Face into the wind.
Black Skimmers
Face into the wind.
Winter Solstice
Nice start to the longest night of 2016.
The sun will return again.
Tidal Pool 3 ~ Red Breasted Mergansers and Wood Stork
Red Breasted Mergansers in Winter Plummage
Mergansers in Winter Plummage
Spending a little time in the Low Country. Regular programming will resume shortly.
There’s a big tidal pool in front of the house where we’re staying, an artifact left from the finger-painting and re-arranging session Hurricane Matthew had along the coast here. A big chunk of the island to the north was amputated and deposited here, trapping a lagoon between the dunes and the surf. Wildlife moved in quickly to take advantage of it.
In just a few minutes spent scanning the pool from the porch, I see these mergansers, storks, Great Blue and Great White Herons, egrets in three varieties, pelicans, sandpipers, and, of course, several types of gulls.
Foggy when we arrived, the wind is now strong out of the north, cold and spitting rain. The surf is looking vengeful. Maybe warm enough for a walk in a couple of days.
The Night Bus
Maine ~ to Deer Isle
Sunset on Deer Isle
Deer Isle just seemed to float off the map and bob above it. Every time I perused a map of Maine for interesting places to go, this is where I ended up, sometimes spending hours studying the shoreline, place names and surroundings. Weird. So we’re headed for Deer Isle.
Maine ~ Bucksport & Castine
School on the Commons ~ Castine, Maine
From the airport in Bangor to Stonington, at the southern tip of Deer Isle, should take about an hour and a half. We spend four hours doing the same, winding along the Penobscot River, stopping in towns along the way, generally assuming the least straight path presented.
First stop is Bucksport, where there’s a farmers market still open. Terri, very excited, insists we stop, and goes in for provisions. She gets caught in various eddies, long chats with local farmers, and does not resurface. I wander the main street, still a little too travel-frazzled for conversation. We had reserved a little Toyota Corolla rental car in advance, but by the time we arrived those were all gone. So, for the same rate, they gave us the only thing left – a fancy new Cadillac. This would normally be a good thing.