Plum Island Take 2

When at first you don't succeed, try, try again! 

Well today we decided to try Plum Island again. We had hoped that the green heads and black flies were gone for the season. After paying our entrance fee of $5 (very cheap for area beaches) we drove down the road heading towards the very end. Not long afterwards we came upon lots of cars and people taking pictures of THOUSANDS of Tree Swallows in the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge area.

I did not get a picture but this one from another photographer is what we saw:

Well those birds eat a lot of bugs and with so many we figured that heading to the end was not in our best interest. So we turned around and headed back to the first beach area after passing the gate. 

Our usual selfie 

Our view down the beach towards Newbury

Our view down the beach towards Ipswich

I wish we could say that it was a great beach day and it would have been except for the VICIOUS black flies. We were inundated with them shortly after remarking on the fact that there were only a few of the green heads. I tried using my sunscreen from Avon that has Skin So Soft in it which many had said keeps them away but it only worked for a few minutes until it soaked into my skin. We took a walk down the beach to get away from the pesky pests which helped but this section of the beach is very slanted towards the water and it not really good for walking. We stayed until 1:30pm when we called it quits. Leaving the beach that early is unusual for us and we conceded that the black flies won that round.

We ventured in our car around the Plum Island area down to the end of the point where the beach area meets the Merrimack River. All told a nice day and we will be back! This time in late September and will go all the way to the end to the Sandy Point State Reservation. Maybe I will then beachcomb for more sand dollars.