In the Right Place: Form and Function

Here, in the middle of Naskeag Harbor, is an example of Maine functional architecture. It’s a type of structure that you’ll see in many forms in many harbors during the primary lobster season. Its lines are not graceful, and its various names are not poetic. Most often, it’s called something like a Bait Float, Bait Barge, Bait Shed, or Bait Hut.

It’s usually a place where lobster fishermen can buy bait and/or sell their lobsters quickly on operational days. Fishermen who aren’t ready to go through the procedure for off-loading at a larger shore facility can find a mid-harbor transaction advantageous. For example, if a fisherman is having a good day, he or she can efficiently sell a catch at the Barge and then go out again. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Being Different

These Tamarack Trees seem to glow in yesterday’s light rain and, while doing so, they are revealing their summer secret.

At a distance in the summer, it’s hard to tell the Tamaracks from their neighbors, the Balsam Firs, Pines, and Spruces. All are a mass of green-needled branches. But, in fall and early winter, the Tamaracks flare into incandescence before they drop their needles and sprinkle gold around their trunks. These trees are different from most: they’re “deciduous” (not evergreen), but “coniferous” (cone-bearing), and “monoecious” (they produce male and female cones).

“Tamarack” reportedly is the Algonquin Tribe’s name for “snowshoe wood.” Nonetheless, some Mainers call the tree a “Hackmatack” (the Abanaki Tribe’s name) or a “Larch” (from Latin and German names for European pine-like trees). (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Gizzards

Common Eiders again are arriving at the Blue Hill Reversing Falls for their annual winter convocation, which always is a welcome winter sight. In prior years, upwards of 500 of these birds (our largest native ducks) spent most of the winter there diving for crustaceans and mollusks.

There seems to have been fewer in the past two years. Perhaps the decreasing number of wild blue mussels near the Falls has made it less popular with the newer generations. However, they do their share of depleting mussels and clams -- they swallow them whole and leave the shelling to their gizzards.

(Blue Hill, Maine)

October Postcards From Maine

October is the most colorful month. Magnificent Maples provide their last shade with glorious hues; Blueberry fields bleed purple; Enkianthus flames red, and field ponds capture and subdue the colors.

As the leaves fall, new light brightens the dark woods. Some leaves find soft resting places; others race in the rain-swollen wooded brooks.

There were many spectacular October days when the wind whipped the sea and the clouds sailed fast.

Late in the month, some lobster boats begin to bring in their traps and call it a season. October also is when the WoodenBoat School finishes taking its fleet and pier float out of the water, completes storage of mooring gear, and closes its doors for the winter.

Hunting season begins in late October and the migrating birds that have not left yet get edgy. Among the extensive wildlife that we saw this month are White-Tailed Deer, Spotted Sandpipers, Great Blue Herons, and Wood Ducks.

Around the houses and barns, the last Rose bloomed, Hydrangea Tree blossoms turned dusky pink, and stove wood was cut, split, and stored.

Of course, October is when the World Series is played, and this year New England’s favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, won the Series convincingly. Judith Fuller’s Red Sox banner flew alongside Naskeag Road during the Series. Tonight also is Halloween and even some of our local birds put Jack O’ Lanterns outside their houses.

Finally, October brings the first of the multi-colored winter sunsets, which will get better and better as the sunlight lowers and the days grow colder.

(All images here were taken in Down East Maine during October 2018.)

In the Right Place: Bittersweet Update

The beautiful scaffolding climbing many trees here is changing from cautionary yellow to dangerous red. The golden husks on the Asian Bittersweet vines (Celastrus orbiculatus) are opening, exposing the hidden glossy-red berries that the birds eat. It’s a tragic collaboration.

The birds spread this tree-assassin’s seeds so profusely that all known countermeasures to completely eradicate or even to get ahead of the invader’s propagation have been failures. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Congratulations, Sox!

The fabulous new World Series Champs may be called the Boston Red Sox, but they’re New England’s team to most baseball fans up here and apparently in the other New England states.

We hope that, if the Sox eventually must move out of their quirky/tiny (but wonderful/historic) Fenway Park, they’ll follow the New England Patriots’ example. The Pats were the Boston Patriots until 1971, when they moved out to Foxborough, Massachusetts, and become the only National Football League team with a multi-state moniker.

