A collection of photos taken back in September during our little vacation down by the coast 🌊
weather at the end of September is really a coin toss ’round here, so we were pretty lucky to get decent temps, even if we did get quite a bit of clouds and a few passing showers
2024’s Christmas card picture with Greta Granit at Ninigret Park. Greta is #128 of recycling artist Thomas Dambo’s international troll sculptures
Erik Rock (troll #129), also at Ninigret Park
the one good photo I got of this guy before my zoom lens stopped working
We had a really good time at Ninigret pond (we went twice during our short trip), and saw quite a variety of wildlife. The blue heron who flew up right in front of us and perched on the very top of a pine tree might have been the most notable, but I will say that we spent a long time crouching on the edge of a small bridge watching multiple different kinds of sea creatures eat the remains of a dead crab.
The longer we watched, the more creatures made themselves visible. Tiny, semi-translucent shrimp, small fish waiting for a morsel of food, and a couple of “decorator crabs” (who are called that because they literally “decorate” themselves with algae to blend in to the murky bottom — their disguise worked incredible well, and at first we couldn’t figure out why the algae was moving in such a strange way).
a sea walnut (left) is a kind of comb jelly, and we were mesmerized by the lines of colorful lights moving down its body (click here to see a 30-second video of what it can do!); a small Atlantic sea nettle jellyfish (right) stole the show on another day for its “classic jellyfish” look
there was quite a bit of greenery still holding on, but many of the trees were turning the bright colors of autumn
Riley Mae befriended a couple fellow nature photographers and they all had their [giant] lenses pointed at a group of tiny shorebirds running alongside the waves — she came home from this vacation with a couple thousand bird pictures to go through
Ironically the one vacation we’ve taken in years was set for the same weekend that my aunt and uncle ended up throwing a big outdoor party with live music. We couldn’t miss it (especially since we had enthusiastically helped convince them a month prior that they definitely still had plenty of time to plan it), so we drove back up for the occasion — thankfully there were no rain showers that night!
leading up to the party I kept saying how I was going to request that they play Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorns,” but they ended up playing it without me even asking; it felt like a very full-circle/closure moment for me
art by jordan rae 