Cape Cod Summer 2018 |
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I don't make it out to Cape Cod every year, but it is a fovorite destination of mine and I have such wonderful luck with photography that I try to visit the Cape whenever I can. It's close, it's beautiful and I never walk away without some good photos to share. And then, of course, there are lobsters, oysters and chowder to consume. :) |
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My First Gray Seal My beautiful wife Susan and I decided to make our first trip of the Cape Cod excursion to the Coast Guard Beach in Eastham. We had been there many times before, but were not prepared for the huge number of people that were there on that particular afternoon. I was also beyond excited when I discovered a large number of gray seals that were floating just off the beach. A sand bar had created a little sheltered area where the seals could relax and not worry too much about the white sharks that were being seen all up and down the cape that year.
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My First Whale Watch It was with great excitement that I boarded the ship that would depart from Hyannis and take me out to see whales. Prior to this trip I had only witnessed Cape Cod from the beach, but now I was going out to sea to an area called the "pelagic zone." A whole new ecosystem was waiting for me and before we even got near any whales I spotted this Great Shearwater floating on the calm ocean water. It was only there for a moment, but I got a photo and checked another life bird off my list. |
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There Be Whales Here! After the shearwater was a distant dot in my rearview mirror, we arrived at a location where humpback whales were living their lives. In the distance some very large males were breeching, but closer to the ship there were female whales that were more interested in feeding. At one point, the feeding activities came very close to the ship and I snapped this photo of a whale gulping up a school of small fish. I like this photo becuase it shows one small fish (in the white water just below the whale's head) that escaped! |
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A Delicious Tidbit The following day I convinced the rest of Susan's family to accompany my out to First Encounter Beach (also in Eastham). I had consulted the tide charts and I knew that the perfect low tide would occur long before the non-photographers were willing to get up, so I went ahead and had Susan bring the others along at a more "reasonable" hour. Virtually alone in the early morning, I headed out across the sand flats and took over 1,000 photos of birds. One of my favorite is this black-bellied plover yanking a huge worm out of the sand. The bird then gathered up the worm, washed it off in a nearby puddle and swallowed it whole. Not exactly a Wellfleet oyster, but the bird seemed pleased.
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Copyright 2020 William Danielson |
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