We see here neighbor Judith Fuller’s banner, which has been flying on Naskeag Road for about 10 days. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Ouch

This is Judith Ann on Friday (October 26) at the Town dock in Naskeag Harbor, bringing in her lobster traps seemingly a bit early. This has been a worrisome fishing season in which Maine fishermen (male and female) have been caught in the middle of an unanticipated trade war.

President Trump’s imposition of a 25 percent tariff on imported steel reportedly is increasing the price of lobster traps. More significant, one of the retaliations by lobster-loving China, a major purchaser of Maine Lobsters, was to impose an additional 25 percent tariff on live and processed U.S. lobsters. And, there are reports of Canadians increasing their share of the China market by reselling Maine lobsters to China as Canadian shellfish. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Thrill of the Hunt

I shot this 8-point Buck 10 times early this morning. (Today [Saturday] is the first day of the firearms deer-hunting season here, and it’s open only to licensed Maine residents; hunters from elsewhere may begin Monday; hunting on Sundays is prohibited.)

I got up early, donned my orange-blaze vest, and went to a vantage point from which I had seen him periodically during the month. After a chilly wait, he slowly sauntered into my view. I shot him six times before he saw me and four times as he dashed away.

My weapon was a Nikon D850 with a 400mm lens and shutter silencer; the ammunition was digital. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Rustler

This Weeping Beech (Fagus sylvatica 'Pendula') at Amen Farm is one of the world’s more unusual types of tree. Its family name is derived from its most noticeable characteristic: pendulous branches. These trees can grow to more than 80 feet in height and often are wider than they are high. They were selectively bred from European Beeches in England in 1836 and were introduced into the United States in 1847.

Beeches don’t lose all of their leaves in the fall or winter (a phenomenon called “marcescence”); most of the leaves dry out and hang on tightly to sing a rustling chorus to the winter winds. The Beech leaves drop when new growth is ready to appear in the Spring. Click on image to enlarge it. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Surveilance Update

The three male Wood Ducks that have been in our local marsh pond this summer were joined by a female last week. All four were convoying together yesterday.

Their feathers have grown back from the summer molt, which makes the stark difference between the sexes quite apparent. The red-eyed males look like they’re coming home late, still in their Mardi Gras costumes:

The females look like they’re attending a business conference, where their subdued suits are offset by sexy Cleopatra eye makeup.

These birds likely will migrate soon, pair in the winter, and mate in early spring. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Frenzies

We had high winds and sun-streaked white caps in Great Cove several times last week. During such days, it’s thrilling to stand in the shallows as the fast-moving tide surges in around your knee-high boots.

This is island-protected water; the waves are not huge, but they’re energetic, numerous, and mesmerizing. Some keep their motor running right up until they hit a rocky part of the shore with a loud “SMACK!”, ending their frenzy in thousands of sparkling pieces.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Security Check

This is a Brooklin version of a double-latched-lock. It’s on a local boathouse that we photograph each year as a small part of our investigation to determine whether the public paranoia that we see elsewhere has reached here yet. It has not, as of 2018.

This high-security lock consists of two independently-operated parts: First, there is the plunger-latch artfully spliced into a nice white rope. That’s notice to all that they should not remove the rope and enter, unless they have a legitimate reason to do so. Second, there’s the eye-catching red handle and thumb-latch to allow easy entry for those with a legitimate reason to enter.

Padlocks are not common here and car keys often are left in the car. In general, we worry more about illegal entry by skunks and squirrels than by humans. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Healthy Habits

Yesterday, I was behind the camera in a grassy embankment on Great Cove. I was completely concentrated on an incoming, but dithering, Loon that I wanted to swim 50 feet closer – a “come on-come-come on-come on” moment. Out of the corner of my left eye, I glimpsed a strangely-shaped shadow move and then stop – a big enough and near enough shadow to give me the involuntary creeps. I slowly swung the lens around. It was a yearling White-Tailed Doe.

She was partly up the bank, “hiding” behind some branches, but watching me at full alert. She apparently couldn’t figure out what she was looking at: a hunched-up shape over a monopod-mounted, long-lensed thing that “Clicked” every now and then. Neither one of us moved for the minute-long staring contest. She finally backed down to the beach and turned toward me for an unobstructed look. “Click.”

She then realized what she was looking at and was gone. So was the Loon. However, maybe the yearling now realizes that curiosity is not a healthy habit for a deer. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Balancing Act

This fisherman’s bullet buoy evokes a complex dilemma. The buoy apparently broke away from its lobster trap line before we found it on Great Cove’s shore last week. There seems to be more of this plastic foam flotsam washing up there since the federal Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan was implemented.

