In the Right Place: Adaptation

Double-Crested Cormorants are perhaps the most skilled fishing birds in the country. They dive deep and long for fish and eels, swiftly prowling the murkiness with crackling blue eyes, their muscular legs pumping big webbed feet simultaneously.  

But, they have a related quirk that puzzles people: they spend significant time doing what looks like praying to the sun with outstretched wings.

It was once thought that a lack of preening oil created a need to air out their wet feathers. But, recent research shows that, unlike most other birds, Cormorants’ outer feathers are designed (“morphologically adapted”) to absorb water and repel air bubbles. This adaptation significantly reduces the problem of buoyancy underwater.

Thus, Cormorant feathers get wetter than those of other water birds and need to be warmed and air-blown. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Measuring Up

Low tide can be dramatic, especially in areas such as ours where the tides rise and fall more than a few feet. Our daily tides this week will rise and fall an average of a little more than 12 feet, according to the tide tables; individual tides may be significantly higher, depending on a host of variables.

Here we see the mouth of Patten Stream at near-low tide, rushing down boulders and past green macroalgae that were well under water hours ago. During high tides, there is no steep fall of the Stream: its sweet waters flow out almost directly into the salty tidal waters of Patten Bay. The difference probably is most perceptible to the thousands of Alewives (fish) and Elvers (young eels) that swim up this stream during their migration seasons. (Surry, Maine)

In the Right Place: Getting High

Where do you look at shorebirds? Along the shore, of course. But, if you get that funny feeling that someone or something is looking at you, search the overhanging pine trees for shore birds.

It wouldn’t be unusual for you to find a Great Blue Heron giving you the evil eye for disturbing its siesta. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Invasions We Have Known

Two invaders are fighting a war to the death at our pond: Purple Loosestrife (Lythrom salicaria) and common Cattails (Typha latifolia). The former is an aggressive wetland plant originally from Asia and Europe, the latter an almost uncontrollable native of North America’s marshes.

Ironically, Purple Loosestrife was introduced in many parts of this country for erosion control, but now most jurisdictions consider it to be a noxious invader. One reason for the success of this purple menace is that, unlike Cattails, it sports beautiful flowers that are very attractive to bees, other pollinators, and many humans. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Basic Needs

Great Cove is awakening slowly in the early-morning fog.

The quiet is profound. We try to breathe the silence in deeply, becoming aware that we crave it. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: An August Moment

It’s morning in Great Cove. The wind from the southwest is too light to chafe the sea, but it is enough to bring all vessels to its attention.

WoodenBoat School students are being ferried to their small sailboats on a School skiff; soon, they’ll raise sails and hunt for wind. A yawl boat on the Mary Day is being hoisted up while the schooner’s tarpaulin is coming down; the 125-foot windjammer’s own sails will be raised one by one next and she’ll sweep out into Eggemoggin Reach. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Who Goes There?

American Crows operate an early-warning system to protect their gatherings while they forage. They post sentinels and revolve these guards to make sure everyone is fed.

The collective noun for a gathering of these birds is a “murder of crows,” a term that has been attributed to the influence of folk tales. In one tale, the reason that crows gather together is to decide whether to put one of their kin to death for violating a crow rule; in many other tales, crows and ravens are omens of an impending death.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Tow, Tow, Tow Your Boat

All rowboats are not created equal. Some never are dragged across a beach or left moored in the water.

This rowing shell has been towed to Great Cove, where it will be backed gently into the briny. Once afloat and manned (or womanned), it will cut through the water fast and gracefully. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Piping Up

We’ll probably never make the varsity birdwatching team.  After many years trying, we still can’t tell most Sandpipers apart.

Varsity birders see a brown blur and say: “Look – medium size, no clear wing stripe, slightly curved beak, greenish legs – it’s a Pectoral Sandpiper!” Our usual method of identification is to take as many photos of the blur as we can and then compare them to the Sandpipers in Peterson and Sibley – which often don’t completely match our photos.

