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I know I've talked about this before, but it's worth repeating: The area encompassing Ballard Park and Gooseneck Cove is my spiritual home. It's the center of my universe, the place where my soul finds rest. And when the time comes, it will be where my soul goes home to; I've left instructions that when I die I want my ashes scattered there, some in the Quaking Aspen grove in the Quarry Meadow in Ballard Park, and the rest in Gooseneck Cove at Hazard Rd.

I know, that sounds maudlin and even morbid, but Autumn always triggers this sort of instinctive "homecoming" feeling in me. It's when I wrap my world around me like a warm, comforting security blanket. So here's yet another tribute to my "crust of earth".

And Paul Robeson singing the old spiritual "Going Home" (Dvorak's setting) is the perfect cap to this post. Enjoy!

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

All Over the Place on Sunday

We're back to a regular schedule on the biweekly Sunday bird walks; Jay Manning, our Fearless Leader, is back now that his ruptured Achilles tendon has healed. We were back out at Sisson's and St. Mary's Ponds this week (where Mark and I went last Sunday on our own) and saw cruising Northern Harrier hawks, American Black and Ruddy Ducks, Green-winged Teal, a Cooper's and a Sharp-shinned Hawk, a couple of Northern Flickers, a ton of Robins, and a lot of small Fall and Winter Sparrows. I didn't get any bird shots, but I got the following shots of the environs: (top to bottom) the shore of Sisson's Pond; some of the the bird walk gang (the rest were behind me); and the fields and woods between Sisson's and St. Mary's Ponds.

Back into Newport, and I made a beeline for Ballard Park and Gooseneck Cove. The park still isn't doing much overt Fall color; the only things really changing color are the Devil's Walking Stick trees and the Virginia Creeper vines. The view from the Joseph Cotton Overlook, over the swamp looking toward Brenton Rd., is showing great promise, though. Here are some shots: (top to bottom) two views from the Joseph Cotton Overlook; Devil's Walkingstick (Aralia spinosa) leaves; Virginia Creeper leaves.

Gooseneck Cove, on the other hand, gets more colorful by the day.

On the way home I stumbled across this patch of Swamp Aster.

And that was my Sunday!

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

A Beautiful Fall Day

As promised yesterday, I went down to my spiritual home today. It's been a beautiful day - cool (but not as cool as yesterday), dry, sunny with a slight skim of clouds overhead (we're getting rained on tomorrow), and a nice breeze. Gooseneck Cove showed its autumnal best in these conditions.

Ballard Park is a different story, though. The Fall Asters are starting to fade, but the leaf colors aren't coming in to take their place quite yet. I guess that's another effect to chalk up to this year's weird weather. Still, all was not lost; I climbed the path to the top of the Quarry rim and got this shot looking toward the ocean, overlooking the Gooseneck Cove watershed. Nice view, huh?

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Autumn Weather Returns

Yesterday the rain was so heavy that my morning walk was out of the question. Luckily that was the last day of the wet weather. Today was overcast for most of the day, but cleared up this afternoon, and the air is noticeably cooler. And I found some interesting things for you on the morning walk:

The scene inside the back gate - on Dixon St. - to The Elms mansion.

The Artful Lodger Inn on Spring St.; I've always loved this sign.

Lily-of-the-Valley berries in Morton Park. Yup, this is what those lovely little bell-shaped white flowers turn into! Note the little visitor down there on the bottom edge of the shot; I didn't see her until I processed this shot in Photoshop.

And today there's a bonus. A friend dropped by at lunchtime and I convinced her that she wanted to take a drive down to Hazard Rd., and she fell for it. So I managed to get you all some more shots of Gooseneck Cove in some advancing Autumnal glory:

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

An Intimate Sunday Constitutional

At least, the photos I got today on my weekly long walk felt more intimate than usual - macros of mushrooms and flowers in Ballard Park, and wading birds hiding in the marsh grass on Gooseneck Cove.

