Cape Cod Day 6 - Fort Hill and Red Maple Swamp Trail (8/17)

On Thursday morning we headed over to Fort Hill for a hike. During our normal vacation week (the beginning of August) the Green-head Flies can be unbearable at this site. But a week later and they were nowhere to be found. We started at the parking lot at the top of the hill. The view of the water was fantastic. After admiring the landscape for a few minutes we started down the trail. Near the parking lot there was a family of rabbits munching on the vegetation. We also found a land snail attempting to cross the path.

But, in general it was pretty quiet. The meadow still had a good number of flowering plants but there were very few birds or butterflies. The flowers were nice though. Amongst the field of Milkweed were patches of Common Evening Primrose, Chickory, Goldenrod, and Hedge Bindweed. The entire trail was enveloped in the scent of Honeysuckle and even the Bull Thistle was attractive.

We followed the path thru the woods until it opened up to the boat launch. After enjoying the view from a comfortable bench we started back. On the return trip we decided to take the Red Maple Swamp trail. From the boardwalk we spotted a Northern Cardinal and were even able to identify a Great-crested Flycatcher after a getting a good look at him through our binoculars.

After exiting the swamp we made our way up the hill to the parking lot. Along the road we found a couple more flowers (#1, #2, #3) which I can't identify. It was a very nice morning hike... except that we didn't hear one Bobwhite call (which was very abnormal for this location).

Before heading home for lunch we stopped at a small conservation area along the bike path in Eastham. This location is a good place for butterflies and we've even found Box Turtles there in past year. This year the butterflies were a bit low but we did find a Spicebush Swallowtail and some Eastern Tailed-blues.

Even though it was around noon we still were able to find some nice birds. A few American Redstarts hawked for insects and I was able to ID a Red-eyed Vireo. But we seemed to "miss" more birds than we could identify. One bird in particular called almost incessently but, when we finally forced it to fly, we didn't get a good enough look to figure out what it was.

But, the best sighting was a family of mice (I couldn't tell if they were Deer Mice or White-footed Mice) that I found when I turned over a piece of plywood. There were mice of all sizes in the group and, after a second or so of stunned stillness, they scattered to different hiding places.