5.14.23 ~ New London Ledge Light half a mile from Avery Point
One last walk at Avery Point…
Race Rock Light, eight miles away from Avery Point
“Azucar” by Christopher Wynter (Tim’s favorite sculpture)
common eider
New London Ledge Light from the ledge in front of Branford House
in the garden on the ledge in front of Branford House
Avery Point Light from the ledge in front of Branford House
two copper beeches on the Avery Point campus
one of the Cross Sound ferries from New London, Connecticut to Orient Point, Long Island, New York
copper beech, gifts of healing energy for me
beautiful copper beech leaves
allium in the Cognitive Garden at Avery Point
daisy
lighthouse mosaic in the garden walkway
This brick path sculpture walk by the sea at Avery Point has been our go-to walk for many, many years. So close to home and so beautiful through all the seasons. It was the first place we walked after Tim’s heart attack and triple by-pass surgery. A place for healing and contemplation, especially to listen to the buoy bells and watch the sky when a storm was approaching. So many memories and changes through the years.
Whenever we take a walk at Avery Point we start out on the path that follows the sea wall to the lighthouse and then we go up a little hill and return to the parking lot by cutting across the UConn campus. But, with the thought of keeping the sun out of our eyes on the return, we decided to do the opposite this time, going clockwise instead of counterclockwise around our usual loop. Things looked so different!
There wasn’t much to see in the Cognitive Garden…
logs standing at attention
a cement orb lying in the grass, a little moon
perfect spot for a gnome to sit and contemplate
lamppost sandwiched between two trees
After crossing the campus we came to the top of the little hill and were surprised to see a view of the lighthouse from higher up. A whole new perspective…
Avery Point Light
lantern room and cupola
light shining through from the other side — what on earth is hanging inside there?
winter sun softened by the clouds
lichen Tim spotted on a post
a cairn on top of the sea wall
meteorological tower
shriveled beach rose hip
Tyler House on Eastern Point
Black Rock (where the cormorants hang out about 200 yards south of our beach) & New London Harbor Light
As we rounded the point for the final stretch to the parking lot we encountered a biting northwest wind and dramatically increased our pace. I was glad to have on my layers and my Norwegian wool hat — the best souvenir from our trip to Norway — but I had forgotten my thermal gloves. Maybe by our next walk I will remember to bring everything needed.
If we keep having these lovely weather days I might have to change my negative feelings about the summer season. Returning to Avery Point we again found a song sparrow singing at the top of the beach rose bushes. I wonder if it’s the same one we met a month ago. He was in the same spot.
song sparrow still king of his beach rosebushes
The bushes were full of rose hips but I think there will be another bloom or two left in the season.
beach rose hip and thorns
fading
beach rosebud ~ there are still more to come
there were still a few in full bloom
Avery Point Light
Look who was very busy digging bugs out of the lawn…
northern mockingbird
I lingered under this immense copper beech tree and held my hand on it, soaking up some healing energy. (It’s trunk was way too big to hug!) Looking up into its branches was a transcendent experience.
We come into being in and through the Earth. Simply put, we are Earthlings. The Earth is our origin, our nourishment, our educator, our healer, our fulfillment. At its core, even our spirituality is Earth derived. The human and the Earth are totally implicated, each in the other. If there is no spirituality in the Earth, then there is no spirituality in ourselves. ~ Thomas Berry (The Sacred Universe)
copper beech
Not sure what kind of tree this is (below) but the slash in its bark was striking. I wonder how long it’s been there and if it grew with the tree…
What would our lives be without trees? Bleak and inhospitable, I’d say. What a blessing to have their gifts to us and the other creatures in our summer world.
Assorted sightings from an early summer, sunny, beach walk… Enjoy!
path to the Eastern Point estuary beach
double-crested cormorants in the estuary
cultivated rose on the fence
song sparrow on sign
entrance to Eastern Point Beach
common grackle (?) with missing tail (?)
sailing way offshore
Avery Point, view across the water from Eastern Point top of Avery Point Light seen over the hill
For some strange reason we didn’t see any gulls…
Good it is to stand by these shores How beautiful life can seem! Hear; what joy from birds’ throats pours, see, how the grass verdant gleams!
Bees are humming, butterflies shimmering lark-song pierces through the clouds, and from bowls with nectar brimming we drink our fill of summer flowers.
