The Birds and the Beers

Now, with more pictures!

Sunday was a mix of rain and clouds. Not exactly beach weather but, as we would soon learn, a sign of things to come for the days ahead. Staying indoors the whole time was a recipe for disaster. The kids would only be good for so long, as would I. So we drove to Brewster for the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History.

It's a nice little place that incorporates a library, a lecture hall, AV displays, a bird watching room, and an aquarium. They were celebrating the centennial of the birth of Rachel Carson, the mother of the environmental movement. You know her as the author of Silent Spring, the book that got the pesticide DDT banned in the US. Unfortunately, some people don't see that as a good thing.

The kids, being 5 and 1 1/2, have short attention spans. I constantly had to accelerate my viewing of the indoor exhibits. The bird watching room, with its osprey cam, wasn't active enough to hold their attention so we went downstairs to the aquarium. They loved that. It was full of crabs, turtles, fish, lobsters, and even jellyfish. There was a shallow tank where the kids could see tidal pool denizens and torment them with shrieking and splashing.

Outside, there's a trail that one can take to Cape Cod Bay. You have to cross a tidal marsh, bordered by Quivett Creek and Stony Brook, via a path constructed of two side-by-side 2x8's and a small wooden bridge constructed of the same. You can wave to the ospreys in their nest. You travel through some tall grasses and a forest of pitch pine and bear oak. Eventually you reach the shore, where tidal pools lay quietly littered with the carcasses of horseshoe and shore crabs.

As I mentioned, in the previous post, we ate at The Sea Dog, which had a great selection of beer. They had a special on Berkshire Brewery's Hefeweizen in the 22 oz bottle. Tammy's a wheat beer aficionado so she ordered it. Trying to keep the kids in line, I didn't really have a chance to look over the beer menu so I just said, "Make it two." We both thought that it was ok. It's a light bodied beer beer with a hazy straw colored look. There was a strong clove taste to it that turned me off to it. I wouldn't buy it again.

It rained on and off all day on Monday so didn't go far. After dinner, ground beer and mushrooms with pasta right here, Tammy and I took Rebecca out in the stroller for a walk. It was only lightly misting; none of us seemed to mind. We found a house for sale. We laughed when we looked up the price. Considering that it was one of the smaller homes here in the neighborhood, I can easily see the larger and nicer places going for double and triple.

Tuesday started out sunny, but the clouds rolled in as we were getting ready to head to the beach. By the time we got down to the water, the wind was so strong that I could feel my legs getting sandblasted. Not good for the little ones. So we went back to the house and the thunderstorm hit. Once it was done, we drove over to the former Coast Guard surf-rescue station just south of the Nauset Lighthouse and hit the trail through the tidal marsh and surrounding forest.

It was warm as we descended away from the station. We came up to the tidal marsh and there was a walkway constructed of that plastic decking material (the name eludes me). As the sun burned through the remnants of the storm clouds, the wind blew them across the tidal pond. The temperature immediately dropped 10 degrees! It actually felt refereshing. The rest of the hike wasn't of interest, though I spotted some yellow bird, probably a warbler, though it was flying so fast that I didn't get a good look.

While Rebecca took her nap, we set up camp on the observatory deck. With a pair of binoculars, Stokes Field Guide to Birds, and some Wachusett Blueberry Ale, we were all ready to go. The day did not disappoint. The bird feeders were the hot spot of the neighborhood. Besides the commonplace blue jay, mourning dove, and Northern Cardinal, we spotted several others that we don't get to see at home. The first surprise was the Eastern Towhee, one of many birds that we'd never seen before.

Several sparrows showed up and it was hard to tell one from the other. There were House Sparrows (which is actually in the Weaver Finch family), Song Sparrows, and Seaside Sparrows. I may be wrong on my classification of these. Perhaps there were Swamp Sparrows. There's little variation in the plumage of these guys. I'm sure veteran birdwatchers would disagree but I'm new at this.

