In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch III

The American Eagle sneaked into Great Cove without us noticing on the evening of June 30, her first night of a four-night cruise. Early the next day, we were pleasantly surprised to see her anchored offshore of the WoodenBoat School.

When the wind freshened later in the morning , the American Eagle hoisted sail and departed to the Southwest on her advertised Wildlife Tour in which Bald Eagles and Harbor Seal sightings often are highlights:

This 90-foot schooner is a National Historic Landmark out of Rockland, Maine. She was launched in 1930 as the Andrew & Rosalie, the last fishing schooner built in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In 1941, during World War II, she was renamed American Eagle.

She fished until 1983 and then went through difficult times until she was totally renovated in 1986 as a sleek tourist schooner.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Appetizers

We have too many blessings to count, but we do count some worries – and this little Mallard is one of five of them. He (assumption as to sex), his attentive Mom, and his four siblings have been safely convoying a local marsh pond for at least 10 days.

All are quick to dart into the cattails at the slightest disturbance. Credit, as usual, goes to Mom; she must be ever-diligent and her babes must be well-trained. A young animal’s life often depends on its unthinking and immediate response to parental commands – Silence! Scatter! Hide! Come!

Their pond has no snapping turtles, as far as we know. However, we do have Ospreys and Bald Eagles – neighbors that appear to think that puffy duckling is the perfect hors d'oeuvre to have before a fish dinner.  (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Spring Sermons

There were a lot of preachers in our dry woods Sunday – and all of them not only were named Jack, each seemed to be praying for rain. Graceful Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants are popping up all over the boggier parts of the forest, with their spadices (“Jacks”) standing tall in their spathes (“Pulpits”).

The plants are lovely, but dangerous: their leaves are significant irritants to humans and can be toxic to horses, dogs, and cats. Nonetheless, Native Americans used the plants’ roots to treat rheumatism and snake bites.

Oh, didn’t we tell you? It rained hard Monday (yesterday) and is still doing so as we speak. (Brooklin, Maine) Go Caps!

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch II

Angelique motored into Great Cove at dusk Wednesday (May 30) with her famous tanbark-colored sails furled. This was the first night of a "Three-Night Wildlife Cruise" on this windjammer out of Camden, Maine. Thursday dawned on her in the Cove as most of her passengers slept.

After breakfast, some of Angelique's passengers rowed themselves ashore for a short visit to the WoodenBoat campus and its store:

We got to see her full beauty about 11 a.m., when Angelique departed under almost full sail.

She was built in 1980 for the tourist trade and meant to look very old, but have modern conveniences – including a metal hull. Angelique is 130 feet long overall and the only Maine windjammer that is configured as a gaff-rigged topsail ketch.

Her sails’ color is part of her old look. When sails were made of cotton, the sailcloth often was dipped in tree bark tannin to protect against rot; the resulting red-brown color was (and is) called tanbark. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Karaoke Time

Gray Catbirds usually hide in dense bushes and trees, where their slate gray bodies and black caps become part of the shadows. This fellow here was an exception for a few seconds.

Male Catbirds do a lot of what they think is singing. They are intense, imaginative mimics, but we wouldn’t call them melodic. Males have been known to perform 10 straight minutes without repeating a phrase (unlike Northern Mockingbirds, which repeat).

A virtuoso Catbird has a repertoire of more than 100 sounds, including its rough versions of other birds’ songs, frog croaks, local machine noises, and what sounds to us like Rap Music.

One of the non-song sounds that Catbirds make is “Mew” and they often repeat it like a mantra – “Mew, Mew, Mew, Mew” – which is why they’re not called Dogbirds. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Never Give Up

Something happened yesterday that was literally important to a few and symbolically important to many. It was a day of resurrection: Dear Abbie:, a significant part of our fishing fleet, came back to life.

In January, a vicious, high-wind ice storm swept Naskeag Harbor. Dear Abbie: got wrenched from her mooring, drifted, grounded, and was relentlessly beaten and crippled by the elements. Around here, that’s a heartbreaker, even if you’re not a fisherman whose life revolves around his or her boat. Here's an image of the original vessel powering into Naskeag Harbor on a cold winter's day:

Her Captain, Scott Keenan, and her family began a rebuilding process at our Atlantic Boat Company.

Yesterday, the sparkling Dear Abbie: was launched with, among other things, a new hull, reconfigured cabin, and more powerful engine.

