The weekend was spent learning a new film editing program. I thought using the early morning B-roll that I shot of the beautiful sea smoke event we are experiencing would make wonderful content to practice my new skills. Filmed along Cape Ann’s eastern most shore from Thacher Island to Loblolly Cove, Pebble Beach, Back Shore, Good Harbor Beach, scenes around Gloucester Harbor, and ending at Brace Cove.
Look what the storm brought in its wake – great waves, marsh flooding, and dreamy atmospheric skies, along with Sanderlings, Gulls, and an American Pipit feeding at the shoreline.
That’s Rick and Roman Gadbois enjoying the scene in several of the Back Shore photos.
Very sadly though, another dead baby Harbor Seal was washed ashore, this one at Niles Beach.
My fingers froze and I had to call it quits yet despite the bitterly cold five degree temperature and biting wind, day break brought blue skies and beautiful sea smoke all along the backshore, from Gloucester’s Ten Pound Island Lighthouse to Rockport’s Twin Lighthouses.
Take heart friends -today is the last day of January- only 48 more days until the spring equinox!
Evocative views looking through sea smoke along the shoreline this morning, from Ten Pound Island to Twin Lights, and at every vantage point along the way. On my very last stop photographing a buoy in the sea smoke, I spied a mystery bird far off shore. Bobbing in the water and with a bill not at all shaped liked a seagulls, it was a SNOW GOOSE! He was too far away to get a great photo, but wonderful to see nonetheless!
Heading out to photograph wild creatures, I found fog, too. Beginning in the afternoon and lasting into sunset, waves and ribbons of fog enveloped the east end of Gloucester until only shapes and silhouettes were visible.
Fog Ribbons and FV Endeavor
A wedding reception was underway at the Yacht Club, lots of folks were out watching the setting sun, and a photo shoot was taking place on the Dogbar. Returning home, Niles Beach and Ten Pound Island were even more shrouded in fog. Final stop was the Paint Factory to catch the last glimmer of light. Looking towards Ten Pound Island from the Paint Factory, in the last Instagram you can see the sliver of a crescent moon.
Ten Pound Island just after sunset ~ As the sun was setting, hundreds of gulls poured onto the shoreline, along with Red-breasted Mergansers and Common Eiders. If there were other species, they were too far off to identify, nonetheless, it was fascinating to watch all the birds settling into the trees and rocky outcroppings for the evening.
Common Eiders swimming toward the Island
The gulls and sea ducks were conglomerating at the rocky beach on the (north?) end of the island
Ten Pound Island’s little sandy beach, late afternoon