Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge

The Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge was developed on the site of an old Navy shooting range and communications center. When I first wandered out there in the '70s it was still a wasteland of weed-choked concrete, but now it's all quite changed. It's very different from the Norman Bird Sanctuary, which is just up the road less than a mile. There's no terrain to speak of here. And absolutely no shade, which can make this place a real trial on a sunny, hazy summer day like today was; with the sun beating down on you even the afternoon sea breeze only lowers the internal thermostat by just a little. Bring lots of water if you wander here in the summer!

There won't be any trail pictures in this photo essay. The trails themselves are very unremarkable, given the flat land and the fact that all the stuff worth looking at is off the trail. What we'll look at here are the things that live and grow here and the views. That said, let's go take a look.

The eastern end of Second Beach is part of the Refuge's property, and part of the beach and the dunes behind it are roped off as a nesting and staging area for Piping Plovers and Least Terns. I always walk Second Beach to get to the Refuge, and today was no different. And I was rewarded - a mama Piping Plover herding her chick. I couldn't get a decent shot of the chick as it never stayed still, but here's Mama!

After arriving at the Refuge proper and hitting the trail to the central observation platform, I heard a familiar birdsong. This place is just swarming with Goldfinches in the summer, and there was one perched in the kudzu. [A note on the maintenance projects going on in the Refuge: The place is overrun with Kudzu, Asiatic Bittersweet, and Spotted Knapweed. All of these are more prolific than they need to be and tend to strangle or elbow out native species, so an effort is being made to eradicate them. It's a slow process, and sometimes it's a one-step-fprward-three-steps-back kind of thing, but they're trying!]

There are several observation platforms in the Refuge, but this one is right smack in the middle of Sachuest Point and surveys a wide view.

 Looking west, you can see Second Beach and St. George's School:

Also looking west you see the Refuge's visitors' center. 

So we leave the platform and head out to the main trails. Much of the area is meadow, and this one just down the trail from the platform is full of Canadian Thistle and Black Mustard. It's the Thistle (both Canadian and Bull) that attracts a lot of the small, seed-eating birds, especially the Goldfinches.

Going north on the Flint PointLoop, which rims the northern section of the Refuge, we go out to a shore access point on the eastern shore on the Sakonnet Passage. This is the view looking south. [Note: some of us who are more particular about nomenclature call this the Sakonnet Passage because it's actually a passage of Narragansett Bay. Most people call it the Sakonnet River. Oh well, I guess I can tolerate sloppy people!]

The Refuge is lush with wildflowers. Here's some Bladder Campion growing beside the trail. 

A little further on we come to some Milkweed, and I got my macro lens out, first for a tight close-up of a single floret:

 and then pulling back a little to get a section of the flower head:

Of course the thing that keeps the Goldfinches coming is the Canadian Thistle:

and the Bull Thistle, which isn't blooming yet but should be soon:

And then there's the little bugger I keep misidentifying as Canadian Thistle; it's real name is Spotted Knapweed. I know it's strangling native species in the Refuge, but you have to admit it's a pretty flower! 

On a little side trail that connects the upper part of the Flint Point Loop I found this interesting-looking, unidentified bug sitting on a Yarrow cluster. It may be some kind of moth, but I'm just not sure. And by the way, where the rest of the area has Queen Anne's Lace in abundance in similar terrain, the Refuge has Yarrow almost exclusively. Some day I'm gonna have to ask somebody about that! 

 Another prolific flower out here in the summer is the Black-Eyed Susan. There are whole fields of this in the Refuge, one of which we'll see as we leave.

This next one is prolific all over Aquidneck Island; there's some in the meadow on the floor of the old quarry in Ballard Park, and it grows along most roadsides. This is St. John's Wort. A tea made of the flowers is said to be good for depression, but it also makes you hypersensitive to the sun. Not a good herb to use in the summer! 

Here's another species of Campion called Bouncing Bet. It's also called Soapwort because you can make quite a lather with water and the juice of the flowers. The Bouncing Bet name comes from the old name Bouncing Betty for washerwomen. 

The trail that circles the southern part of the Refuge is called the Ocean View Loop. This is a view of the southern tip of Sachuest Point from the trail.

The meadows in this part of the Refuge are full of Thistle. A lot of the Canadian Thistle has passed the blooming stage and gone to the thistledown stage, and this has the Goldfinches in a feeding frenzy. This little guy was one of a whole flock in this patch.

If you look at the water off the south end of the Point you'll see a lot of lobster pot markers floating around. One boat was out there today collecting his pots.

Looking east from the Ocean View Loop you can see Sakonnet Light across the Sakonnet Passage on Sakonnet Point. I guess Sakonnet must have been somebody pretty important. LOL!!! He was; he was a Wampanoag sachem living at the time the first European settlers came to this area. And this shot is not what you see from the trail - I was using a telephoto lens to get a closer look at the Light. 

We're almost to the end of our visit. While I was visiting the visitors' center to pick up a pamphlet or two I noticed this adult Eastern Cottontail munching the grass just down the hill. 

And as we leave the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge we pass through this lovely field of Black-Eyed Susan to leave a great final impression.

I hope you've enjoyed this trip to another one of my favorite places!