North Hill Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary, Duxbury on May 3, 2016

We’re in a protracted stretch of cool, rainy weather, but Spring only happens once a year, so seeing a possible break in the forecast, I head for the South Shore.

It’s still raining as I arrive at the parking area for North Hill Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary, puzzled by the lack of Mass Audubon signs.  I double check my directions and determine I’m in the right spot.  North Hill Marsh is part of Duxbury’s “Eastern Greenbelt”, and the portion owned and managed by Mass Audubon is part of a larger reserve – most of it owned by the town of Duxbury.  To access the sanctuary, I follow trails through Duxbury Town forest – thus the lack of Mass Audubon signage.

At the observation deck overlooking the marsh, I immediately hear the high-pitched chirps of an osprey, and locate three birds perched on dead trees along the eastern shore.  One bird displays an odd posture with wings dropped, tail raised and spread.  It looks like an attempt to dry the wings, or more likely to rinse them out in the light rain!  The other birds also look abit unkempt and forlorn in the drizzle.

The perimeter trail to the south is closed, so I hike up along the western shore.  An open pine grove (just north of the observation deck) offers better views of the birds, but little protection from the rain.  I try some sketching anyway – lowering my scope and leaning over my sketchbook to shield the paper with my body.  Even then, I need to blot the page repeatedly with a paper towel to keep it dry enough to take the graphite.  I get a page of sketches done this way, then head up the shore.

Lush patches of skunk cabbage brighten the forest floor, and tree swallows dip and dive over the marsh.  They don’t seem bothered by the rain…

Two palm warblers visit me as I pause to have some lunch along the shore.  I sit for some time, hoping the rain will let up.  Gazing out over the marsh, I become mesmerized by the pattern of raindrops on the water…

I hike up to the dam on the north end of the marsh and explore the adjacent cranberry bog.  I hear killdeer and a towhee, and back in the woods, a solitary vireo whistles its sweet slurred notes.  The northern end of the Marsh (more like a pond up on this end), is deeper, with no standing timber in the water.  It’s less “birdy” here than the southern end, so I start back down the shore.  Finally the rain starts to let up, and by the time I’m back at the pine grove, it has stopped altogether.  Yay!  And the ospreys are still there, so I get busy again with my pencils…

Later, in the studio, I paint “Osprey in the Rain”.  I’m not sure how to convey the falling rain, so I experiment with some colored pencils on scrap paper.  A combination of light gray and dark gray pencils seems to work best.

Technical note for Artists:  a reader asked about the watercolor easel I was using in my last post (“Painting the Gutter”, Rutland Brook Wildlife Sanctuary, Petersham, April 27, 2016).  It’s a “steel folding easel” made by Napoli, and widely available through mail-order art supply catalogs.  It weighs 5 lbs and is easy to carry, set-up and break down.  The water cup hanging off the front of the easel is my own jury-rigged addition. I cannot give this product my 100% endorsement, since the first one I bought broke down after a few years of use, but they are inexpensive enough that I decided to buy another one, which so far has given me no problems.  Of course, this item is just one more thing to carry along with the rest of my field kit, so I take it along only when I’m sure I’ll be doing some landscape work…