JOURNAL
We’ve been having a lot of fog lately, which prompts us to play games such as watching sailboats disappear into the dreaminess and predicting where they’ll reappear.
Here, Crackerjack has caught a breeze and heads eagerly into Great Cove’s oblivion. She’s a pert 12 ½-foot Haven with red sails and green hull; and, she seems to enjoy teaching WoodenBoat School students to sail. (Brooklin, Maine)
Porcupines are pariahs here; we have too many. Which means that we don’t have enough fishers, and by that we don’t mean lobstermen. We mean the weasels that are to porcupines what wolves are to deer. The fisher is an unrelenting predator that immobilizes porcupines by biting their faces and then ripping their unprotected stomachs open (not a G-rated movie).
Uncontrolled porcupines can do considerable damage to the trees, especially in winter when their diet turns to bark. In the spring and summer, however, their low popularity rating seems to improve a point or two when they eat many fruits, nuts, and buds, while doing their best to look cute.
This fellow has been visiting us off and on this summer. He eats clover like a rabbit and shows why he was given the name Porcupine, which means “spiny pig,” according to its Latin origins. (Brooklin, Maine)
Two handsome schooners came into Great Cove on July 18 and left the following morning. The first was the sleek, low-slung 120-foot J&E Riggin out of Rockport, Maine. She was launched in 1927.
The second schooner to visit that day was the 91-foot Tree of Life out of Newport, Rhode Island, a luxuriously-appointed cruiser. She was launched in 1991 and has sailed the world.
Here's the Riggin again that morning, as she was anchored just outside the swing of the Friendship Sloop Belford Gray at her mooring:
The Riggin left the Cove under motor power and the Tree was still anchored when we had to leave the Cove; hence, both images are only “stick shots” (no sails up). (Brooklin, Maine)
Adult Monarch Butterflies are arriving from the south and their caterpillars (larva) are emerging from the first eggs laid here this year. Judging from last year and this summer so far, the Monarchs are making a comeback from reduced populations.
Monarch Butterflies will take nectar from a wide variety of flowers. However -- and here is a big part of the problem -- in the caterpillar stage, they can only eat milkweed leaves and the habitat for that unpopular weed has been shrinking. Here are some caterpillars seen yesterday eating milkweed:
Some reports say that this insect was named a “Monarch” because it is the king of beauty as far as butterflies go. Others say that it received that title to honor King William III of William and Mary fame. In any case, this butterfly is special and so is our neighbor Sherry Streeter who cultivates milkweed to help save the Monarchs. The caterpillars shown above are on Sherry’s plants.
(Brooklin, Maine)
We’re thinking that maybe Bee Balm should be renamed Bee Bomb. It erupts in the garden in an explosion of red (sometimes purple) bursts and does not calm the bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators, as a balm would.
It makes pollinators crazy with desire to collect all that nectar while it lasts. Female Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, abandoned by the males after mating, abound in our Bee Balm Patch:
Many Honey and Bumble Bee species feed there and are difficult to tell apart. We're guessing that this is a Northern Amber Bumble Bee (Bombus borealis):
This Eastern Black Swallowtail Butterfly is one of many butterflies competing in the patch:
The Bee Balm plant (Monarda) is native to Northeast America. It was used by Native Americans here for medicinal purposes and its flowers were steeped by them into a tea. When English tea was boycotted by America's colonists after their Tea Party, many Bostonians switched to Bee Balm tea, which they called Oswego Tea.
(Brooklin, Maine)
The 118-foot Grace Bailey visited Great Cove late July 17 and left the next morning. She was built in 1882 for Edwin Bailey, who named her after his daughter.
She was renamed Mattie in 1906 after being rebuilt then. She was rechristened with her original name in 1990, when she was fully restored.
Grace has been a National Historic Landmark since 1992 and is now one of four surviving wooden-hulled, two-masted schooners that engaged in coastal commerce.
She hails from Camden, Maine, and remains one of the fastest windjammers afloat.(Brooklin, Maine)
This common dragonfly is causing confusion. It is officially named the 12-Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly, due to the total number of brown spots on the wings of each member of the species.
Many people prefer to count white spots on wings, however, and they call the insect a 10-spotted skimmer. Those in this 10-spot crowd apparently have not yet discovered that only adult males of this species have white wing spots, hence they have no name for the females and young. Compare the flying female above with the resting adult male below.
