A Cape Cod Notebook

It’s not even May, and the “Swallow-tailed Kite triangle” of Cape Cod is already popping off with early sightings. There were no fewer than five reports of this improbably graceful hawk over the last week.

What really impresses me at this time of year, at any time of year, actually, are the lichens. These otherworldly beings, growing on tree bark and branches, spreading on the ground or on rocks or gravestones, seem to thrive in any weather.

On the Vineyard, it’s different. Spring, when it finally deigns to make an entrance, take the stage at a stately pace. Here, daffodils are soloists. Arriving to great applause, they get a seemingly endless overture.

The other day I took some old friends up to Great Point. The weather wasn’t particularly good — Nantucket in March, we kept grumbling. I don’t think they’d mind me saying old friends, as it’s true. Both are older than me by a mile, and they don’t get around as easily as they once did.

Those of you who travel the north side of Cape Cod know that Route 6A has been closed in Dennis for several months, and a detour sends drivers either north through Sesuit Neck or south to Scargo Hill Road.

There are gnomes hiding on Route 6A.And before you think I’m a little too far into the Chardonnay, let me reassure you that I know they are not real.

The European green crab has quite the reputation. They’re smart ... in a dangerous way. They’re voracious, predatory and they eat their young!

My father stands in the doorway of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond. Of course, there is no cabin anymore, instead the cabin’s footprint is marked with narrow granite stones, giving the whole place an unintended funerary feeling.

My dog America, a full-on poodle, loves to stare into pines and oaks that quill out of a hillside down to the marsh. She’ll do this sitting on a comfy bed by a window, standing outside on a deck, or curled atop pine needles.

We’ve all had one of those neighbors. You know what I mean. The ones that keep offbeat hours. Or they just wander onto your property without asking. Or they disturb your household with their comings and goings.