Plum Island Safari

Looking across the Ipswich Bay from Halibut Point a great stretch of sand marks the horizon, some of which is preserved as the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island and adjacent estuaries. I decided it was time to take a look.

Egrets, ducks, and wading birds

The inner side of the refuge offers both salt water and fresh water habitat. Its great advantage over Halibut Point as a food producer for wildlife is the prevalence of mud.

Dunes and ocean

The outer side looks back at Halibut Point's rocky shoreline and quarry ponds. The environments could scarcely be more different. Plum Island's sand dunes continuing into shallow water form another part of its distinctive ecology.

Near the entrance to the Refuge is a tribute to legendary naturalist Ludlow Griscom of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. I was gratified to read on the plaque that he played a leading role in establishing the 4,700 acre sanctuary. Eleven years ago in these Notes I reported on a conversation I had with Roland Clement, aged 101, concerning a birding trip to Halibut Point with the charismatic Griscom in 1941. Here is an excerpt: People were either awed by him, or hated him. I was a lucky protégé for a year or so....It was our aim to outdo our guru in first spotting some rare find. Or, heavenly luck, catch him in some hasty misidentification. But he almost always took a second look before speaking out, so we remained empty-handed.

Cormorants, gulls, and egrets in a feeding frenzy
on small fish driven to the surface by larger fish

The Refuge is simultaneously a place of serenity and of existential tumult.

Harrier, or Marsh Hawk

A visitor might well get a sense of being on safari in a distant, exotic landscape.

Osprey

Given the richness of these estuaries in supporting colonies of wildlife, it is not surprising that Plum Island attracts a wide range of birds of prey.

Red-tailed Hawk

Fierce raptors patrol the air eyeing the teeming flocks of shorebirds and rodents scurrying in the uplands.

Sandpipers and plovers take flight

Here the appearance of a falcon overhead panics waders feeding on the mud flats.

Merlin (falcon)

The falcon circled and burst into the flock as it veered distractingly in hopes of collective safety.

The Merlin and a Semipalmated Plover

The falcon succeeded in knocking down one of the shorebirds to its demise.

Greater Yellowlegs and Short-billed Dowitcher

Of course those mild-mannered mud probers are also carnivorous in their appetites as they insert their bills into the mud for tiny invertebrates.

Common Tern with fish

So are the graceful terns patrolling the waters off the beach.

Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets rising

This refuge at the edge of the continent sustains not only its resident wildlife but as a critical staging area in the Atlantic flyway for countless songbirds arriving and departing on migration flights across thousands of miles of ocean.

The U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service manages the preserve with a nice balance of primal sanctuary and recreational access and vistas for visitors. Even for those of us lucky enough to frequent Halibut Point, a trip to Plum Island feels like a safari to an exotic but accessible destination.