New England Vacation- Fireworks, Witches, Lighthouses, Puffins and More!

 

Wow, a few days back from our extraordinary vacation along the coastline of New England and the full experience is just starting to be absorbed. 

Note: I added a second New England pictorial post showing the many birds I photographed during our trip. Click here to see it. 

Our trip began July 3 when we flew from Charleston to Boston, rented a car, then drove to the Residence Inn Cambridge. Our two days here included seeing the excellent Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular on this very special Fourth of July- the United States’ 250th birthday.

We then traveled up the Atlantic coast, spending nights in Portsmouth, N.H., Boothsbay, Maine, Kennebunk, Maine and Bar Harbor, Maine. We stopped at many places in between in these three states. 

Near Bar Harbor, we visited Acadia National Park where we ascended Cadillac Mountain, the highest summit on the U.S. eastern seaboard at 1,530 feet. This is where we are pictured on July 10. 

Panorama of Cadillac Mountain. That’s Frenchman Bay filled with numerous small islands. 

During the 286 miles from Cambridge to Bar Harbor we saw a lot and did a lot. We walked around the Harvard University campus on Independence Day. That’s a statue of school namesake Rev. John Harvard behind us. More on that visit later in this post. 

Things got a little creepy in Salem, Mass. during our tour of the Salem Witch Museum. 

In Rockport, Mass. we saw this red fishing shack (Motif No. 1 is its official name), an iconic 1884 structure considered “the most painted building in America.” 

Donnelley Wildlife Management Area

Happy New Year! I hope you have many enjoyable nature outings and adventures in 2013.

We are fortunate in South Carolina to have several wildlife refuges in the state's Lowcountry. Several are former rice plantations located in the ACE basin.  This is a large protected region named for the confluence of three rivers, the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto.

I've posted previously on some of the other locations that are part of this system: Bear Island and the Hollings National Wildlife Refuge, for example. The other day Alesia and I drove down to the Donnelley Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in remote Green Pond, S.C.

I had been to Donnelley a few times before. This was the first time in the winter, and it proved to be the best as far as the abundance of birds. We first saw a number of Common Moorhens in a swamp a short ways from the entrance to the 8,000 acre preserve.  Whatbird.com describes the Moorhens as a chicken-like marsh bird distinguished by the red shield-like plate above its bill. It also has a distinctive yellow tip on its bill.

Donnelley has a large pond that, on this day, had a nice variety of birds in and around it, including these Great Blue Herons. This large bird, always so photogenic and picturesque, was especially so with the neat reflections and when they passed or stood near each other.

This next shot looks like it was done in time elapsed exposure. It wasn't. It's two Great Blue Herons and a neat reflection.

On a small island there were a number of Black-crowned Night Herons, many of which seemed to be in slumber mode.

We tried to be quiet so as to not wake or disturb them!

The juvenile of this species looks so different than the adults. What a beautiful plummage and eye coloring the young ones have! 

I also liked this pair of Boat-tailed Grackles. They were very busy with lots of calling and keeping their bills to the sky.