Journal of a Sabbatical

plant walk

May 17,1998

Previous Entry Journal Index	.	.	n	Nancy and I went to the Plover and Wildlife Festival at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island. The refuge was the most crowded I've ever seen it. The one organized activity we participated in was the Dunes Loop Trail walk with UNH botanist, Nancy Batchelder. Since my thumb still appears to be sprained, I'll just let the images speak for themselves here. The variety of vegetation zones in the dunes is amazing. With the exception of the wild strawberries at left, all of these photos were taken along the Dunes Loop Trail. The strawberries are from Parking Lot 7 near Sandy Point.   May is not even the most spectacular month for wildflowers on the refuge. Some of the marsh grasses, etc., really come into their own in midsummer.       We didn't get up early enough to join the 6:30 AM warbler walk, but we did add a couple of birds to the Plum Island Bird List for the year: American redstart, yellow warbler, and willet. We were so close to the willet that we could see its beak moving (without binoculars) when it let forth its pill-will-willet call. We also had a great egret fly directly over our heads at Bill Forward Pool. It was spectacular. Afterward we went out to dinner at Ciro's in Newburyport. We managed to get a table outside with only a short wait, during which we took in a strange art exhibit at Firehouse Center : Frame-less Paintings: Constructed Abstractions" by Thomas Kurland. It was basically strips of prepainted or unpainted canvas sewn together with very rough red stitching. I like abstractions but I couldn't make heads or tails of these. Fortunately, our wait for a table was not long and we enjoyed every last drop of sunlight the day had to offer.
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