Tag Archives: Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary

Yellow Creeping Buttercup Blooming At The Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary On Cape Cod.

It is such a treat this time of year to see the wildflowers starting to bloom along the trails. This one was blooming at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. There are so many things to see there from wildflowers to wildlife, to birds, etc. Just take one of their many trails and you never know what you will see!

Spring On The Trail At The Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary On Cape Cod.

The Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is one of our favorite places to hike. It was especially pretty this day with the Forsythia blooming along the trail. It feels like spring is just about here!

Have you ever hike at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary? With so much to see in the visitor’s center and along the trails, it is great for the whole family!

 

So Many Benches To View The Gorgeous Views On Cape Cod!

Bayview Trail at the Wellfleet Wildlife Sanctuary has several benches that beckon you as you hike by. The views are spectacular which ever way you look. A perfect place to sit, relax and enjoy nature on the trail.

I especially liked this bench on the trail which looks out over the salt marsh to Wellfleet Bay. So pretty, don’t you think?

Witch Hazel, My First Wildflower of The Year On Cape Cod!

Phil and I took a nice hike at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary a couple of days ago and were so surprised to see a yellow flower already blooming on a bush on the side of the trail. I had no idea what it was so I took some photographs and asked inside. It is “Witch Hazel” and blooms in February! Wow! (You can see all the little clusters in the photograph below.)

Witch Hazels are deciduous shrubs and are in the flowering plant family.  Each flower has four slender 1/2″ strap-shaped petals which are dark yellow, orange, or red. The fruit is a two-part capsule containing a single 14 inch glossy black seed in each of the two parts.

This is really cool… “The capsule splits explosively at  maturity in the autumn about 8 months after flowering, ejecting the seeds with sufficient force to fly for distances of up to 30 feet. That is amazing!

So cool to see a flower blooming in the middle of winter and one that I’ve never seen before!

 

 

Cooper’s Hawk Just Caught A Bunny At The Wellfleet Audubon On Cape Cod!

Phil and I were taking a hike at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary a couple of days ago when I saw a hawk right on the trail. He had just caught something and was dragging it onto the trail. By the time I got my camera out, he had seen us and flew away. We waited a bit but he didn’t come down from the tree, so we walked by and saw a very large bunny on the trail.

On the way back we noticed that the bunny was no longer where it had been. There was the hawk, dragging the bunny down the trail. He kept trying to get it up in the air but to no avail. He couldn’t lift it.

The hawk finally was able to drag the bunny  off the trail into the woods. We were quite a ways away but we were able to get some really cool photographs of this beautiful Cooper’s Hawk protecting its prey.

Pretty amazing, don’t you think?