April 1, 2011
Mother Nature played a joke on most of New England today: Snow.
I was hoping that we’d be spared here near the mouth of the Merrimack River and only have rain. No such luck. I went outside last night briefly at about 11:00 pm and there was a light blanket of snow on the ground. At 7:00 am I awoke to a power outage. With all the snow storms we had all winter, there was not one outage. Now it happens. Thankfully the power was back on within a couple of hours.
Tomorrow we should see some sun and warmer temperatures here on the river while we’re waiting for spring. We need more lovely days like this for the trees to start budding and the spring flowers to burst out of their winter cover and shine in the sun:
(Photo: Seagulls at Joppa Flats in Newburyport, MA, March 2011 ~~ © Pamela J. Leavey 2011)
Coyotes on Plum Island
March 27, 2011
I was driving down to Plum Island this afternoon and had just made the corner at the airport when I spotted an animal walking out past the runway. Having lived in Los Angeles for 19 years, I recognized that it was a coyote. Although I have heard that there are coyote in this area, I had not seen one before this. Coyotes tend to be nocturnal creatures, so I was surprised to see one in the middle of the afternoon, slinking along the salt marsh heading for Plum Island.
I has however heard just yesterday that there was an article in the Newburyport Daily News about a cat missing on Plum Island and the suspicion that it had been caught by a coyote.
Well they are definitely out there on Plum Island.
A commentor on the Newburyport Daily News shared an awesome closeup photo and sighting here.
UPDATE (3/29/11): There was a good follow up piece in the Newburyport Daily News… Life With Suburban Coyotes.
Related Images: