Love,
Dotter
Sunday, May 10, 2026
Saturday, May 09, 2026
Meeting Spring Halfway
A
The kids decided to take us down to meet it on its long, slow journey north so off we went to the Carolinas, where I fell in love with them all over again. We hopscotched down to SC first, to stay in a cozy, pleasant, well-equipped Airbnb. We were met with delightful weather, a huge backyard with a great deck and a playset for the kids...plus incidentally, almost as if pre-ordained for my personal enjoyment, a next door neighbor with an impressive array of bird feeders and houses, well attended by flocks of everything a northern girl could desire.
On our first day we visited the Yorktown. It was great. I read, or listen to, whole series of WW2 books and now videos as well. Reading about the great ships simply does not prepare you for their scale and functionality. I loved the visit, and I loved that the kids are offering their girls the chance to grow up knowing things I could only imagine until now.
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| Northern Rough-winged Swallow on the Yorktown |
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| Ooh, look, a Tri-colored Heron, my first lifer of the trip |
We also visited the Viet Nam Experience and got a look at the USS Laffey, which was closed due to gangplank issues.
Next we had a day at Fort Sumpter, bracketed by really cool ferry rides in both directions.
A day on the USS North Carolina, a peaceful walk through Moore's Creek National Battlefield, the site of the last broad sword charge by Scottish Highlanders, and the first significant patriot victory of the Revolution were all exciting and fun.
Moore's Creek was also the site of the first Friers family scavenger hunt, and I am proud to say that I personally found the feathers....finally. lol
Perhaps not surprisingly to regular readers, my favorite day involved first a beach....I do love me a beach...complete with waterside boardwalk and finding tiny sharks' teeth among the grains of sand...and second...a trip through the Cypress Wetlands boardwalk. I have literally been interested in birds since before kindergarten. I can remember being excited about robins on my grandmother's sidewalk before I went to school. In all that time, and including trips to Florida, some of the best birding spots in NY, and wandering all over the West, I have never experienced anything like it.
The boardwalk takes you around small, shaggy islands with so many herons, storks, egrets, and other water and shorebirds, that the branches on the shrubs are bent under their weight. There are stacks of nests, one over the other, already full of sitting birds. Tucked away in a corner among some pines is a rookery of so many Black-crowned Night Herons that I didn't even attempt to count them.
We walked within a couple of feet of a couple of dozen Little Blue Herons quarreling over choice spots to roost or nest. There were alligators! Babies even.
I can't thank the kids enough for this amazing adventure. They go south with their girls quite often and know all the great places to visit and things to do. I took hundreds of photos and am still trying to get them into shareable video form...and maybe some day I will figure it out.
Meanwhile, Amber and Alan; it was the best. Sorry I have been neglecting this blog and storytelling so badly.
And then there was this part....
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Barnegat Day Two
After shaking off the worst effects of our owl prowl we headed to the
Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Drive, a trip I would highly recommend to anyone visiting the area. The drive wanders through 8 miles of marsh and saltmarsh and provides shelter to a delightful array of birds and wildlife.
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| Sneaky little American Bittern |
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| Kinda judgey Red-tailed Hawk |
We were fortunate to encounter a gentleman at our first stop near the entrance who pointed us to a side road where a rare-in-this-season American Bittern was being seen from a tower. Of course we took it, to find a small crowd of birders photographing an obliging Red-tailed Hawk near the road. Lazy me stayed in the car and shot out the window. Just before we moved on, something caught my eye right between Kris's car and the next one in line. Said bittern was prancing across the road right in front of us!
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| Brant |
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| Snow Geese |
The whole drive was packed with surprises and delights, from a flock of around 90 Snow Geese right next to the car, to all three mergansers, Common, Hooded, and Red-breasted, hunting in a single small pool.
By the end of our circumnavigation of the drive we had seen 37 species.
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| Great Black-backed Gull |
We next decided to return to the Barnegat Lighthouse in hopes of getting a look at the Harlequin Ducks that were being seen there. Alas, being ancient and sporting a pair of pretty awful knees, I didn't dare go out on the tumble of giant riprap rocks that form the jetty...not that staying on the sand was any kind of punishment.... There were plenty of birds where I was too. Anyhow, Kris got spectacular photos of the sought after ducks on the other side of the jetty, while almost by accident I got reference level shots of same surfing a line of rocks out in the water. What a happy!
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| Brant |
It was a great trip that I will not forget anytime soon. If you get a chance, go do those things! See those birds and waves and shells and rocks. Hear the crashing of the surf and the calling of the gulls and the wind rushing through the sea grasses on the dunes. It will bring joy to the depths of your heart. Thanks again Kris for making it possible!
Monday, February 16, 2026
Barnegat Day One
It's spring in Barnegat. The bushes and grasses are thronged with Yellow-rumped Warblers, still clad in drab winter plumage, but ready to assault the great North any day now.
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| Kris and Kristen on the jetty. A younger me would have been out there hopping rock to rock, but it is a nope for an old lady with bad knees and questionable balance. Instead I walked the sand from where I took this shot. |
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| Yellow-rumped Warbler |
The sea there is likewise thronged with wintering ducks and geese that would trigger rare bird alerts here in NY and instantly bring flocks of birders, rivaling those of YRWA, to stand and stare while madly clicking camera shutters.
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| Purple Sandpiper...he knows exactly how cute he is! |
My dear friend and Best Birding Buddy, Kris, invited me to share a quick trip there to view these amazing creatures, so we took off at o'dark-thirty Friday morning. On the way down we speculated about what we wanted to see most. I was hoping for Great Cormorants, and we both settled on Purple Sandpipers as grail birds so to speak. I had only encountered either on Bird Wise or on Cornell birding courses.
Once we found our way through the tangle of going south in order to go north engendered by the whole just one bridge to Long Beach Island thing, we were instantly greeted by a whole flock of Brant, one of those geese that get folks all excited here in this area. They were grazing on lawns and strolling in the streets, much like our local Canada geese do here. We were out of the car and pointing the cameras in seconds.
Soon, we met the other Kristen, an experienced birding guide who generously shared tips on where to go and what to see, as well as accompanying us out on the jetty at the lighthouse...well, K and K did the jetty. I walked out far enough to see the rock hopping that would be involved in going on the actual rocks. Not being a penguin, I hustled down to the sand route....
Within a short time we had spotted Great Cormorants drying their wings on another nearby jetty, and Purple Sandpipers hip-hopping and scurrying to forage among the stones. The latter were even more beautiful than I had imagined and tickled me....well, purple, not pink.
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| Red-throated Loon |
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| Red-breasted Merganser |
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| American Herring Gull |
Among other notables was a Red-throated Loon that swam up right next to us, floating on a breaker just as it hit the beach. There were so many amazing birds that I can barely describe them. Mergansers, Long-tailed Ducks, all three scoters, a Gadwall, scads of American Black Ducks and Mallards. Gulls abounded, mostly the three common species here, Herring, Ring-billed and Great Black-backed. We found 31 species just on that walk.
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| American Black Ducks, strolling with a Gadwall drake |
Later we went to Holgate to seek the Snowy Owl spending the winter there. Hiked 2.84 miles down a sand spit reaching out into the water, almost to the very dip, only to be unable to find it. It was less than thrilling to get a rare bird alert a short time after we trekked back to the car...someone had seen it almost exactly where we had been right after we left. It taunted us all weekend, being spotted off and on... Although it would have been nice to see it there were so many other birds to make up for it. Day two was even more amazing...TBC
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