “ditch remediation” that, to date, has only been piloted on a very limited basis on the neighboring USFWS Parker River Wildlife Refuge.
Brilliant waves of green high marsh hay stand out against gray morning fog over Newman Road and Old Town Hill in Newbury, a high marsh habitat (Photo courtesy Coco McCabe).
Hard to miss in the wintertime both at Crane Beach and at Plum Island are the layers and swirls of pink and purple sand. On a recent visit to Revere Beach I noticed there were also rivulets of pink and purple sands.
The pink and purple are mineral deposits of rose quart and garnet and come to north of Boston beaches via the White Mountains. Water and wind worn rock is carried in river waters until it meets the ocean and becomes deposited on barrier beaches. We mostly see the garnet and quartz deposits in winter as storms erode the dunes, leaving the heavier minerals exposed. During the spring and summer, the lighter white quartz sand blows back over the dunes and covers the heavier sand.
JEOL is a supplier of electron microscopes, ion beam instruments, mass spectrometers and NMR spectrometers. On a visit to Plum Island looking for Snowy Owls, several JEOL employees found purple sand. They analyzed it using an optical microscope, a scanning electron microscopes (SEM) and an energy dispersive X-Ray spectrometer (EDS).
At first look under the optical microscope, the granules of sand appeared like scattered jewels of many colors; predominantly glassy pink angular grains, with smaller quantities of milky white rounded grains, clear angular grains, black grains (some magnetic and some not), and even the occasional green.
What could be the cause of the purple color? The answer was one that came as no surprise to the scientist, but was exciting for the beach walkers because they had an exact answer to a question that no doubt is one that many people have when they visit Plum Island – which was actually named for its beach plum bushes, not the plum-colored sand.
When large amounts of fine grained pink is intermixed with a smaller number of darker grains and dampened by rain or sea water the human eye will “see” the sand as a much darker pink to almost purple. The two most common pink minerals are rose quartz (while quartz is one of the two most common minerals on earth, the pink rose quartz variety is not so common ,especially in the New England geology, and is found only in a few isolated pegmatite deposits in NH & southern Maine which are where most gemstones originate) and the solid solution series of almandine and pyrope garnet which is also a very common mineral (and is quite common in the Seacoast area from the abundance of metamorphic rocks called mica schist and from contact metamorphism. This is also why many commercial sandpaper products have a pink color as the angular hard gains of almandine / pyrope garnet are the perfect abrasive. The most likely candidates for the white and clear are any of the feldspars and or quartz. The green is most likely epidote. Just based on the optical examination these are no more than educated logical guesses (but still guesses).
Vern Robertson, JEOL’s SEM Technical Sales Manager, originally examined the grains under a low power optical stereo microscope with the above conclusions. In addition to providing technical and scientific support to JEOL SEM customers for a multitude of applications, Vern holds a degree in Geology. After a cursory look optically, it was time to get down to some spectroscopic analysis to determine the actual mineral species present in the sand.
Individual grains of various colors were selected and mounted for examination with the JSM-6010LA+ InTouchScope SEM and for analysis using EDS. The SEM allows much higher magnification imaging with greater depth of field than a traditional OM and the low vacuum capability allows examination of the sample without the traditional conductive coating that needs to be applied for SEM imaging. However, it generates images in only black & white (electrons have no color!). One specialized detector in the SEM, the Backscatter Electron Detector, yields images with the gray level intensity directly proportional to the average atomic number (or density). This means that minerals containing only lighter elements like O, Si are darker in appearance to minerals that contain heavier elements like Fe or any of the metallic or rare earth elements.
Once located, each grain can be analyzed with the EDS. When an electron beam hits a sample it creates not only an image from the emitted electrons but creates X-rays, which when collected in a spectrum, indicate what elements are present and at what concentrations. This allows not only the elemental composition of the individual grains to be determined but the concentrations can be compared to known stoichiometry of the suspected mineral grains. The combination of color and magnetic properties from OM examination and the chemical makeup of the individual grains yield the answer.
The purple color (or more appropriately, pink color) comes from the abundance of almandine-pyrope garnet with a nominal solid solution composition of Fe3+2Al2Si3O12 to Mg3+2Al2Si3O12. As expected, the white grains are a mix of feldspars but mostly K-feldspar (potassium alumino-silicates) and quartz SiO2. The black nonmagnetic grains were a mix of a pyroxene called augite which showed its characteristic strong cleavage, (Ca,Na)(Mg,Fe,Al)(Si,Al)2O6 , and a mix of ilmenite FeTiO3 and hematite Fe2O3 which are the magnetic components. The green was confirmed to be epidote Ca2(Al,Fe)3(SiO4) 3(OH). With the exception of the high concentration of garnets the rest are common minerals one would expect to find in sands.
Although I am not suggesting that this case of attempted abduction correlates to the disappearance of Abbie Flynn, it illustrates how easily a woman of any age could be abducted. Ipswich Local News
John P. Muldoon
March 6, 2020
IPSWICH — A Mattapan man is being held on cash bail after he allegedly tried to force a woman into his car at Pavilion Beach Tuesday.
The woman escaped by pretending a man nearby was her husband, police said.