(Brooklin, Maine)
Sometimes, a tiny miracle occurs just when the fog lifts off a still sea. The world seems to turn flat – a silver plate of reflected and often connected images. During such a moment in Great Cove a few days ago, the Brigantine Actress seemed to reach down through the stillness and lightly touch the Dory Wild Rose:
Dinghies and Skiffs slowly swung in the slight breeze and tide:
A brief beam of sunlight found the Catboat Shenaniganz:
The sun disappeared again and the Concordia Free Spirit waited in silvered calm:
The Belford Gray, a Friendship Sloop, pointed out to the retreating fog in Eggemoggin Reach:
Actress remained sitting while the incoming tide wrinkled the water around her:
(Brooklin, Maine)
Queen Anne’s Lace, an edible wild carrot plant, is starting to sweep across our fields in white waves.
However, similar – but poisonous – plants also are blooming in some of those fields: Water Hemlock, which has fairly recently caused fatalities in Maine and elsewhere, and Poison Hemlock, which is most famous for killing Socrates a while ago. Check the stems before you pick any lacy white flowers to eat or display. Queen Anne’s Lace has a hairy stem; Water and Poison Hemlock do not, nor do the other white lacy plants (Cow’s Parsley, Cow’s Parsnip, etc.).
Of course, Queen Anne’s Lace does have a bit of a bloody history. It apparently was named after a legend about the Queen pricking her finger while tatting lace, thereby ruining the lace with a drop of royal blood. As you know, many Queen Anne’s Lace flowers have a central red or purple floret “ruining” their white purity. (Brooklin, Maine)
The Catboat was developed for and by American sailing fishermen at least 200 years ago, but it was preserved from extinction by modern recreational sailors who love its maneuverability and stability.
Typically, a Catboat has one, often unstayed, mast set as forward in the boat as practicable. It is a low and wide boat, with a beam (greatest width) that’s usually one half the hull’s length – a bulge originally created for a substantial ballast of stones. Catboats also often sport an oversized (“barn door”) rudder and a centerboard keel that can be removed in shallow water.
There are many unsupported theories about how this boat got its name. The leading one is that the boat got a reputation for tacking and turning as quickly and gracefully as a cat can run and spin; hence, the single mast without standing rigging (“unstayed”) also is said to be “cat-rigged.”
Reply to Fran: The pictured boat is Shenaniganz, a very small (16-foot) traditional Cat in the WoodenBoat School fleet. It was designed by Fenwick Williams, a noted Catboat architect of the last century, and built in 1983 by Maynard Lowery of Tilghman Island, Maryland. (Brooklin, Maine)
This is a bird that lives up to its name and hides in the darker parts of the woods, where it spends its day creating flute notes that would make Mozart jealous.
On first seeing this silhouette, a black belt birder probably would ask: “What was the color of this bird’s tail and does it flick that tail a lot?” I would reply: “Rusty/rufous and yes.” The birder would nod her head, smile, and say: “Good Looking Hermit Thrush you got there!”
If only I could distinguish a Hermit Thrush from a Wood Thrush in the two seconds before the bird darts back into the shadows. (Brooklin, Maine)
The common orange Daylilies that now are swaying in our Summer breezes are not what many think they are. First, they’re not lilies. Daylilies belong to the genus Hemerocallis (from the Greek words “beautiful” and “day” because each bloom lasts only a day). The genus of true Lilies is Lilium (from the Greek name for white lily flowers).
Second, although many are wild, they’re not native; Daylilies originated in Asia and were introduced here by our European colonists. Third, their flowers are tasty vegetables that can be eaten raw or cooked, as many in Asia do.
Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that the sight of swaying Daylilies along the road is one of the delights of a Summer’s drive in the country, one that we’ll try to remember in Winter. See another image in the first Comment space. (Brooklin, Maine)
The Bald Eagle was chosen in 1782 as the emblem of the United States because of the animal’s majestic appearance, strength, and long life.
However, this bird always has had its critics. Even Benjamin Franklin famously complained that it was ”a rank coward” of “bad moral character.” Nonetheless, we suspect that most of the Bald Eagle’s critics have never carefully watched one soaring on its seven-foot wingspan high above a river, then banking severely, spiraling down fast in smaller and smaller circles, pulling up to skim the water, thrusting its talons straight out at the last moment, and plucking its prey with a splashy “thwack!”
(Brooklin, Maine) [The above text and first image first appeared yesterday as my monthly ITRP column in the Ellsworth American, the award-winning weekly newspaper of Hancock County, Maine.]
The 170-foot Victory Chimes entered Great Cove under sail Monday afternoon, when there was a good breeze.
