Newport Ghost Tour

They say this church is haunted.
You tell me, do you see faces in some of
the panes. Click on pic to enlarge.

On Thursday of last week, Laurie and I went to Newport to take a ghost tour. Considering it the season, taking the Newport Ghost Tour (NGT) seemed like a fun thing to do. The tour cost $18 dollars. It started the Marriott on the waterfront. It is supposed to last ninety minutes, but our guide loves his job and ended up making it two hours.

Our guide, Bryan, took us to different sites around downtown Newport. Total walking distance is probably a mile. Newport Ghost Tours ran all summer (it has been on my bucket list for a while).  The tours run everyday during the summer and the fall. After Halloween, check calendars, the tours run a couple days a week. 

Our guide Bryan, enjoys "investigating" haunted houses. He said he has been on over one hundred investigations. Of all the guides that work for NGT, he is the only one that actually investigates hauntings. The other guides have their own specialties. Two are Newport historian experts, another is a  medium.

After we left the Marriott we went to the water and Bryan told us stories of historical events that happened in those spots followed by why or what is haunting the area.  From there we went to a couple other places. The last place Bryan took us was, of course, a graveyard. I think we stopped at 6-7 places. I enjoyed the ghost stories, but I really loved hearing about all of the history in Newport.

I'm not going to get into the stories or the history. There were tales of murders, pirates, and drownings. I highly recommend taking the tour. Obviously, it would be more fun in October, but it is well worth going anytime. If you make reservations, I would really try to get Bryan. He really was awesome. While we were walking between spots, Laurie and I kept saying how much fun we were having. 

Fall Migration Pictures

   I spent the last two days chasing migrating birds and migrating stripers. I spent most of that time chasing the animals with wings not fins. Thursday I went to Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island. I hit two spots fishing and five spots birding. I started at Brenton Point which was my main focus. It was loaded with birds and I walked the trails three times.  From there I stopped at various other spots. I ended up getting four new birds for Rhode Island for the year (Merlin, Purple Finch, Ruby Crowned Kinglet, Red Breasted Nuthatch). I picked up three stripers along the way but nothing big. Pictures of birds from yesterday below, followed by a quick summary of today and more pictures.

Ruby Crowned Kinglet
I saw more RC Kinglets yesterday than I'd seen in my
life combined. I saw at least 30 but probably more likely
fifty!

Purple Finch female

I was surprised to see butterflies in the cold windy weather

Red Breasted Nuthatch. This little bird has been my nemesis
this year. I have been out looking for them at least eight
times in RI before finally seeing this one

This picture and the one below are juvenile
White Crowned Sparrow

This picture and the two below are of a hunting
Northern Harrier at Sachuest

lll

Today I went to the other side of the Rhode Island coast. I went to South County stopping at various birding hotspots. Like yesterday, I spent the majority of the time at one place. In South County, that one place is Trustom. Trustom was very good to me. I saw at least a dozen Hermit Thrushes, RB Nuthatch, and more Kinglets. The pond was full of ducks.. I also saw my best bird of my weekend there: a Red Necked Grebe off the Otter Point Trail.

White Crowned Sparrow

An adult White Crowned Sparrow with a strategically
placed pricker vine ruining what would have been
a pretty good pic of a beautiful bird

The following three pictures are of three different Hermit Thrushes

Northern Flickers are pretty common, but they are skittish. Everytime I see one I can never get close with a camera. Today, as I was rounding a corner this guy was on the ground. Unlike every other flicker ever, he didn't mind posing for a few pictures. These are the best two.

All in all, I had an excellent two days of birding. I saw five new species for Rhode Island and one of those was new for New England (Red Necked Grebe). Finding five new species after almost a year of birding felt like a windfall. I wish I had more time to fish, but I realized fairly quickly yesterday that there were a lot of birds and not so many fish. 

Today's Highlight- Smooth Green Snake

I went birding at Trustom this morning and fishing this afternoon. I saw a few birds and caught a few fish. By far the highlight of my day was seeing a Smooth Green Snake. I almost stepped on it as I was walking to the woods through the meadow. Ironically, its life was probably saved by me rushing. Since I was walking quickly I was looking down at the ground. If I would have been "birding" I'd have been walking slowly and looking up into the trees. I never would have paid any attention to my feet. After a couple pictures of it on the ground I took a couple with my phone holding it (they came out slightly blurry) then I put it on the other side of the path. There were a lot of people at Trustom today, I'm surprised he didn't get stepped on in the first place.  This kind of snake is a lifer for me, glad I didn't end his.