Police said they arrested the suspect after a 30-minute standoff on Jeffreys Neck Road where they had to smash a car window to haul the man out.Pavilion Beach
The suspect, Anson V. Frazier, 30, of 27 Briarcliff Terrace, Mattapan, was still in custody Friday afternoon on $5,000 cash bail, according to records in Ipswich District Court.
Records said Frazier was charged with:
Attempt to commit a crime, to wit kidnapping
Resisting arrest, and
Assault and battery.
Should he make bail, he will have to wear an electronic monitor, stay away from Ipswich and the victim, not leave the state, remain drug and alcohol free and undergo random screening, and not possess any firearms or dangerous weapons, the court record said.
The incident reportedly happened around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, the police complaint on file said.
According to one report written by Officer Ryan Mayer, police were told a man “attempted to grab a woman and pull her into his vehicle.”
Mayer, who arrived first at Pavilion Beach, said he was met by a “distraught” woman, 65, who said she saw a man doing yoga on the beach.
The suspect “approached her and grabbed her right arm with both hands and began forcibly pushing her towards his car saying that he had a dog service that she would be very interested in,” the complaint alleged.
Police said the woman pointed to the vehicle next to her and said the man inside was her husband and they could talk with him about the service.
Mayer said that was a ruse to have Frazier let her go while simultaneously signalling for help.
Frazier “then let go of [the woman] and got in his vehicle and attempted to leave the scene at a high rate of speed,” the complaint alleged.
One man who said he witnessed the alleged abduction attempt told police Frazier “was acting strange on the beach, doing yoga poses near the water and believed he may have been on drugs due to his actions.”
Another witness told police “Frazier went near the water and started performing yoga [and] seemed to be laughing and talking to himself, and pacing around.”
The woman, whose daughter and grandchildren witnessed the alleged incident, “was in fear for her safety and stated that she thought Anton Frazier was there to grab whoever he could get his hands on,” Mayer’s report said.
With a number of witnesses in the area, police were given a license plate and a description, it added.
One man attempted to follow the car while another woman called 911, police said.
On the lookout for a gray Hyundai on his way toward the beach, Officer Daniel Holway saw the car, turned around and pulled the Hyundai over near 37 Jeffreys Neck Road, his report said.
Holway said he approached and asked the driver for license and registration, which was supplied, the report added.
Holway said his plan was to get Frazier’s side of the story while waiting for more information from Mayer and Officer Kelly Phelan, who had joined him at Pavilion.
He said he asked Frazier if he was at the beach. The driver replied that he had completed a delivery to Gloucester.
“But he later told me that he came here from Mattapan to enjoy the weather and meditate on the beach,” Holway said.
Frazier reportedly said “he only approached people and asked them if there were into dog massages and he didn’t touch anyone,” Holway’s complaint said.
Holway said he then heard back from the beach and told Frazier he was under arrest, the report added.
At that point, “he rolled up his window and locked his vehicle doors,” Holway said.
Officer Mark Ruggiero was at the scene at this point and the officers reportedly tried to talk Frazier out of the car for around 30 minutes, Holway said.
At one point, Frazier told police he wanted to get back to work, Holway added.
“Frazier was advised by me several times that his actions were making the circumstances worse and that his actions would result in further criminal charges,” Ruggiero’s report said.
However, Frazier reportedly lowered the driver’s side window a little for a few minutes “to allow limited conversation,” he added.
Although the Hyundai was boxed in, police said the engine was still running, and that presented an unsafe situation.
“After all options were exhausted,” Mayer said police decided to use a special tool to break the passenger side window to pull Frazier from the vehicle.
“This was explained to Anson very clearly at which point, Anson indicated he understood what I was explaining to him and what was about to happen,” Holway said.
After the window was smashed, Holway said he reached in, unlocked the passenger door and two officers reportedly hauled Frazier out, pinned him to the ground and arrested him.
Charlotte and I had a wonderful adventure morning checking on the owls at Plum Island. We observed several Harrier Hawks flying low over the marsh grass hunting for prey, a Short-eared Owl perched on a craggy tree, and a Snowy parked for the morning far out in the dunes. We played on the beach and she had a blast zooming up and down the boardwalk at lot no. 2.
Tiny white wedge in the distance
We next stopped at the refuge headquarters to play in the marsh boat that is part of the exhibit about the Great Salt Marsh. She brought along her own stuffed Snowy to join on the boat ride.
Next destination was a visit to see the farm friends at Tendercrop Farm. Currently in residence are a turkey, ginormous steer, pony, chickens, ducks, llama, and the sweetest miniature goat who is just wonderful with toddlers.
I purchased the best steaks we have ever had, Tendercrop’s own grass fed rib-eye, made even more magnificent cooked to perfection by Alex, with a beautiful red wine demi-glace.
Everything at Tendercrop Farm is always amazingly delicious. They have the freshest and best selection of fruits and vegetables during the winter months, bar none.
Great bunches of freshly cut pussy willows are for sale at Tendercrop
Last stop was lunch at the Ipswich Clambake. The owners and staff are just the most friendly. The clam chowder at the Clambake is perfection. Charlotte and I shared a mini super fresh fried clam appetizer and that, along with the chowder, made the best sort of lunch to top off our fun adventure morning.
