Novembering... Nov. 25th and 27th 2016

Not that there's much to disclose...

Of course, since the last weekend, the winds and temps had turned and turtles were washing up left and right. I felt helplessly trapped at work as nearly 100 turtles washed up. Well, at least that many were found, so that's good. But still, I felt useless. Right up through Thanksgiving, people were finding turtles. We made our plans to get to the beach at first light on Friday the 25th ("Black Friday") since we were both off from work and we didn't want to participate in the crazed shopping phenomenon.

We got there, ready to do our part, but the water was still. It lay before us like a sheet of glass. It really didn't look good for turtles to wash ashore. Still, we did our walk. It was warmish (low 50s) and seals were plentiful. I'm pretty sure that this was a Grey (back) and a Harbor (front) frolicking together.

If that is correct, it's our lifer Harbor Seal.

Every once in a while, we'd see a solitary loon... and their haunting calls were audible at a few points along the walk.


A gaggle of Red-breasted Mergansers.


Yeah, there were no turtles but the birding was pretty swell.


And the sealing...

Oh well... we tried. At least we got home at a reasonable hour and got some relaxing in.

Lots of relaxing.

In fact, neither of us even left the house on Saturday. On Sunday, even though I was unshaven and quite grotty, I had to go out and get some groceries. It was cold and rainy for the second day in a row but since there was a break in the clouds, I decided to hit the local Two-lined stream on the way to the store.

I hadn't stopped by in a long time but I figured that, like every other source of water in the area, it had spent the entire summer dry as a bone. Therefore, I was delighted to see it was now running with pretty good force. I found a half dozen Two-lined Salamanders in a short time and they all looked robust and healthy. Here are a few of them.



Nice looking animals right there. First Two-lines of the month. (First in quite a while!)

So, that is how November ended for us. We have decided to not go back to the beach unless we're specifically called. The crew in charge really know what they're doing and know when and where we'll be needed. If we don't get called, that means either the conditions aren't right or they have everything covered. I can live with that.