Tammy spotted a mated pair of American Goldfinches, which are pretty birds. This was another bird that we'd never seen before. It's also known as the "wild canary" though I'm sure that was before canaries escaped captivity and actually became wild. I wonder what they'd say about the parrots that live along Connecticut's coast. Didn't hear about that one? Well, back in the 90's, rumor has it that a truck carrying parrots crashed and all the birds escaped. They've adapted to their new environment and either migrate south during the winter or have found some way to survive it. I used to live in Norwalk so I'd see them flying around all the time. I've seen their giant nests so I wouldn't be surprised if they stuck around. Those things looked well insulated.

The Wachusett Blueberry Ale is a light-bodied straw-colored ale. The blueberry flavoring doesn't overwhelm. This is a great beer for drinking during the warm weather, assuming that you don't mind fruit-flavored ales. Hops and malt are mild as is typical of the style.

I spotted a grackle for the first time. I'm pretty sure that it was a Boat-Tailed Grackle, but it might've just been a Common Grackle. The one I saw had a black head with a blue collar but Stokes says that they don't live this far north, at least not yet. The book was written in 1996 and said that it was expanding its range to the north and west so who knows.

The red plumage of a House Finch made for false Cardinal sightings. Also causing a bit of confusion were the Chickadees. I keep thinking that I'm seeing Carolina Chickadees, but they're not supposed to live this far north, at least not in the 90's. The Black-capped Chickadee is probably what I keep seeing. Or maybe a hybrid of the two. They move so fast!

We tried eating out again that night at a place that was supposed to be family friendly. I guess it was ok, though everyone else who came in afterwards was seated as far away from us as possible. One couple was next to us, but was moved within five minutes. Anyway, I had a Newport Storm: Hurricane Amber Ale, which was really good. It's a medium-bodied beer with the hops and malt balanced so that neither dominates, but the flavors come through. Alot of the ingredients are German, but it's far better than any import. 5.2% ABV. I'd definitely buy this one again and I'd certainly recommend it.

Today started out again with sunny skies, although it was a bit chilly. The clouds rolled in while Tammy was on another conference call for work. It drizzled on and off so we had to postpone the beach yet again. We went out to Marconi Station, the site of the first transatlantic wireless communication. After viewing the ravages of the sea, we hit the white cedar swamp trail. It starts out with pitch pine and bear oak, which looks alot like pin oak, and descends to a swamp filled with beautiful white cedar pine trees. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of a breeze and the mosquitoes, who've been really loving me this year, converged on me in a swarm. I had Rebecca on my back in a backpack style carrier so I hotfooted out of there as fast as I could hike (it was uphill to get out). The skeeters didn't give up until I was back in the parking lot, a half mile later.

So why did we go to the swamp? Well, in the past, we've spotted frogs and turtles. Alex has been showing signs of a desire to explore and he wanted to see them in the wild. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were ravenous (previous times they weren't bad at all) and we couldn't linger.

While I wrote this I drank a Smuttynose Summer Hefeweizen and lo and behold the skies cleared. It's a straw colored light bodied beer, good for summertime drinking. There's a light tangy feeling on the tongue. There's a pleasant aftertaste, which makes this ale refereshing for warm weather drinking. They used Belgian ale yeast. While it may seem odd to do that with a German style beer, I found it to be complementary. It's definitely better than the Berkshire Brewery offering. A good beer, but not a great beer. I'll probably buy it again.


Ooooh a red fox. Gotta go.

Later...

Tammy got a picture of the fox. Unfortunately, it looks like he's taking a dump.

Anyway, a couple more surprise bird sightings. One is the Townsend's Solitaire. According to Wiki, this is normally a Rocky Mountain range bird and it's absence from my Stokes "Eastern Region" guide would lend creedence to that. However, it's been spotted on Cape Cod before.

The other big surprise is that of a pair of Northern Bobwhites, a quail-like bird. It's got to be the polar opposite of House Sparrow. Quiet, slow, ground dwellers, these two were meekly pecking at the ground beneath the feeders for fallen seeds.

I think that's it. If someone else shows up, I'll be sure to share.

\_/
DED