A Day Late

The last few weekends I have gone to New Hampshire to hike. Since it gets dark so early this time of year, it is not practical to go to southern Rhode Island after work to fish the oceanfront. Because of early darkness and New Hampshire, it had been a while since I did some surf fishing until this week.

I had my Surfcaster's meeting on Tuesday. I went down right after work to do some fishing before the meeting started. Thanks to a friend, I ran into some really decent fishing. I got a bunch of hefty schoolies and a 36 inch keeper. I only got to fish for an hour. It wet my appetite to fish longer. All week since Tuesday there have been reports of great striper fishing. I couldn't wait to go!

NOT TODAY! All of the bait (five inch peanut bunker) moved out and the bass followed. Long story short, I fished half a dozen spots, a couple of them I tried in the am and the pm. I saw many fishermen today, none of them caught anything while I was present. I ended up with one lone schoolie right before dark. I know of other good fishermen that fished most of the day and also blanked.

Oh well, there is always tomorrow.

The Last New Hampshire Trip for the Year

Laurie and I went to New Hampshire from Wednesday night until Friday night. We left when she got out of work at 5 pm. After a couple of stops and finding a site, we had the tent up before 10 pm. We knew Thursday would probably be a washout. Our best case scenario was that it would start to clear up Thursday afternoon. It didn't. It rained almost continuously until Friday am. This only gave us Friday to enjoy the foliage in what will most likely be the last trip of the year.

We started Friday morning in Crawford Notch doing a short hike to Ripley Falls. It is only about twenty minutes each way. The falls is roughly 100 feet in height. It is a very easy hike and the reward is well worth the effort.

Ripley Falls

After we left Ripley Falls we did one of the most popular hikes in the Whites, Mt. Willard. Mt. Willard is a small mountain with a huge view that looks into Crawford Notch. The hike is 3.2 miles round trip. It has an elevation gain of 900 feet. As hikes up mountains go, it is very mild. The slope of the trail is very consistent the whole way up. There aren't any steep sections. It is very popular trail with families with kids and dogs. It was still extremely cloudy when we went up. I knew we wouldn't see the higher peaks over 3800 feet, but I knew we would have a good look down into the notch.

We made it up in less than an hour. We had our lunch on one of the big rock slabs looking into Crawford Notch. Even though we are past Columbus Day, and the weather was raw, there were quite a few hikers. I bet we saw 40 or more people and at least eight dogs. There was plenty of room at the top so the people didn't bother me. Just getting out on a hike after dealing with Thursday's rain made me happy.

Pearl Cascade is five minutes from
the Mt. Willard Trail

When we got down we went back to our tent site to pack the tent. We didn't do it in the morning because it was wet and we wanted to get an early start. We had a porcupine that had been hanging around our tent site for two days. He was there Thursday afternoon and he was there right before dark when we came back for the night.

When we left on Friday morning, I suspected he didn't go far but we didn't see him. However, when we got back to the site to break camp, there he was again eating leaves and grass. He was around so much that Laurie gave him a name, Boris. He had no fear of us at all. We could talk at a normal volume. As long as I stayed eight feet away, he would keep doing his thing. If I got within eight feet, he would slowly sounder a few feet away. Do you realize how close to a porcupine eight feet is? Although he had no fear, he did not make the best photo subject. He mostly kept his face down while feeding. When he did lift his face, he had a big brow of quills right over his face covering most of it. Still it was only the third porcupine I have ever seen. It was nice to have Boris around camp.

After we packed, I took Laurie on a wild goose chase looking for two backcountry ponds. We couldn't reach them because the fishermen's trail we followed petered out and became a swamp.  We stepped in ankle deep mud and got wet feet. Lets just say if Laurie's looks could kill, I would not be writing this right now.

Upper Hall Pond where we satarted our misadventure
looking for the mountain ponds.

The one positive of the "hike" is we saw a pileated woodpecker and heard/saw loons. We also saw a salamander, the first of the year for me.