The rumor is that she’s “Hot” and will do well in the Lobster Boat Races. (Brooklin, Maine)

May Postcards From Maine

Let’s begin with a description of a May day here. Morning, especially in early May, often arrives wrapped in a soft fog:

By mid-morning, a May day can be eye-squintingly bright,:

By evening, if we’re lucky, we’ll have a golden orange sunset. May is the month when the setting sun is directly behind nearby Pumpkin Island Lighthouse for a few days:

As the orange sky darkens – blue, to royal blue, to black –  a May day can exit by displaying a spectacular moon. The full moon on May 29 was one of those days:

On a day-by-day basis, May is a month of extraordinary flora growth. Here are images of local Skunk Cabbage, Ostrich Fern, and Arrow Arum, comparing their size in the first week ("before") and on the last day of May ("after"):

Part of that May growth was because we had good April rain (and snow!). Here’s a local woods’ stream surging through its mossy banks during the first half of May:

May is for romantic birds, many of them migrants from well south of us. Among  the migrants were the feisty male Red-Winged Blackbirds and their demure, finch-like mates; spring warblers, including this Northern Parula, and Tree Swallows; local Loons had to decide whether to migrate to a lake or stay in coastal waters:

Among the four-legged creatures around here were munching Chipmunks, basking Painted Turtles, climbing Porcupines, and Harbor Seals that lurked like U-boats at the mouth of Patten Stream as the Alewives returned to fresh water:

On the waterfront, WoodenBoat School Alumni and Staff worked hard to prepare for June classes. Mooring gear had to be cleaned and positioned in Great Cove for the School’s summer fleet, a few of which were moored and bobbing in the Cove by very late May:

The schooner Stephen Taber out of Rockland, Maine, began her (and our) summer season with a visit to Great Cove on Memorial Day weekend:

May also is the month to visit the University of Maine’s bog boardwalk in Orono to see some of the less common flora, including wild Calla Lilies, Cotton Grass, and Lady’s Slippers:

Starting about mid-May, the flowering trees blossom, including white and pink Crabapple, Dogwood, Lilac, and Star Magnolia:

Finally, at the very end of May, the Lupines start to bloom, ushering in June, when their cones will be densely packed with bright blue, pink, and white pea-like flowers:

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Loony

Common Loons are now fishing in abundance in Great Cove. This one had discarded his boring winter garb and was wearing his svelte black and white summer outfit a few days ago. He had not quite yet gotten his summer red eyes to top things off.

These birds were not named Loons because of their lunatic-like wailing at the moon; they apparently got their name from the Old English word “lumme,” meaning a “lummox” (clumsy person). Their powerful legs are set way back on their body and, without water to prop them up, they’re very clumsy on land.

However, that design, a good pair of lungs, and solid (weighty) bones make them one of our best water diving birds. They can quickly dive over 200 feet and hold their breath about eight minutes. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Sensational

We were traveling the coast after having a delicious pizza on the lawn at Tinder Hearth when the light began to do things that were almost too much sensory stimulation for a full stomach. The sun was reluctantly setting, burnishing the sky over the Bagaduce River into orange-gold:

As we went south, the Bucks Harbor waterfront tried unsuccessfully to hold onto the dying sunlight:

The moon -- full and big -- began to rise over the trees and fields of Brooksville and Sedgwick:

We raced to get to Naskeag Harbor and made it just in time: there she was, the full moon shooting her glitter path like a torpedo into the Harbor:

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Chocolate?!

Our first visiting schooner of the season, the Stephen Taber, sailed into Great Cove Saturday afternoon and sailed out Sunday morning, as you see her here raising anchor and departing. She’s a National Historic Landmark out of Rockland, Maine.

This 110-foot windjammer was launched in 1871 and still does not have an engine. But, don’t worry about the passengers – the Stephen Taber is reputed to serve gourmet food and her visit to our Cove was part of an advertised four-day “Wine, Dine, & Chocolate Cruise.” Chocolate?!

Well, the promo says it’s Black Dinah Chocolate from Blue Hill, but they could have done just as well with chocolate from the Brooklin Candy Company.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Remembering Private Gray

We went to the Naskeag Cemetery yesterday, which we try to do each Memorial Day weekend.

As we entered, the blossoms of the crabapple tree to our left were starting to tumble onto the veteran’s flag and gravestone below the tree.

That stone was small, plain, and embedded flat into the grass; it probably was a government-issued gravestone. The stone didn’t say much about who was buried beneath it, but it said enough: it was Virgil N. Gray, an Army private from Maine during World War I who died at the age of 70 in 1961.

Thus, Virgil survived the war and died a civilian. Nonetheless, we have an expanded view of Memorial Day. We like to remember our war survivors as well as our fallen. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Outrageous

We had a major eruption on our bedroom windowsill yesterday morning. There was no noise or spewing lava, but there were plenty of bright colors. Our Hibiscus plant’s single bud opened to reveal an outrageous color combination.

These flowers contain both male (stamen) and female (pistil) organs. Historically, they apparently were used as romantic signals in Tahiti: if a woman there was wearing a Hibiscus behind her left ear, she was in a relationship; if one was behind her right ear, she was looking for a relationship. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Cove Report

A few days ago, this rogue fog bank entered part of Great Cove and, for a few minutes, swallowed the color-giving sunlight there. Then, the fog drifted off to maraud elsewhere and the sunlight came out of hiding. The lonely outboard skiff, the only WoodenBoat School vessel moored in the Cove now, ignored the rude treatment.

