On Sunday Morning, I wandered on the beach at Big Lagoon, enjoying the warm breeze and totally clear and sunny skies. Sun! Yay! A couple of sailboats were out on the lagoon; goodness, but this is a lovely place:
As far as I can tell, there's pretty much always something blooming in Humboldt County, but even so, it was nice to see the dunes dotted with colorful spring flowers. Beach Morning Glory (Calystegia soldanella) and Beach Evening Primrose (Camissonia cheiranthifolia) spread their blooms out over the sand:
The many American Silvertop (Glehnia littoralis) plants looked weirdly flat, like squashed shrubs:
The Beach Pea (Lathyrus littoralis) blooms were very pretty indeed, floating over silvery leaves:
And carpets of invasive Ice Plant (Carpobrotus chilensis) were putting on quite a show:
I kind of love the colors on this Ice Plant blanket at the base of a cliff:
Several Northern Rough-Winged Swallows were swooping around the cliffs, vying for nesting spots. I love watching swallows in flight, but I was also happy when this one perched briefly so I could take its picture:
Doesn't this look like a nice place to raise a family?
Surf Scoters were foraging near the shore and handling the waves with ease. Watch out, funny duck:
Big waves aren't really a problem, I guess, when you can dive right through them:
Many people come to the beach next to Big Lagoon to look for agates, and indeed I got sucked into picking up and sorting through all sorts of beautiful stones (and this wasn't the first time either!). The closer you look at the ground on this beach, the more stones with gorgeous colors and interesting patterns start to stand out. So many cool rocks! This picture doesn't do them justice:
I even found my first agates on this trip (one is right in the middle of the above picture). They're tiny, but very shiny, and oh so intricate:
What a great -- and relaxing -- morning with beautiful weather and interesting nature on the beach!
So I was at Hammonasset Beach State Park on Wednesday, and I'd just gotten to hang out with crossbills, which was awesome. But there was still a lot of the park left to explore! I headed off to the southernmost end of the park, Meigs Point, where the shoreline is littered with huge rocks (courtesy of ancient glaciers) and the land juts out into the Long Island Sound.
Several small birds showed up along the path, including this very puffy Northern Mockingbird (with its surprisingly yellow-soled feet):
And about a dozen Horned Larks huddled among the smaller rocks (hello, funny bird faces!):
Waaay out at the end of the point, stretched out on some rocks still mostly covered by the tide, was the second creature I came to Hammonasset hoping to see: Seals!
It really just never occurred to me that there might be seals in Connecticut, but indeed, here they are! This is the same species of seal, even -- Harbor Seals -- that we got to see up close all the way on the other side of the continent, in San Diego, almost a year ago. I love how comfortable these big blubbery creatures look on their rocks. :)
Finally, there were some really weird-looking birds in these waters. Meet the Surf Scoter, a type of sea duck:
OK, what in the world is going on with your bill, Mr. Duck? The female Surf Scoters look downright normal, but wow, the males are just super bizarre! (I love you, weird bird!)
The scoters looked perhaps even weirder when they took flight, with the males showing off their fancy maroon clown feet:
And there was another type of scoter out on the water, too -- a lone male White-winged Scoter -- and this duck was just as strange-looking (and un-duck-like) as the others, but in totally different ways:
Between the seals, alien ducks, and crossbills, Hammonasset certainly was exciting! It's always great to get to explore a new place and see new things. :)