~ Gunnar Wennerberg (The Magic of Fjords)
Then, two days later, in hazy conditions…
6.17.22 ~ female brown-headed cowbird near the fence
killdeer standing on one leg at Beach Pond
I couldn’t decide which killdeer picture I liked best…
Connecticut’s positivity rate dipped down to 7.6% but now it’s creeping back up again, 8.1% on Friday. Sigh…
The patient is safely home from the hospital and all seems to have gone well and as planned. Tim has a resting pulse now!!! So many thanks to you all for the healing energy, well wishes and prayers. ❤️
northern mockingbird eating its breakfast
A couple of days before the surgery to put in the pacemaker we took a long Sunday walk at Avery Point. It was a gorgeous day, with beach roses blooming!
the biggest clump of beach roses
This song sparrow was singing away, claiming the beach rose shrub for his territory no doubt. We listened to him for quite a while.
Then we moved on to some smaller rosebushes farther down the path…
Avery Point Light
The lovely flowers embarrass me, They make me regret I am not a Bee — ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #808)
Another song sparrow staking his claim on his bush with the sweetest melody. The adjacent garden no doubt provides plenty of buggy delights for his dining pleasure.
horse chestnut blossom
We’re planning to try a post-surgery walk here again on this coming Sunday, a week after this one. This was also the first place we took a walk after Tim’s heart attack and by-pass surgery in 2007. It’s so hard to believe that was almost 15 years ago!
Finally Connecticut’s daily covid positivity rate started to go back down this week, even if ever so slightly. It had been creeping up for weeks. Let’s hope the downward trend continues.
Friday morning we woke up in the middle of a wonderful, long-awaited snowstorm. Less snow fell here than expected by the end of the nor’easter, but the 5 inches it left behind were enough to delight me. And there was no freezing rain or sleet at the end so we could get out and about in the afternoon and enjoy the fluffy white stuff. ❄️
1.7.22 ~ my river birch during the morning snowstorm from my kitchen window
First stop, Avery Pond. Lots of Canada geese and mallards, but a pair of American wigeons caught my eye.
American wigeon
American wigeon
Next stop, Eastern Point Beach. The gulls were hunkering down in the parking lot. I got out of the car to take some pictures and was nearly blown over by the wind. Other times I tried opening the car window to take pictures. That sent most of the gulls up in the air, flapping and squawking. I suspect they thought I might be going to feed them.
ring-billed gulls with eyes open just a little bit
snow on the rocks
gulls drifting in the wind
juvenile herring gull sticking right by our car
snow covered sand on the beach
Next stop, Beach Pond. No wildlife to be seen at all…
snow all around the pond
snow in the dune grass
cattails
snow and cattails
Next stop, Avery Point. There were quite a few folks out walking their dogs. Too nippy to get out of the car!
don’t know the name of this sculpture
“Azucar” by Christopher Wynter New London Ledge Light in the background
Avery Point Light and windswept snowscape
Last stop, Birch Plain Creek. Got out of the car here. There were lots of birds chirping and flitting about. I was lucky to get a couple of shots.
song sparrow
song sparrow
snow and ice on Birch Plain Creek
white-throated sparrow
white-throated sparrow
It was wonderful having some snow stick around for a change and feeling the winter season the way I remember it. A hot cup of tea at home to enjoy, snuggled under a blanket, looking out the window as darkness fell over the snow… Bliss!
Sunday we took my favorite walk by the sea at the Avery Point campus of UConn. It’s good to visit on the weekends because parking isn’t restricted like it is during the week when students are in classes. There weren’t many people out and about, though, and the few people we encountered gave us a very wide berth. I think everyone is more cautious these days because southeastern Connecticut has become a coronavirus hot spot in the state, our numbers have been going up dramatically.
“Artefactual” by Eliza Evans
This sculpture was left over after the open air exhibition a couple of months ago. All the cairns were gone, however.
great egret taking off
I need the sea because it teaches me. I don’t know if I learn music or awareness, if it’s a single wave or its vast existence, or only its harsh voice or its shining suggestion of fishes and ships. The fact is that until I fall asleep, in some magnetic way I move in the university of the waves. ~ Pablo Neruda (On the Blue Shore of Silence)
great egret fishing
Flowers by the sea…
Project Oceanology Enviro-Lab Research Vessel
Although the main focus of Project Oceanology is educational, they do offer some public cruises. For years I’ve dreamed of taking one of the harbor seal watch cruises in March or April…
Canada goose ~ probably the closest I’ve ever got to one!
bee and two bugs
‘Twas a lovely hour-long walk all over the campus and now we’re tucked in for some rain. We might get an inch from the remnants of Hurricane Delta but we’re eleven inches behind normal. Our drought was elevated from severe to extreme. We’re going to need a lot of storms to catch up.