Applying our method, we think that the birds that you see here might be Pectoral Sandpipers. These birds get their name from the male’s attempts to impress the ladies by flexing his pectoral muscles to puff out his chest and body. Take a look at the Lothario in the image directly above.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Salty Dog

We have here a moment in which a good-looking dog of uncertain shepherd lineage has just stepped out of a bath in Great Cove and suddenly realizes that we are watching him. He gives us his best what-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-looking-at? stare before trotting off.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Deadly Speed

The sleek Peregrine Falcon arguably is the fastest bird in the world. It dives for prey at 200 miles per hour or more, often using its clenched foot to stun, kill, or break the wing of a duck or other medium-sized bird in flight.

This falcon likes to capture its wounded prey in the air, but will let an injured heavy target fall to the ground for the coup de grace.

Falcons have been held in awe throughout history and deified in ancient religions. For example, the Egyptian god Horus often was depicted as having a falcon’s head. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: The Odd Couple

Two Maine-based celebrities spent Sunday night together in Great Cove and went their separate ways yesterday: the 122-foot luxury yacht Atlantide out of Blue Hill and the 130-foot windjammer Angelique out of Camden.

Looks can be deceiving with these two. Angelique was designed as a 19th Century English Channel gaff topsail ketch, but she was built here for tourists in 1980.

Atlantide was designed as a personal motor yacht (with auxiliary sails) for Sir William Burton and built in England in 1930; she saw naval service in the evacuation of Dunkirk in World War II.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: More Rarely Asked Questions

Why did they name a weed after Joe Pye – and who is he, anyway? Joe-Pye Weed is now budding here and some of the plants have started to blossom early. Soon, many of our fallow fields will be covered with the plants’ purple haze, which butterflies and bees seem to prefer to garden fare.

The origin of the plant's name is a subject of debate, but virtually all researchers state that the major probability is that it refers to a Colonial-era Native American medicine man in Massachusetts named Joe Pye. Joe was known for using poultices of the plant to treat fevers, especially typhoid. The less popular theory is that the plant’s name is a corruption or phonetic spelling of Jopi, a Native American word for typhoid. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: All's Well That Ends Well

Despite patches of dense fog and an occasional sprinkle, the 33rd Annual Eggemoggin Reach Regatta started virtually on time and considerably brightened a very gray day.

Some boats were newer, some older.

Some observers arrived in classics of their own.

Afterward, there were mooring parties and then a dinner and festivities on the WoodenBoat Campus.

For more comprehensive coverage of the race, click this link:

https://leightons.smugmug.com/US-States/Maine/Out/2017-in-Maine/Eggemoggin-Reach-Regatta/

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Oh-Oh

Today is race day and it dawned dimly – Great Cove and the rest of Eggemoggin Reach were ensnared in fog. Many of the participants for today’s 33rd annual Eggemoggin Reach Regatta moored in Great Cove last night to facilitate getting to nearby Torrey Ledge by start time.

The first class of boats is scheduled to start from there at 11 a.m. As this is being written, the fog in the Cove has burned off and it is easing a bit in the Reach.

A Skipper’s meeting is now being held at WoodenBoat to discuss matters. The race has been called off only once, but the party was held. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Fast Beauty

The legendary Alera, a regular visitor to Great Cove, was here in July and is expected back tomorrow in the 33d annual Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. That highly-regarded race finishes its 15-mile course in the Cove. Last year, Alera won her class (Classic-A).

Launched in 1904, she’s also known as “NY 1” and “NY30#1” because she was the first of the New York Yacht Club’s 30-foot series designed by the renowned naval architect Nathanael Greene Herreshoff. Eighteen of her kind eventually were built. (Nat Herreshoff designed every winning defender of the America’s Cup from 1893 through 1920, among other accomplishments.)

The name Alera means Eagle in Latin.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Questions Rarely Asked

How does a Bald Eagle drink with that big beak? Well, let’s put it this way: you don’t want to be next to the bird.

Image info: Nikon D-810; Nikkor 500mm, f/4 lens with 1.7 TC producing 850mm; f/6.7, 1/3200 sec; ISO 500.

What you also may wonder is what happened next? When this Eagle spotted me creeping up on her yesterday, she pivoted and flew in the opposite direction; thereupon, I took a magnificent image (at a shutter speed of 1/3200th of a second) of an Eagle Butt in flight, which would be of use only if the bird needed a colonoscopy.

