Cape Cod December 2020

 

Dec 12 - Dec 14

After we drove onto Cape Cod the day we arrived in Massachusetts, We drove through Wareham. We saw a few Canada Geese swimming in the pond.  We got a Christmas tree as soon as we woke up on Saturday morning, the  day after we arrived in Massachusetts.

The first Canada Geese we saw in Warehem this year.

After we picked up the Christmas tree, we drove to Santuit Pond, and it was frozen over. A few hours later, we went to Ryder Conservation Land entrance one, as we call it. It was a deciduous  forest, with lots of holy trees mixed in. Most of the Robins we saw were eating the Holly berries. The next day, we went to another spot on the Ryder Conservation Land.  It was a deciduous  forest, with lots of holy trees mixed in, just like the other spot because it was the same general area.

Yesterday morning, we went jogging on the meadow path behind the Cape Cod Airfield. There were Sumac branches, with lots of little nibblers darting about. We possibly saw some  Cedar Waxwings.  It was a deciduous  forest, with lots of holy trees mixed in. 

Dec 15 -17

The bog we live on is a cranberry bog, and there are these isthmuses that enable us to cross the bog without having to walk all the way around. In the fall, the bog is flooded so the farmers can harvest the berries. In the winter, it is blood red. In between the bogs,there are clumps of trees. Attached below is a picture of one of the bogs. It was right around freezing for a few days, but then the temperature suddenly  plummeted and it snowed. It was a lot colder, and I could barely walk it was so cold. What made it worse was that the wind was blowing at least forty miles per hour. Even though it was so cold, we still saw a few birds out and about, such as fifteen Blue Jays puffed up and hunkered down in a clump of trees. Another species we saw was more than 200 Turdus migratorius flying across the bog. We saw about twenty mallards and a Great Blue Heron in a little pond on the side of one of the bogs. A few minutes later, we spotted about fifteen other mallards and an American Wigeon in a small canal about 10 feet wide near an isthmus. There are other canals that link the bogs together. The american Wigeon was mixed in with the mallards. We were surprised, and at first we thought it was a hybrid mallard, or an immature mallard. Then we spotted it’s white bill and racing stripe over the top of his crown and knew it was a Wigeon. 

The American Wigeon is the duck in the front.

My mom and my sister playing in the winter wonderland bog.

   

December 19 - 20

  Yesterday, Saturday the 19th, we drove to a familiar place, Turtle Back Drive, the road next to our house, not the rental house we are staying in for two weeks. We walked down the road a little more, and then it turned into a gravel road. Partway through the gravel road, we turned down a gravel hill and at the bottom, we entered the bog path that our house sits on. The bog was snowy, so it was harder to walk. We saw mostly Turdus Migratorious, but we noticed a flicker and a Downy Woodpecker as well. On the bog, we saw a Red Shouldered Hawk flying back and forth across bog road. After we walked around the bog, we headed down to the lake where we parked. At the lake, we spotted  4 Common Mergansers, 5 Mallards, approximately 30 Canada Geese flying overhead, and we saw about 12 Gulls flying around.

The Red Shouldered Hawk flying around the bog.

Later in the day, we went back to the lake, and near the herring run, we saw an Eastern Phoebe flying around.

This morning at Ashumet Holly Wildlife Sanctuary in Falmouth, the first thing we saw was a sign on the entrance gate it read: In order to protect wildlife, please, no vehicles, bicycles,dogs, horses, hunting, collecting, dumping, alcohol or fires. I was kind of disappointed because I like collecting things like Holly leaves. As we walked on, we saw some frozen ponds. Not long after we entered the sanctuary, we saw some nibblers flitting about, and when one stopped for a minute, we were able to tell that it was a thrush. When we got back home, we looked him up and realized it was a Hermit Thrush, a new life list species for us on e-bird. There were five. We saw a frozen lake, but the ice was pretty thin. As we entered the parking lot on our way back, we saw two male and female Northern Cardinals, as shown below. After we got back, we saw a Cardinal and a Bluejay in our yard.

A BRIGHT RED Northern Cardinal in our yard.

Notice the stunning blue feathers on this Blue Jay.

The male Cardinal we saw flying after the female.

Dec 21 - 24

The Elusive Blue Jay.

Today, we visited Long Pasture, dubbed Hermy Beach by us because of all the hermit crabs. When we normally go, we go in the summer. The first habitat we were in was mixed wetlands, which then turned into a mixed forest, which winded down to the beach. We saw 5 American Goldfinches at a feeder by the welcome center, along with a few Northern Cardinals and around 7 House Finches. There was also an elusive Blue Jay in the branches of a few trees.   We have been going on bog outings since we have levied in Massachusetts, and this winter we also went on a few bog outings. We have been riding our bikes around the bog since we moved to Massachusetts , and today was the first time I rode my mom’s bike around the bog. We saw two Mute Swans on a pond in the bog, and about fourteen Buffel Heads in the pond as well. The Mute Swans were probably the Mute Swans we first saw when we moved to Massachusetts in 2013.                                                               

A Goldfinch in a tree, about to fly down to the feeder.

            

The Red Tailed Hawk flying up to a tree.

December 27 

This morning, I woke up, ate a quick breakfast of cereal, and then went jogging with my dad at Ryder Conservation Land Entrance Two, as I call it.  We went jogging on a side trail that paralleled the main trail, and my mom and my sister walked on the main trail. As we were walking back to the car, we most likely heard an Eastern Phoebe calling. Then we saw it fly across the path, and that is when we thought it was a Phoebe. This was also the end of the Cape Cod Edition. Stay tuned for a future blog post from our drive to Deleware, then further down the East Coast to Florida.  And as always, visit birds and turtles to see more pictures.

A Christmas Eve Cardinal!