“Hobbes’ Claw – Unsheathed 4” by Stephen Klema 9.5.20 ~ Avery Point Open Air: An Exhibition of Sculpture & Installation Art
We enjoyed a lovely walk at Avery Point on Saturday morning. The weather was perfect! (The weather was wonderful on Sunday, too, but we stayed home and did some painting with windows wide open.)
“Azucar” by Christopher Wynter
We discovered quite a few people fishing down on the west-facing revetment, and then spotted dozens of new cairns along the top of the south-facing seawall.
cairn close-up
lots of cairns on the revetment, stretching from the tree to the lighthouse
cairns by the sea
But as we were admiring all the little sculptures we heard some gulls squabbling and turned around to investigate. A great black-backed gull was in possession of a large fish, perhaps he caught it but he may well have stolen it from a nearby herring gull. Either way, he wasn’t about to share it.
We watched him stab and pick at his meal for quite a while, completely captivated. I wonder if any of the human fishers were so lucky that morning. 🙂
New London County now has 1,620 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Of those, 7 people are in the hospital and 107 have lost their lives. That’s 121 new cases and 4 more in the hospital since August 21. Numbers ticking up again. Staying safe (I hope) in our bubble… College students are back in town and there could be a surge after the Labor Day weekend, although it seems like there weren’t any large holiday gatherings locally. Perhaps people are becoming more prudent.
After many years of referring to “my gull friend with the mangled leg” I have finally dubbed him The Captain, after my sea captain ancestors. I went through my old posts and added his new moniker as a category so I can quickly see all the photos I have taken of him over the years. I don’t know if I will ever see him again but I am hoping that by next summer Tim & I can resume our evening meals on our bench at the beach and have him fly over to the post in front of us for a visit. I sure missed him this summer! The Captain
The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature)
Tim likes to point out that you can see four lighthouses from a certain place along this walk. It’s fun to look out at the horizon and try to identify different kinds of ships. We don’t see as many as we used to, but I think the ferries to Long Island are still running…
5.3.20 ~ Avery Point Light, the closest, on UConn campus
Avery Point Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Groton, Connecticut, on the Avery Point Campus of the University of Connecticut. Although construction was completed in March 1943, the lighthouse was not lit until May 1944 due to concerns of possible enemy invasion. ~ Wikipedia
5.3.20 ~ Race Rock Light, the most distant, eight miles away
Race Rock Lighthouse stands in Long Island Sound, 8 miles (13 km) from New London, Connecticut, at the mouth of the Race where the waters of the Sound rush both ways with great velocity and force. ~ Wikipedia
I’ve been told that Race Rock Light marks where Long Island Sound ends and the Atlantic Ocean begins. I got a good picture of it in 2012 when we took a ferry to Block Island. See picture here.
5.3.20 ~ New London Ledge Light, in Long Island Sound
New London Ledge Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Groton, Connecticut on the Thames River at the mouth of New London harbor. It is currently owned and maintained by the New London Maritime Society as part of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act program. ~ Wikipedia
5.3.20 ~ New London Harbor Light, across the Thames River
New London Harbor Light is a lighthouse in New London, Connecticut on the west side of the New London harbor entrance. It is the nation’s fifth oldest light station and the seventh oldest U.S. lighthouse. It is both the oldest and the tallest lighthouse in Connecticut and on Long Island Sound, with its tower reaching 90 feet. The light is visible for 15 miles and consists of three seconds of white light every six seconds. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. It is currently owned and maintained by the New London Maritime Society as part of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act program. ~ Wikipedia
5.3.20 ~ meteorological mast
The Meteorological Tower on the University of Connecticut Avery Point Campus measures wind speed and direction (anemometer), atmospheric pressure (barometer), relative humidity, rainfall (rain gauge), air temperature (thermometer), radiation from clouds and sky (pyrgeometer), and solar radiation (pyranometer). It also provides pictures of Long Island Sound. Anemometer height is approximately 37 feet above the water surface.
I cross till I am weary A Mountain — in my mind — More Mountains — then a Sea — More Seas — And then A Desert — find —
And my Horizon blocks With steady — drifting — Grains Of unconjectured quantity —
~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #666)
5.3.20 ~ weather station
5.3.20 ~ I love the sound this buoy’s bell makes
Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the surface Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Evangeline)
5.3.20 ~ an amazing tree
That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. … There was pasture enough for my imagination. … ‘There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon,’ said Damodara, when his herds required new and larger pastures. ~ Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
