Our original schedule called for today to be the Block Island trip, but high waves on the Sound and Ocean cancelled ferry service. So Mike Tucker and other ABA trip leaders improvised, and we started the day at the pond and barrier beach of Trustom Pond NWR, a brackish hundred-acre pond that is the only pond in Rhode Island without residential development. The hinterland of the pond includes some wooded areas and fresh water.
Coastal New England geology is actually rather complicated—at least judging from some of the material I’ve skimmed—not at all the simple extended barrier islands of sand that we have at home. The material in many areas is glacial till. Evidence: several relict stone walls skirted by the trails leading to the pond.
The appositely-named Moonstone Beach (formerly a nudist hangout until it became FWS’s responsibility) is managed for Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) and Least Tern (Sterna antillarum) in breeding season.
We took a break at the huge, beautiful Kettle Pond Visitor Center, the interpretive center for the network of coastal NWRs in the state. By FWS standards, this place is palatial: gift shop, exhibits, a big classroom where we ate lunch.
Good birds but not lifers: Common Loon (Gavia immer), Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), Nashville Warbler (Vermivora ruficapilla), Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis). A lifer candidate but not seen well enough to tick (on my list, at least): Common Eider (Somateria mollissima).
After the lunch break, a quick stop at Soccotash Marsh turned up a pair of the Savannahs. Then we found a relatively sheltered spot to scope the very breezy waters off Point Judith to get a distant look at a few eiders. Here’s hoping for a better look later in the week. The working lighthouse at Point Judith is a Coast Guard facility, and hence not open to us tourists. The crashing surf and high winds coaxed a whoop out of me.