Pandemic Diaries Week #8

7 May 2020

Maybe half the days, I join our sister-in-law J and sometimes Richard's brother S on their walk.  There are different routes, but it usually totals somewhere between a mile or two.  I like to look at the houses and of course the flowers, and I always have questions as we walk.  For example, there's a huge wetland area in back of one section of the neighborhood, called the meadow (or possibly The Meadow).  And the meadow leads into the bay which separates this part of New Jersey from the barrier islands that make up the Jersey Shore.

Anyway, today J and I headed out on a walk.  We did the neighborhood loop so I could take some photos, then walked over several more blocks to the bike path, where J likes to speed walk for an extra mile or so.  

There's an empty lot or two that has beautiful wisteria growing wild, climbing up nearby trees and hanging down in cascades of light purple.  Just gorgeous and unexpected.  I think of wisteria as a plant that gardeners put in, often climbing up a trellis.  Here, wisteria seems to grow into trees and then hang down.  But in the empty lots, I would guess some seeds blew in and these are volunteer wisteria who opted to beautify this wild bit of land.

I decided to walk around the park that's right there, it's a lovely little park that takes up roughly one-quarter of a full city block.  There are tons of tall trees, possibly maple and chestnut, and no underbrush.  Color is provided by groupings of azaleas, and I saw the leaves of what probably were daffodils.  This park is solely for senior citizens, so it's easy walking, pretty, and there are scattered benches around to enjoy the park.

I walked up to the end farthest away from the road, to look at an exceptionally pretty azalea - it was a lovely pink, bright and cheerful against the grey tree trunks and deep green bushes beyond.  So I looked, and photographed the azalea, then walked around a bit more and headed to the benches down by the road to wait for J.

I kept watching the people walking, having estimated that she should be heading by any minute.  I'm really not good at estimating more than about five minutes, but it seemed that I hadn't been in the park more than 15 to 20 minutes.  Well, who knows.  So I sat on the bench, enjoying the sun and the breeze and the flowers.

And waited.  Waited a bit more.  I started wondering if possibly J had fallen down and was walking slowly.  Or maybe she walked fast, wasn't feeling well, and went straight back to the house.  All sorts of possibilities, some more dire (although this was a well-travelled bike path, with other people out enjoying the lovely sunny day - unlikely anything nefarious occurred).

I thought maybe I'd give her another five minutes, and then I'd walk back to the house.  Seemed most logical that she'd walked back on her own, for whatever reason.

And then they drove up, J and S!!!  Apparently J had walked back to the park, looked around, waited a few minutes, and didn't see me anywhere!  She thought I probably had walked back on my own for some reason.  She didn't see me at all, so walked back - and upon arriving at the house, and realizing I wasn't there, she told her husband that she had lost me!

So he drove them out to come back and look for me!  SO funny!!!  I guess she was looking while I was at the far end, admiring that lovely azalea.  And, just to make things more interesting, my jacket is a medium olive or mossy sort of green, so I definitely was camouflaged into the rest of the park!

Yeah, so, they found me sitting on the bench, and told me their side of the story, while I shared mine.  We laughed, and headed home for a bite of lunch.

And for everyone thinking "why didn't they just call?" - we let our pre-pay mobile phones lapse when we're travelling overseas.  It isn't easy finding a new SIM and getting a new phone number during a shutdown.  I finally ordered one online, but they only send the SIM to a cardholder's billing address, so I'm waiting for my brother to mail the SIM to me out here.  Yup, no phone. 

I guess I blend into the trees, and I'm unavailable by phone.  Incognito all the way.

Oh, and Lincoln the cat wanted equal time.  His small orange sister is named Clementine.  They currently are having some sibling rivalry issues, so Lincoln asked that his photo be included.  They sometimes have their own kind of social distancing enforced by their parents.

12 May 2020

I now am the proud owner of a new SIM and functioning telephone.  So I won't get lost again.  Well, until I do, but now I can call for help.  Not that I was lost last time - I knew exactly where I was, and also how to get back.  It was just that no one else knew where I was.

Okay, Mother's Day dawned sunny and windy, so J and I decided to go to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.  (And their website: https://www.fws.gov/refuge/edwin_b_forsythe/ )  We went there four years ago in July, and there were young ospreys learning to fly.

Here's the link to July 2016's visit with the osprey fledglings:    rollingluggagers.blogspot.com/2016/07/

According to the Division of Fish and Wildlife, osprey nesting season is April 1 through August 31.  So on May 10, we were in the early part of the nesting season.

The wildlife refuge is a large peninsula in the wetland coastal region, vaguely between the barrier islands and the mainland portion of southern New Jersey.  There's an eight-mile dirt road that creates a vaguely U-shaped loop around the peninsula, with pull offs for bird viewing.  The short boardwalk and the look-out tower were both closed off, to ensure social distancing.  But other than that, we managed to see a lot of birds while avoiding the other people driving around on this lovely day.

This year, most of the osprey nests on the special platforms built for them were empty.  We couldn't figure out if the nests had been blown down during the winds from the storms that had swept through the region several times in the past few weeks, or if the nests were being built.  We were hoping they were in process, because we did see a number of osprey on the ground and flying around overhead.

But one nest was fully built, and there was an adult osprey in there!  Our best guess is that this was the female either laying eggs or keeping any eggs cozy and warm.  Her partner was a bit away, on the ground, keeping an eye on her as well as on a pool of water, hoping for some fish for lunch.

So mama osprey was high up in her nest keeping an eye on the neighborhood.

We saw a great blue heron or two, and quite a few white herons or egrets, or maybe both.  Some had black bills, others had yellow bills - and I vaguely remember having read that one has one color bill, the other has a different color.  So, white herons and egrets.  Oh who knows, there could be a crane as well, I wouldn't know.  Pretty white birds with long necks and long legs, wading in the shallow water.

The best, though, was the Canada goose family!  Mama and Papa Canada Geese were in the water, followed by five downy little goslings!  Then Mama and Papa hopped onto the bank and up into the grassy area for a salad lunch.  The babies had a bit of a struggle climbing up the bank, but they all made it and followed around the parents, nibbling on smaller bits of grass.  They were absolutely adorable little baby geese, just beginning to grow longer necks, but still a fuzzy beige sort of color, without the distinctive Canada goose coloration.

Side note: Yes, people now tend to call these birds Canadian geese.  But that could be any goose flying down from Canada.  The original and official name of the goose with speckled brown feathers and a long neck in solid black is the Canada goose.  Sorry, it does sound grammatically incorrect, but such is life.

So we watched the goose family for a while, and then drove on.  We saw other families of geese, little goslings waddling around after their parents, but I didn't want to scare them so we just watched for a bit.

We also saw terns, seagulls, sandpipers, and other shore birds.  Swifts and swallows dipped and dove through the air, catching early season insects.

It was a lovely day, and a great way to get out in nature without contact with other humans.

And thus ends two months or so of self-isolation.