Goodbye House

For years we stayed at a lovely three bedroom house on Chincoteague Bay, a place that suited our two families perfectly.  There were separate bedrooms at the opposite ends of the second floor for the two adult families and a nearby bedroom for our child/grandchild.  For the ladies, there was a screened-in porch and well-equipped kitchen, and for the guys there was an excellent kitchen table for electronics, with easy access to the porch.  There was a pond just off the porch, with geese for frequent visitors, and the bay was a short dock walk away through marsh grass often populated with waders, frogs and other wetland denizens.  Sunsets were gorgeous, and we just loved the place.

Unfortunately, the owners finally decided to sell, and the new owners loved it so much they decided not to rent it.  Who can blame them, of course, but that sent us scurrying about for a new rental house.  We did try a lovely place on the water facing Assateague Channel, and a fine situation it was.  Unfortunately, the owner pulled the property from our long time rental agency at the last minute, leaving us with little flexibility for future rental choices, so we've decided not to pursue that property again in the future.

But for this trip, we were right on the water, with plenty of herons and egrets fishing close by, so many of the images captured this time were actually made from the house itself.  As has been the case in recent years, the refuge, on Assateague Island, continues to be an austere place when it comes to finding waders and shorebirds.  Over the past few years, rabbits and Delmarva fox squirrels have filled the gap, but this year they were nowhere to be found.

Worse, the pine beetles that devastated the Wildlife Loop a couple of decades ago are back, this time attacking the pines along the main beach road in the vicinity of the main pony pen, near the culvert where water from Swan Cove drains into Little Tom's Cove.  Sadly, we did also observe a male red-throated loon with a damaged leg floating in Little Tom's Cove at mid-week.  Its mate swam nearby, and then was gone the next day.  Nothing could be done for the unfortunate bird, and its fate was unknown as of the time we departed.

On a positive note, the ladies did have their usual good time shopping, bringing home many wearable treasures, and in celebration of our experiences observing the successful nesting of endangered piping plovers over the past three or four years, we were able to find a lovely small piping plover carving of just the right size and fidelity.