All in all, even though we only had the one day and the weather was less than perfect, I'm glad we went to NH one more time for the year.

New England Rodeo

It's boots and chaps

It's cowboy hats

It's spurs and latigo

It's the ropes and the reins

It's the joy and the pain

And they call the thing rodeo

-Garth Brooks

A rider getting ready in the shoot

Friday night Laurie and I went to the New England Rodeo n Norton, MA. I was pretty surprised to find out there was a rodeo in Massachusetts. I was even more surprised that it wasn't in a city or even a fairground. It is in Norton in the middle of nowhere off of I-495.

The rodeo has been going on all summer. If you are interested, the rodeo is on Friday nights at 8 pm. There is a ten dollar admission fee. 

There are two different events that go on during the rodeo. There is barrel racing for women and girls. The other event is bull riding. The events are staggered. There were a few barrel races followed by a few cowboys riding bulls and back to the barrel racing, back and forth. 

I went because I really wanted to see the bull riding. I wasn't expecting tv rodeo bull riding. I was expecting small bulls and nothing really dangerous. I was wrong! These were full size, big, mean, dangerous bulls. To qualify for a score a cowboy has to stay on the bull for eight seconds. I can tell you, the bulls won a lot more than they lost. One of the bulls is in the Rodeo Hall of Fame. Another has not been rode for eight seconds all year! One of the cowboys that got bucked off got stepped on by a bull in the inner thigh near the groin area. The sport is definitely dangerous. 

In between events there were side shows to keep the crowd entertained. One was a cowboy doing tricks with a lasso. Another was a guy riding a horse shooting balloons while the horse is running. There was also a kid riding a calf a couple of times. 

I really enjoyed the rodeo. I wish I didn't wait until the end of the season  to go. It was obviously something completely different. It seems like the people in Norton made a commitment to host the New England Rodeo. So I assume that the rodeo will be in Norton again next year. I plan on going back.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of bull riding. All of my pictures came out blurry.

First Legal Tog

There are some things I think I'm pretty good at. I feel like I know what I'm doing when it comes to striper fishing. I feel confident that if there are trout in front of me sooner rather than later I will figure out how to catch them. I have worked really hard to be a half decent birder.

However, if there is one thing I suck at, it is catching tautog! I don't mean not very good, I mean, I really, really, suck at catching them. Don't get me wrong, I can fish for them just fine. I can stand on the shoreline rod in hand with a crab on the business end.Getting one to bite my offering, for whatever the reason, that I do not have a knack for.

Truthfully, I don't know what I'm doing. Sure I know a couple of things about the good ole blackfish such as they are sight feeders. I know they obviously like cool water and rocky areas. This is all well and good, but I've only ever caught one tautog and it was a short until yesterday.

Yesterday, between birding, albie fishing, and a rodeo (upcoming post) I managed almost two hours of targeting tautog. I was overjoyed to catch a little one of roughly 12 inches. About 45 minutes later, I was absolutely ecstatic to catch my first keeper tog. Legal size is sixteen inches. After measuring it three times, just to be sure, I can confidently say it was exactly 16.25 inches.

Here's to hoping I get a couple more before the year is over!!!

200th Species of Bird in Rhode Island

Bird species 199
American Pipit

Today I reached a milestone for the year. I saw my 200th bird species in Rhode Island for the year. I broke my old record of 161 months ago, but I really didn't think I'd get to two hundred. Yesterday I saw my 199th species; American Pipit at Snake Den Farm.

Today I struck out at the first three places I went looking for target birds. First I went back to Snake Den hoping to see a Lark Sparrow without any luck. Then I stopped at Dragon Palace in Coventry that had a Sora there last week, again no luck. After that I went to Napatree hoping to see a Long Billed Dowitcher, but ended up going 0-3.

After 90 minutes of fishing I went to Trustom to see what was around. Out on the pond were a bunch of Ruddy Ducks along with other species. Ruddy Duck became my 200th species in Rhode Island.

I've seen 200 species in Rhode Island
I've seen 19 other species in other New England states that I haven't seen in RI for an obvious total of 219.

My previous New England high was 182 so that number is also obliterated. There are still a few fairly easy birds I missed so I think it is possible to get close to 210 in RI and 230 New England. We will see. Either way, it has been a fun year.