Image info: Nikon D-810; Nikkor 500mm, f/4 lens with 1.7 TC producing 850mm; f/6.7, 1/3200 sec; ISO 500.

(Union River; Ellsworth, Maine)

In the Right Place: Exclamation Points

Blazing Star (Liatris) buds are starting to open in Barbara’s garden, much to the satisfaction of this Monarch Butterfly and other pollinators.

Image info: Nikon D-180; Nikkor 200-400mm, f/4 zoom lens at 400mm; f/20 1/80 sec.; ISO 250.

Also called Gayfeather or Cattail Gayfeather, this plant grows wild, often on the borders of conifer woods, provides an alluring set of blue-purple exclamation marks in the garden. (Brooklin, Maine)

Postcards From Maine: The July Collection

July is the height of the year in this “Vacationland” state.

The month virtually began here with the annual 4th of July parade and picnic, complete with classic cars, fire engines, floats and the amazingly good Brooklin Town Band.

For the most part, the July weather gods did their job and produced eye-popping vistas in which salty cool breezes made your chest ache for a huge gulp of the real, fresh air.

But this is coastal Maine, where the weather takes orders from no one. We had our share of fog and rain, including a few tourist-groaning days in which rain coincided with a very low tide. But, for most of us, beauty never left the stage no matter what the lighting director did.

For gardeners, a good combination of sun and rain produced a bumper crop of happy flowers. (Morning fog also is a great moisturizer for the beautiful faces of young flowers.) Outrageously red Bee Balm, multicolored Yarrow, and golden Ornamental Sunflowers were especially bountiful.

For walkers, the winding country roads and trails were -- and still are -- wonderful places to see wildflowers, even invasive plants such as Fireweed and Crown Vetch.

Our birders' binoculars runneth over in July. A few of our colorful feathered tourists included Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, those three-inch zooming jewels; aptly-named Goldeneyed Ducks; Maraschino-cherry-eyed male wood Ducks in their summer molts, and Great Blue Herons sweeping over the waters like witches on brooms.

Of course, July is a big birthing month here. As regular readers of this Journal have seen, we monitored the birth, raising, and departure of twin Broad-Winged Hawks.

Among other beginnings-of-life events on which we reported, there was a diaspora of half-inch American Toads leaving the bogs by the hundreds; the arrival of a two-inch Painted Turtle youngster in our Pond, where it was accepted by our summer resident turtles; and a collective nursery of female Common Eider ducks trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to protect their ducklings from Bald Eagles.

It might be a birthing month for wildlife, but July is the beginning of a serious sailing month for many humans here. Although we have those who come into Great Cove on big historic Schooners, such as the Angelique, most sail the Cove’s winds in smaller craft.

In July, however, you don’t have to be on the sea to enjoy the coast on a lovely summer’s day. Many of us can let the toxins evaporate from our minds and bodies simply by watching graceful, bobbing boats being arranged and rearranged by their true masters, the winds and currents.

For larger versions of the above images and camera settings, as well as many additional images of special moments in July, click on the link below. (We recommend that your initial viewing be in full-screen mode, which can be achieved by clicking on the Slideshow [>] icon above the featured image in the gallery to which the link will take you.) Here’s the link for more:

https://leightons.smugmug.com/US-States/Maine/Out/2017-in-Maine/July-Postcards-From-Maine/i-Nb8jK6J

Cheers,

Barbara and Dick

In the Right Place: The Heron Ascending

The Great Blue Heron in flight evokes shadowy spirits.

Image info: Nikon D-180; Nikkor 200-400mm, f/4 zoom lens at 380mm; f/4; 1/3200 sec.; ISO 200.

It flies silently on big wings that bend and flow with cape-like flexibility; its long neck and prehistoric head are hooked and tucked in flight; its lengthy legs trail straight and stiff like a flying broom; its unblinking yellow eyes stare through us.

Yet, perhaps strangely, many of us welcome the bird as a beautiful sight. (Brooklin, Maine)