Southboro Nature Stops

Freddie and I made plans to check out a Great Blue Heron and Double-Crested Cormorant rookery in Southboro after work tonight.  I never knew it existed!  It's on an island, so the birds are quite safe from people!  I had only ever seen Great Blue Heron rookeries in swampy areas with their nests near the tops of snags and dead trees.  These GBHs were nesting on live trees and were sharing the same trees with Double-Crested Cormorants (which I had never seen nesting before!).  Very cool.

As Freddie said, it was as busy as Logan Airport, with GBHs and DCCs flying to and from the island as we watched from a hillside.  The distance to the island was stretching the limits of the zoom on my camera.  Still, it was so fun to see!

Double-Crested Cormorants

Great Blue Heron

Love is in the air!

We spontaneously decided to continue on, stopping to check Chestnut Hill Farm for any shorebirds on wet fields.  We saw two Killdeer but nothing else until we were invited to visit the newborn baby goats (born just about an hour and a half earlier).  The sky and light was really beautiful as we got nearer to sunset.

This little guy was still wet from the birth.  He was confused about how to nurse, and kept bumping against his mother but nowhere near her teats!

Look at that proud Mama!

This one was napping in a quiet corner.

From Chestnut Hill, we walked down to Beals Preserve in the hopes of seeing or hearing a Woodcock do its mating dance at dusk.  We saw at least two!  One nearly flew into Freddie.  Good thing she ducked!

Poor record shot of one of the American Woodcock that landed about five feet in front of me on the trail!