Meanwhile, the rest of the School’s fleet is being prepared to return to the Cove soon to keep the skiff company:

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Summer Visitor

This Chipmunk lives in our rock wall. These little squirrels eat seed, fruit, nuts, insects, worms, birds and their eggs, and even fungi. Their name apparently is an English transliteration of “jidmoonh,” the Ottawa Tribe’s word for “red squirrel.”

The single most frequent activity of the Chipmunk here is to eat his food on our deck and restore the primal instincts to Bianca, our house-arrested cat four feet away. When he’s not there, Bianca eagerly looks for him through the screened door. See first Comment image.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Smart

Weeding is not a high priority around here. Many of us are comfortable with grass that is festooned with bright Dandelions. Besides, Dandelions are interesting. Their name, based on the French “dent” (tooth), means lion’s tooth, referring to the plant’s coarse leaves.

The entire plant is edible and there are some who say the flowers make a decent wine. More important, Dandelion flowers are virtually the first flowers to bloom in our often-cold early spring; they are lifesavers for emerging bees and other needy pollinators. 

The tough Dandelion plants also come equipped with smart technology: they close their flowers at night and during rain to protect their pollen, a process known as nyctinasty.  Here, they're staring to close:

The flower heads mature into "blowballs" containing single-seeded fruits attached to detachable hairs that become kite tails when the wind comes by at lifts a seed into the sky.

The flower heads mature into spherical seed heads called blowballs[7] or clocks (in both British and American English)[8][9][10][11] containing many single-seeded fruits called achenes. Each achene is attached to a pappus of fine hairs, which enable wind-aided dispersal over long distances.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Getting the Blues

Tree Swallows are now iridescent blue streaks strafing our fields:

They do stop to bicker with each other over summer residences:

They also reject their given name by perching on colorful man-made objects, including kayak racks, traffic signs, and fence posts:

These swallows consume enormous numbers of microscopic midges, mosquitoes, and other tiny insects, but – unusually – they also eat berries. Consistent with their lifestyle, they have hyper hygiene habits: they bathe by quickly skimming a pond with their bodies, then swooping up at high speed to get a blow-dry. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Globalization

Star Magnolias (Magnolia stellata) stood up to the bullying of our Winter, perhaps because they’re originally from high elevations in Japan. They’re deciduous with graceful undulating flowers, such as this one, that burst upon the early Spring scene before their leaves appear.

As their leaves start appearing – now – the rays of the stars drop to the ground and create a little shag carpet under the plant. The native American Magnolias are either deciduous (e.g., Big Leaf Magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla) or evergreen (e.g., Southern Magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora).

To complete the international story, the genus Magnolia, which contains hundreds of species, was named after the 17th Century French Botanist Pierre Magnol, who was one of the pioneers of plant classification. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Spinking and Spanking

The Bobolinks are back, thank goodness; it’s always a relief to see them again. Their species has been decreasing drastically, apparently due in significant part to the disappearance of suitable spring fields for nest-building. Here, we see the male with his bleached hairdo:

The sparrow-like female is not at all conspicuous -- which is what you'f expect of evolution for a ground-nesting bird. Here she is:

The species received its name from the sound of its bubbling song. In 1855, William Cullen Bryant wrote a popular children’s poem that formalized the bird’s name to help youngsters remember its song: “Robert of Lincoln, is telling his name/Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link/Spink, spank, spink….” (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Cove Developments

The first vessel to return to moor in Great Cove for the summer did so earlier this week. As usual, it was Lucille, shown below. She’s a small fishing vessel used for environmental monitoring and research by the Shaw Institute. (Susan Shaw, the Institute’s founder, is a neighbor on the Cove; the Institute formerly was named the Marine and Environmental Research Institute.)

A few days after Lucille moored, WoodenBoat School’s Babson II was tied to a working mooring to assist with getting the other WBS boats and gear into the Cove. She’s an outboard skiff workhorse used for many purposes, including ferrying students to WBS sailboats for classes.  Here's Babson II:

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Thriller

You won’t see this bird on your feeder; in fact, you probably won’t see much of it in the woods, where it lives.

This is the aptly-named Hermit Thrush, a plain-looking bird that would prefer to be heard rather than seen. And, now is the time to hear it. These birds, male and female, are singing to each other as the woods leaf-out and breeding season approaches.

Hearing the Hermit Thrush’s song while walking through deep woods is among the best of the delicate thrills that musically-sensitive humans can experience. It’s like hearing a flute glissando imitating a gurgling brook, with watery harmonics that echo – but better. (Brooklin, Maine)