This season’s first Harbor seal has landed right on schedule (mine anyway!)

First sighting @ approximately 1:30pm on this stellar day of September 27, 2014.

Sunning, shifting, and scooching over for inbound waves.

Upon initial haul-out I believe I observe a salute!

Welcome home.

My attraction to Kingfishers is for me unexplainable.
The hovering over calm coves and banks with barriers of  bayberry, the plunging and darting after Silverside minnows-the solitary bird on a solitary autumn morning, and a solitary naturalist shadowing close behind….

For four years now I have documented these birds-thinking I know their favorite spots. Like the telephone wire perch over the Bicycle Path just as I round the bend of Oyster Pond. Late summer mornings before nine o’ clock is best for viewing here. The entrance to Darbies Cove is where I often hear the bird’s rattle-like voice echoing before evening. Money Pond is where I spied a blue-gray crest (a bit of a mohawk!) silhouetted against pinkish dusk, its heron-like bill nipping in flight, chasing insects A dock nearby to Hooverness houses a" local".

It has been no small feat for me to capture any Belted Kingfisher on camera.Shyness between us is typical.

Perhaps I need to balance persistence with allowing myself to be captivated….

The original and authentic naturalists-native Indians, suggest the Kingfisher is an instructor of remaining grounded and connected to Mother Earth-to remain comfortable in quiet solitude.

These weeks I have been daily looking forward to Harbor seals returning home to Hungry Point. As I balanced precariously on wrack covered rocks, I smiled as I became quietly steady. At long last, King of Fishers, we meet.

These September afternoons have been stellar.

Cloudless sky has me lost in blue, rays of light glint off a spinnaker rippling in gusts at Race Point then bounce back curling in the waves of Queen Anne’s lace swaying here.

The choir of Crickets!

The “bizzzz” of Bumblebee, the “whizzz” of Dragonfly the sigh of Government Bell bouy…..

Wild Firewheels with radiant petals nestle the shifting shadows of autumn.

Come.

Sit on the Parade Grounds.

Nature marches forth here.