April here this year threw everything she had at us — sun, snow, rain, wind, fog, cold, warm, clear skies, cloudy skies, and a lot of indeterminates. Meanwhile, our flora and fauna flourished with buds, early flowers, the return of migrant birds, and the seeming joy of all-year resident wild life.
As usual, we begin our Postcards with the monthly view of four iconic scenes for future reference. The views of Mount Desert Island (where Acadia National Park is) and the white house on Harbor Island deserve contrasting images this month:
The views of the near-mountain named Blue Hill and the old red boat house in Conary Cove look best in sunshine and amid evergreens in mostly-leafless April:
Many of us will remember April of 2025 for its magical spring snowstorm that swept in one day, covered spring growth in crystals, made everything dazzle in the next day’s sun, and melted away almost before we knew what had happened:
As for wildlife, the April resident standouts included our resolute white-tailed deer herds that bedded down in rain and enjoyed making shadows on the sunny new grass. Porcupines came down from the winter trees to nibble grass that had newly-turned green, painted turtles and North American river otters appeared in ponds, and resident black-capped chickadees kept a sharp eye on their territories while migrant birds started to arrive.
The big news among migrant wildlife was that Ozzie and Harriet returned to their nearby nest once again. These osprey (fish hawks) busied themselves in April by copulating often, fixing up their huge nest with new branches and moss, and defending their home from jealous ospreys who can’t afford waterfront property:
Canada geese flocks made many stopovers on their way north and we might have convinced a great blue heron to stay and be a warm weather resident.
Incoming wood ducks loved to parade in the ponds while rain drops plinked the water around them.
Finally as to fauna, April is when the glass eel season begins in earnest here. Large nets are spread at the mouths of the streams that these migrating baby American eels (“elvers”) use to get to the freshwater ponds and lakes in which they’ll mature.
As for flora, April is when much of our vegetation starts to awaken and a few traditional spring plants burst on the scene in dramatic flowerings. In terms of trees, the biggest contrast is the new growth on our mighty white pines compared to the flowerheads on red maple trees:
Two favored spring bushes that are famous for producing beautiful flowers before they grow leaves are forsythias, which have small yellow flowers, and star magnolias, where the white flowers begin as pussy-willow-like buds and burst into shooting stars.
Of course, it wouldn’t be spring if it weren’t trumpeted in by daffodils and sprinkled with wild bluets
Around and in the vernal pools, orbs of Japanese sweet coltsfoot and spires of skunk cabbage were the usual early risers that produced life-saving nectar for our first pollinating insects, while young fiddle-headed ferns sprung to attention and began to unfurl.
On the working waterfront, the season for hand-harvesting divers’ scallops ended in April. Here, sporting the blue and white international diving flag, is a fishing vessel used as a platform for winter scallop harvesting by a diver in a wetsuit and underwater breathing apparatus:
April also is the month when many Maine towns hold their Annual Meetings at which the townspeople make community-related decisions for the future:
Finally, and perhaps most spectacularly, there was the April full moon that we never saw fully. It snowed that night and the sky was full of fleeing storm clouds. But, the full moon had plenty of luminescence and shone through those storm clouds to create a night-time (2 a.m.) snowscape of extraordinary drama:
(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during April 2025.)