There are few places in Massachsetts you can go and expect to see whale vertebrae as lawn ornaments: several Cape Cod towns, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and the communities around New Bedford. After that, they're hit and miss.
Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary has a good one, on the left hand side of the trail as one enters, opposite the solar array. Past, meet future.
My walk here today, on the way to Try Island, was punctuated with a huge, cold exclamation point. The wind had not relented one mile per hour in my travels from P-Town to Wellfleet. It didn't bother the belted kingfiser much, nor did it dissuade the dozen or so species assaulting the bird feeders near the nature center. But there were no early herons or egrets stalking the marshes, no hawks or kestrels or ospreys in the sky. It was just too darned cold.
I reached the point where I had a decision to make - do I go for Try Island, or do I turn back? The decision was partially made for me, as the trail suddenly had become overwhelmed with salt marsh hay, right in the place I typically try to sneak up on the resident fiddler crabs and watch them scurry into their muddy holes. Faced with that fact, the deep cold, the need to stick to my schedule and, I fear, a growing internal wimpiness, I turned to retreat farther south along the old Grand Army of the Republic Highway.
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The walk through Audubon in Wellfleet is one of my absolute favorites! In another month it will be a different world entirely! Take a walk there in January and you'll wonder what ever possessed our ancestors to park the Mayflower and set up housekeeping!
ReplyDeleteAgreed - but think of the bind they were in, arriving when the did on the calendar. It must have been a huge release when that first spring rolled around and they saw how pleasant New England could be. And I'm with you. This was certainly not my first walk at Wellfleet Bay. Nor my second. Nor fifth, nor tenth... :)
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