Out to Sachuest Point Again

I figured today would be a good day to head out to the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge again - sunny, warm, and a light breeze. Well, it was definitely a good day out there. Lots of birds around, although I probably missed as many as I got. There were Glossy Ibises in the salt marsh just off the road into the Refuge, but they were out of range. There were lots of Goldfinches, but they won't settle down until Thistle season in July. And the Phoebes kept jeering at me just out of range, not to mention a couple of Common Yellowthroats I saw. But there were plenty of birds who were willing to sit for a portrait, and some interesting flowers to add to the mix.

There was a flock of Brown-headed Cowbirds greeting everybody at the trailhead by the parking lot. Here's one feeding in the grass:


The big news for today is that the Yellow Warblers are back - oh boy are they back!

This Warbler's warbling:


The earliest bloomers of the Carrot family are up. Queen Anne's Lace is the most abundant and recognizeable of the family, but that won't be around for a month or more. But the Poison Hemlock is up all over the place. You can touch it - it's not "poison" as in Poison Ivy - but don't munch on any of it; it's the same stuff they fed to Socrates to put him away!

As usual, there are Gray Catbirds all over the place:


And another Yellow Warbler warbling away:


I found a new flower today. I've never seen this before, but after seeing it once by the entrance sign to the Refuge, I started seeing it all over the place along the road behind the dunes. It's called Naked Broomrape (no, I'm not kidding, this is what Audubon's calls it!) and it grows in clusters like this:


And this is a close-up of one of the flowers:


Down on the beach on the other side of the dunes from the flowers, the Sanderlings have molted and put on their Summer plumage:


And there were some Semipalmated Plovers hanging out with them feeding in the surf:


And that's today's hike.