Lots Of Fiddler Crabs At The Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary On Cape Cod

If you walk out to the beach at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary at low tide you can see thousands and thousands of Fiddler Crabs scurrying about the mudflats and into their little holes in the mud. They are everywhere!

You can see the vast mudflats in the second photograph. They seem to go on forever.

Have you ever seen a Fiddler Crab? You can tell the males by their exceptionally large claw which is shaped like a fiddle, thus the name “Fiddler Crab.”

Northern Flicker Building A Home In Our Tree On Cape Cod

This Northern Flicker is drilling out a hole for his home in one of the trees in our backyard. We’ve heard a lot of drumming recently on one of the trees that came down a while back and were delighted to see a Northern Flicker working away. He’s got a pretty big hole there.

It would be so cool to see some little Northern Flickers in that tree!

 

 

Pretty Pink Money Plants On Cape Cod

Last year when I saw these plants growing all over Cape Cod, I thought they were another kind of Wild Geranium. This year I researched them a bit more and found out they are Money Plants and very abundant this time of year on Cape Cod.

These Money Plants are grown for their silvery white, flattened, disc-like seed pods. But… the flowers are pretty spectacular too!

I couldn’t decide which photograph I liked better… the more simple one or the dramatic one. What do you think?

 

Rose-Breasted Grosbeak Hanging Out At Our Home On Cape Cod

This female Rose-Breasted Grosbeak has been hanging out at our home for a few days now.  We  had never seen a female before so we didn’t know what kind of bird it was at first. Using our trusty Sibley’s, we realized that it is a female Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. The males are quite colorful being black and white with a very rose-colored breast. The females are a lot more drab in color.

And I always wondered why they are called Grosbeaks. Their beak is very different and very distinctive. It is French for “gros” meaning thick  and “bek” meaning beak. And, as you can see, they have a very thick beak which they use for opening the seeds.

Pretty cool, huh? Have you ever seen a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak? We named her “Rosie!” I wonder if she has a male nearby…