Tendercrop Farm is located at 108 High Road, 1A, in Newbury.
Ipswich Clambake is located at 196 High Street, 1A, in Ipswich.
Grant helps plovers have record year on Crane Beach
Local Ne.ws
By John P. Muldoon
ROTARY CLUB PAID FOR THREE SOLAR-POWERED ELECTRIC FENCES
IPSWICH — Those little birds you see running around the beach don’t have it easy.
Although they have wings, they won’t fly to trees to build their nests. Instead, they scoop holes, or “scrapes,” in the sand and lay their eggs there.
And that’s an invitation for all kinds of trouble: predators, rogue waves, dogs, or clumsy or malicious humans.
Combined with widespread loss of habitat, piping plovers are now on the federal government’s threatened species list. One estimate says there are just 8,400 left worldwide.
But along with lease terns, which are protected in Massachusetts, the plovers are well taken care of on Crane Beach.
In fact, they were so well taken care of in 2019 that a record number of chicks fledged and are now ready for the next perilous phase of their lives — a migration to the Bahamas.
This year, 49 pairs of plovers raised 96 chicks, said Jeff Denoncour, coastal ecologist with The Trustees of Reservations.
The last year that good for the birds was in 1999, when 44 pairs produced 89 fledglings, he added.
To show how precarious the species’ existence can be, Denoncour said the year 2000 was disastrous. Just 12 fledglings survived despite the efforts of 49 pairs. “That was due to a major storm,” he explained.
The brand new beautiful School Street Sunflower field is not to be missed. With gently rolling hills, abundantly planted rows, and a wide, easy path to stroll (easy enough for a two-year-old to navigate), the 5 acres of sunflowers is a wildflower lover’s dream.
Paul Wegzyn and his Dad, also Paul Wegzyn, shared their enthusiasm for this exiting new venture.
There are picnic tables for those who would like to take lunch, and positioned artfully around the fields are photo props such as tractors and bales of hay, but for the most part, the scene is straight up gorgeous sunflowers (and bees!).
The variety planted blooms in 50 to 60 days from when planted and today is day 61. Only a few flowers have droopy seed-laden heads, or have passed. NOW is the time to go as the blooms will all have expired in another two weeks.
Kissable Butterflies
School Street Sunflower Farm
At the corner of Linebrook Road and School Street (for google maps type in – 79 Linebrook Road)
Ipswich, Massachusetts
Open 8am to sunset.
The cost is eight dollars during the week, ten dollars on weekends, and the ticket covers a full day. Wristbands are available if you would like to return the same day. Children under five are free.
Trustees of Reservations ecologist Jeff Denoncour kindly shares information about the Piping Plovers at Crane Beach and he wrote two days ago with an update for us on their Piping Plover population. “Unfortunately the weather has been pretty inclement this year making it tough to monitor and really nail down the number of pairs. That mixed with an abundance of birds and a lot of loss due to storms and high tides and a bit of predation its really hard for me to get an accurate pair count right now. I am estimating that we have more than 33 plover pairs.
So far we have discovered 36 plover nests, but right now we only have 19 active nests. 3 of the 36 nests are renests, which is why I’m saying we have 33 or more pairs. Some pairs have been scraping consistently in areas but have not laid eggs.
Our first nest is due to hatch tomorrow.”
I sent him an email this morning and hopefully we’ll have news of hatchlings!
Tiny flakes falling through the trees, making that distinct pitapat sound of snowdrops landing on crisp frozen leaves below. But wait, the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. An assembly of Redpolls overhead, hungrily teasing seeds from the tree’s cones were creating a shower of snow-seeds.
I followed along ever so quietly as the flock moved from tree to tree, expertly pulling the cones apart for the small kernel held within.
Returning several times to the same trail and hoping to catch sight again but, with most of the cones gone, so too were the Redpolls.
The Common Redpoll is a species of finch with a distinct crimson cap that looks like a mini French beret, giving the song bird a bit of a rakish appearance.
Their small yellow bills evolved to eat small seeds, such as those of thistles and birches. Some studies show that in winter Redpolls subsist almost entirely on birch seeds.
Common Redpolls have been known to survive temperatures of -65 degrees below and even sleep at night in snow tunnels that can be up to a foot long. Redpolls nest in the Arctic tundra; we only ever see them during the winter months.
This striking Baltimore Checkerspot was photographed last week in a field of Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). The field is located in Ipswich’s town center.
Notice the Baltimore Checkerspot’s vivid orange antennal clubs and white and orange dotted abdomen. The caterpillar’s food plant, or host plant, is mainly turtlehead (Chelone glabra) in low lands and gerardias upland, e.g., Smooth False Foxglove (Aureolaria flava).
I find absolutely the most interesting creatures in fields where grows Common Milkweed, which tells us that the plant provides a wealth of nourishment for a diverse range of organisms.
Note: The underside of butterfly wings are referred to as ventral; the upper surface as dorsal. An easy way to remember the difference between the terms dorsal and ventral is to think of the dorsal fin of a dolphin.