August was our best summer month this year. Some days were so brilliant that even low tide looked like a production number from an MGM extravaganza:
Our fields were in prime summer colors at the hot beginning of the month and, as usual, they turned into fall yellows, whites, and browns by the cool end of the month. Our woods were steadfastly wonderful all month.
Our streams shrunk to trickles during a few dry periods in the month, but several impressive storms brought them back to raging life.
August was one of the best in recent history for attracting and maintaining Monarch Butterflies, which have had difficulties in recent years. Many laid their eggs on milkweed so that their colorful caterpillars would emerge, eat voraciously, and sew themselves up in a chrysalis out of which the next generation of Monarchs would emerge and sip nectar from Echinacea and other flowers
Among other pollinators that were in abundance this August were Clearwinged Hummingbird Moths, Bumble Bees, and Painted Lady Butterflies.
Butterflies were not the only August wildlife to be painted. There was a particularly good showing of Painted Turtles in our ponds as well as dragonflies, including 12-Spotted Skimmers and Red Meadowhawks.
August is fishing season up here, especially for the Great Blue Herons that silently stalk the shallows along our shores:
Further up those same shores, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers roam the water’s edges and perch on rocks during the month. They’re almost impossible to tell apart in the wild because you usually can’t get close enough to see whether their legs are green (Least) or black (Semipalmated).
Our harbors are extraordinarily busy in August. Naskeag Harbor is where many of our lobster boats moor and sell their catch . It is there that you can see that not all of our fishermen use lobster traps, although they all seem to wear oilskin bib pants.
Great Cove is where where the large schooners come in to allow their tourist passengers to visit the renowned WoodenBoat School there. Among the windjammers that visited in August were Mary Day, Actress, American Eagle, and the Lewis R. French.
This August, Great Cove hosted some unusual and historic vessels, including Alera, a famous racing sailboat launched in 1905, and the motor yacht Atlantide, which helped evacuate Dunkirk in World War II.
A variety of small rowboats made colorful appearances in Great Cove during August; they liked to pose when the water was still:
Nonetheless, August’s combination of warm and cool (sometimes crisp) days did produce some significant fogs. At times, we couldn’t see Mount Cadillac in Acadia National Park across Blue Hill Bay; at other times, we saw only the mountain’s summit. In Great Cove, the boats would appear and disappear in the mull.
But that moist fog helped to produce a bumper crop of August’s signature flowers: colorful Lilies and white Queen Anne’s Lace:
August also is when the Beach Rose Hips turn red, Wild Blackberries turn black, Wild Apples turn green and red, and Mountain Ash berries turn orange:.
Speaking of Blackberries, the August full moon was called by some Native American tribes the Blackberry Moon, because that fruit ripens during the month,; it also was known by other tribes as the Sturgeon Moon, because those fish run during the month,
(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during August 2019.)