[Note: For those of you who saw the warning earlier - I'm back up and running on the Internet. That tech support guy was as incompetent as I'd suspected. When I got back from the hike and after I'd had lunch, I came in here to discover that my Internet connection was just fine; it had been an outage on the local Verizon network, not my modem. So I'm back to normal!]

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Theme Thursday - Stretch

A tad late, I know. But I didn't get an idea for this until this morning, when I was looking at the pictures I took on Sunday again.

Great Egret youngsters squabbling amongst themselves. The stretch their necks and croak at each other.

Only one video this time. It immediately popped into my head when I saw what the theme would be. Yup, Kate Bush's "Rubberband Girl". Gotta love it!

Don't forget to visit the other Theme Thursday entries.

Photo & text © 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Sunday Constitutional

Today's walk photos concentrate on Gooseneck Cove and the salt marsh at Hazard Rd. Mama Gaia has had her paint brush out and has begun to decorate the Cove for Autumn.

And of course there were birds. The first I saw was this immature Double-crested Cormorant, who let me get within 5 feet of it. It was nervous at first and shuffled its feet, but settled down when I made no threatening moves. After a while it actually started making "feed me Mommy!" moves, spreading its wings a little, shuffling its feet, and opening its beak. Obviously I had no fish to give it. When I saw some Mullet break the surface a little later I pointed and said, "There's food, dummy. Go get it!" Believe it or not, it looked where I was pointing, walked off the rock into the water, and swam in the general direction and dove. You just never know!






















There were a lot of Egrets around. On the flats to the east of the road I counted 12 Great Egrets and 5 Snowy Egrets. Here are two shots - the top one a group shot of a bunch together, and the bottom a shot of a single bird to emphasize the salt marsh's first blush of Fall color.

But the coup of the day was the fact that I was able to get some decent shots of one of the Belted Kingfishers who hang out at the Cove. There were two there today, a male and a female, but it's the female who tends to hang around the area of Hazard Rd.; the male tends to hang out down around where the dam used to be up from the Green Bridge on Ocean Drive. I got two usable shots of the female on both of her preferred perches - on the Osprey platform on the flats and on a wooden split rail fence down at the bottom end of the flats. I've been trying for years to get a decent shot of these people-shy birds who never sit still. Success at last!

And that's my Sunday constitutional!

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Monday Potpourri

Today was errands day, so there was no grand trek or anything. You got that yesterday. Since I didn't have any bird photos from the bird walk yesterday, I thought I'd make up for that by posting some bird shots from Gooseneck Cove that I'd shot earlier and for some reason hadn't posted yet. These guys tend to be the dominant sight in the Cove in the Summer months - a Great Blue Heron (left) and a Great Egret (right).

Meanwhile, today while running around on errands, I decided to pop down to Ruggles Ave. again. The surf is still up and I wanted to see if any of the gang was out on the waves. Yeah, I know it's Monday, but a lot of the surfing crew are self-employed carpenters, house painters, fishermen, etc., who make their own work schedules and seem to magically show up when the waves get high. And those who are working for somebody else try to pop down on their lunch hour if the surf warrants it.

Today there were only about four guys out there, and three of them left the water soon after I got there. The one guy left just sat there on his board gazing out to sea, riding over waves that anybody else would have hopped on. I waited, and waited, and waited... After about 15 minutes of watching this guy just sit there, almost exactly on the stroke of noon he hopped on a wave and rode it in to shore. It was a long ride, and I got about 5 shots of him coming in, but this one works the best.

While waiting for this surfer to get on the ball and jump on a wave, I got some shots of some of the good waves he turned down. They make a nice dramatic finish for today's post!

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Here and There, Around and About

Some shots taken on Thursday and today while out and about.

Swamp Aster by Hazard Rd.; another sure sign that Autumn is on the way. Taken Thursday.

A baby Snapping Turtle by Gooseneck Cove. From Thursday.

A Mute Swan on Easton's Pond this morning.

Left - A Great Blue Heron on Easton's Pond. Right - 12 US 17, the 12-metre racing yacht Weatherly, now doing tours out of Newport Harbor in its post-America's Cup career.

The sunken garden on the campus of Salve Regina University.

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger