Have you ever seen an Osprey nest this big? It looks like an Eagle’s nest! These two Osprey were so busy building their luxury dwelling on top of the pole these past few weeks. (Click on blog link for other photo.)
I took this photo a few days ago, so I presume the little ones are up in the nest, although I have not seen them.
The water was so calm that the reflection of the Provincetown Public Library was just beautiful.
The Scarlet Pimpernel growing on the sides of the trail at Fort Hill are absolutely stunning this year! (Click on blog link for other photo.)
I have seen a few of them over the years at Fort Hill, but only small, little clumps of them with 2-3 flowers. As you can see in the 2nd photograph, this was a pretty big bush of them.
Two interesting facts that I Iearned: 1. “The Scarlet Pimpernel flowers open only when the sun shines, and even close in overcast conditions.” 2. “If consumed, it can be toxic to livestock and humans. Toxicity level ranges from virtually nontoxic to fatally toxic and appears to correlate with summer rainfall levels.”
Have you seen the Scarlet Pimpernel at Fort Hill?
The sky behind the dunes at First Encounter Beach the other morning was just spectacular! I stopped to take a photograph but there was one big problem… I couldn’t get my shadow out of the photo! (Click on blog for other photo.)
I tried stepping aside and got a photograph with just the dune but the sky in the background isn’t nearly as pretty as if you take the dune straight-on.
If you take a walk down Coast Guard Beach, you will see most of the upper beach to the right is cordoned off with stakes and string to keep the public off of that area. (Click on blog link for other photo.)
Within the area you can see little cages that have been put over the nesting Piping Plovers so that a predator cannot reach the eggs or the chicks. The birds can easily get in and out.
We are so lucky that these precious little Piping Plovers come back every year to nest on Coast Guard Beach!
You know it’s summer when this 3-masted schooner makes its way back to Pleasant Bay for the summer. What a gorgeous sailboat! (Click on blog link for other photo.)
It was fun to be out on the water when it motored by. You almost felt like you were “playing with the big boys!”