The schooner, which has no propulsion motor, had to be pushed out of the Cove by its yawlboat Tuesday morning, when there was no wind. Launched in 1900, this three-master out of Rockland, Maine, is the last of the Chesapeake Rams and a National Historic Landmark.
Curiously, credit for much of her restoration must go to pizza: Thomas Monaghan, the owner of Domino’s Pizza, bought and restored her in 1988-1989. He named her Domino Effect and used her for employee incentive cruises.
She originally was named Edwin and Maud and then Victory Chimes, which she was renamed in 1990 when purchased from Monaghan for Maine cruising. (Brooklin, Maine)
It’s almost impossible to miss seeing a Great Blue Heron flying within 100 yards of you – its pointed prehistoric head and trailing long, boney legs piercing the air like a hurled spear; its six feet of wings like attached flags, furling and unfurling, then spreading out for a glide. If you’re close enough, you also can hear those big wings push and draw large amounts of air while the bird is trying to gain height – womph, womph, womph.
But it’s a different matter trying to see the slim, very slow-moving profile of a Great Blue fishing amid the cattails 100 yards away. We know that countless numbers of unseen GBHs have watched us looking in vain for them.
Great Blues are our largest Herons (hence the title “Great”), but they’re among our skinniest birds. They can reach almost five feet in length, but usually weigh much less than eight pounds. While slow on their feet, they can achieve a respectable air speed of about 30 miles per hour. (Brooklin, Maine)
Black-Eyed Susans are starting tobat their brown eyes at us. No Susan (nor anyone else) ever had black eyes without being punched, but apparently John Gay didn’t know that.
John was the 18th Century English poet who wrote the ballad Sweet William’s Farewell to Black-Eyed Susan. That popular tune, reportedly, inspired the name for all 30 of our native species of Black-Eyed Susans.
In the ballad, Sweet William is a seaman on a warship that is about to sail into battle; no one named a flower to honor his sweetness. (There is a flower named Sweet William [Dianthus barbatus] that some think was named after William Shakespeare.) (Brooklin, Maine)
We awakened yesterday morning to see that Actress had spent the night alone in Great Cove. She’s a 75-foot Brigantine out of Belfast, Maine, originally launched in 1937.
Actress apparently is the only Brigantine in the Maine coastal cruiser fleet. A Brigantine is a two-masted vessel carrying square-rigged sails on spars on the foremast and gaff-rigged, triangulated sails on the second mast. Brigantines were developed as more easily sailed hybrids of Brigs. A Brig also is two-masted, but both of its masts are square-rigged.
The names of these vessels are derived from “Brigand,” because Brigs were favored by pirates. In fact, Brigantines were called “Hermaphrodite Brigs” for some time, but then some fusspot apparently looked up the definition of “Hermaphrodite.”
(Brooklin, Maine)
Male Wood Ducks may be the handsomest birds in the pond in spring and early fall, but, at about this time of year, they look like Marine boot camp recruits – fancy hairdos are shorn off and dress uniforms are for the future:
As we see from the bird above, the male Wood Ducks are molting into their dull “Eclipse” (aka “Basic”) plumage; they're also flightless in the process. The dowdy summer plumage probably evolved as needed camouflage during this vulnerable time. In September or October, the males again will don their full-feathered dress uniforms and helmet hairdos. When they do, they’ll be in their “Alternate Plumage,” as this male was last October:
(Brooklin, Maine)
Fragrant Water Lilies are all over the quieter ponds now; they're a native wild plant. Theipure white flower petals of the Lilies open and reflect themselves in the water during sunny summer days; they demurely close their petals when the sun’s spotlight moves away in the afternoons or when it clouds over.
Underneath their large round leaves, there’s shade for fish and aquatic invertebrates, such as dragonfly nymphs. On top, their leaves become floats for frogs to loll and birds to stand, both looking for water bugs.
The Fragrant Water Lily seeds are a favorite of ducks and other waterfowl, and their underwater stems (Rhizomes) are munched by muskrats, beaver, deer, moose, and even porcupines. (Brooklin, Maine)
You don’t have to go to a big city to see good abstract art, if you strain your imagination to the breaking point. Here we have a local masterpiece that we like to imagine was influenced by Mondrian’s geometric elements and interplay of black and white with primary colors.
Mondrian thought that “art should be above reality.” We think it’s fair to infer that the Maine artist who created this masterpiece also sees that reality is a trap. And, this one is a Moveable Feat:
(Brooklin, Maine)
