Willets

I recently saw the willet (Tringa semipalmata, formerly Catoptrophorus semipalmatus) described as "an inelegant and heavily built shorebird". Inelegant? How dare they?!

Indeed, I'm impressed with what can be accomplished with such a limited colour palette.

We saw—and heard, for these are quite vocal sandpipers—willets almost everywhere we went on Cape Cod: in the marshes, on the beaches, and perched on almost anything available: posts, fences, benches, rose thickets, and occasionally trees. They were perhaps our most constant companions, and while Ellie and I fished, Jessa photographed willets calling, foraging, preening, and just resting. Enjoy. 

Beach rose

Commonly found on the beaches and dunes of Cape Cod is the beach rose, Rosa rugosa.  The leaves are distinctively wrinkled—rugosa is "wrinkled" in Latin. Wonderfully aromatic, the flowers are usually pink, but white is not at all uncommon.

Rosa rugosa is not native to Cape Cod or even to North America, but to Asia. It grows on, unsurprisingly, beaches and sand dunes in Japan, Korea, China, and parts of Siberia. It is believed to have been introduced to America from Japan—it is often used in gardens as an ornamental plant, and frequently crossed with other roses. Its presence on Cape Cod specifically is sometimes attributed to a shipwreck on Nauset Beach, from which the flower spread to other parts of the Cape.

As with the legend of Assateague horses [here and here] originating from the wreck of a Spanish galleon, the story of the shipwrecked roses is both romantic and plausible, but not definitive. I say plausible because rugosa has become an invasive plant in Europe and elsewhere, its spread aided by birds and mammals eating rose hips and excreting the seeds. It also spreads by runners, so over time even an isolated plant may give rise to a large thicket.

These thickets, while not native, do stabilise the dunes, and serve as a haven for rabbits and songbirds. 

Piping plover

Another bird found along both Nebraska's braided rivers and Cape Cod's Atlantic beaches. Often nesting in association with least terns, piping plovers likewise are divided into a coastal and an interior subspecies (Charadrius m. melodus and C. m. circumcinctus, respectively). Both are federally listed, melodus and Great Plains populations of circumcinctus as threatened, and Great Lakes circumcinctus as endangered.

As Jessa's photos illustrate, the piping plover is aptly described as the colour of sand.

Least terns

One of my favourite terns, and one we see in Nebraska. The interior least tern (Sterna antillarum athalassos) breeds on sandbars along the Platte, Loup, Elkhorn, Niobrara, and Missouri Rivers—successfully enough that it was delisted last year. These on Cape Cod, though, are the nominate subspecies, Sterna a. antillarum.

While standing on Sea Gull Beach in West Yarmouth, we saw a male fly in with a sand lance ("sand eel") and Jessa photographed the courtship dance, both birds jerking their heads abruptly from left to right, and the subsequent mating.

And then after their brief liaison, the little bastard flew off without relinquishing the fish.