Today we saw 3 states: Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine! We’re in town for a wedding, and today was our only full day to explore a new region of the country, so we went all out. It’s the farthest north on the Atlantic coast we’ve ever been, and Paul’s first visit to an Atlantic coast beach. Though it was a new coastline for both of us, it reminded me of my childhood growing up at the beach in Ocean City, MD. I realized how long it’s been since I’ve been on the beach in the summer! It was fun just playing along the shore and exploring without much agenda. Spending the afternoon just finding what we could find at the water’s edge made me feel like a kid again.
We started our morning at Crane Beach, where we walked down to a nice dune site with nesting piping plovers, willets, least terns and common terns. Then, we headed to Plum Island to get into some salt marsh. On the way, we saw glossy ibis flyover. The refuge was largely closed for an event, and it was mid-afternoon, so there wasn’t much bird activity. We stopped at Salt Pannes to look around and found some mute swans, which was disappointing. We made it down to the end, though, which had a great beach. We headed for Maine for dinner to get an authentic lobster dish!