That evolving Plan is intended to reduce the number of appalling injuries and deaths associated with large whales being entangled in fishing gear. One of the Plan’s options is that lobster trap buoys be attached to their lines with a “weak link” (e.g., a swivel) that has a breaking strength of no greater than 600 pounds. These and other Plan requirements seem to have resulted in increased losses of lobster gear, which has unintended negative effects on both the environment and fishermen’s livelihoods. Striking the needed balance appears to be proving difficult. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Magic

Here, we’re on Amen Farm ridge looking East. It’s a sparkling Noon on Thursday, October 18. The temperature is a reported 45 degrees (F), with wind gusts of nearly 15 miles-per-hour. We’re not dressed for this; but, it’s worth a few shivers.

Looming large across Blue Hill Bay is Acadia National Park, rising out of Mount Desert Island like a green whale. We can see the Park’s highest point, Cadillac Mountain, which is one of three places in Maine that are claimed to be where the sun first touches the United States in the morning. Now, the wind is throwing pillows of cumulus humis clouds at the Mountain.

If we had magic glasses that could see all the way east behind the Mountain, along our 44th Parallel, we’d see the much warmer coast of southern France. It would be six hours later there: time to relax at a café, sip a Pernod, and talk about beautiful places we have known. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Sticking Around

We’re still seeing Northern Flickers here, even during freeze snaps. It makes us wonder when and if they’ll migrate..

There still are a few insects plodding about for these woodpeckers to peck and pull and their diet also includes nuts and seeds. Our non-migrating woodpeckers (mostly Pileated, Hairy, and Downy Woodpeckers) manage to find frozen larvae and other winter food, including suet and seed offered at bird feeders.

Maybe Climate Change is gifting us another cackling winter bird. The Flicker shown here is a female; the male looks the same, except he sports a red mustache. (Brooklin, Maine) Go Sox! Go Pats!

In the Right Place: Only the Lonely

Here we have Lucille alone in Great Cove yesterday, shivering in a 15-mile-per-hour wind.

She soon will be sheltered “on the hard.” When that happens, the Cove will be free of boats, except for a few passing-through fishing vessels and perhaps a local skiff or two.

This transformation has been in progress since the last sailboat left earlier in the month: Loons and winter ducks are moving in; increasing numbers of animal tracks are appearing along the shore, and the sun is lower and more southerly to us. Soon, there will be red and gold sunsets reflected in the all-natural Cove. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Diversity

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Local Fall Color

This year’s Fall colors were better than average, but might have been even more beautiful if they had been allowed to peak in full. Last night, we had howling winds and driving rain that orphaned many a colorful leaf; the high winds continue today to liberate the leaves and give them wild, final flights. Fortunately, we were out and about Sunday (October 14), a beautiful day during which most of the images below were taken.

One of our first stops, as usual, was the outstanding Maple at the North Sedgwick Baptist Church. This monarch will not be producing much shade when those leaves fall:

Some Maples still have not turned completely; some wild (abandoned) Apple Trees have lost all their leaves and now look like a jewelry display:

Of course, the best places for diverse and dramatic color locally are in the dark red native Blueberry fields and along their edges:

The ornamental non-native bushes and grasses planted for their Fall effect also are spectacular, especially Burning Bush and Japanese Silver Grass:

Along many country roads, there are spots where cars and trucks just stop suddenly as their drivers take time to visually digest a specimen tree in a showcase setting. Here we have a golden Sugar Maple, looking over the shoulders of a magenta Burning Bush, framed by an arch of still-green Oak leaves:

The beauty can get quite thorny for those who like to get out and into it. Here we have Cotoneaster, Asian Bittersweet, Wild Blackberry leaves (the berries long gone), and Barberry:

Some of the beauty is found in humble field ponds, reflected in ways that would have made Monet say, “Quick, my brushes!”:

Magical change continues in the garden. The Katsura Tree leaves become banana chips; the Viburnum bushes turn into wine, and the Hydrangea Trees offer cotton candy:

In the woods, the Cinnamon Fern has been bronzed and is now in the process of sculpting itself into its own memorial, while the Red Maples turn into embers that fly away:

A very few plants don’t shrivel and disappear in October, including large Montauk (Fall) Daisies and small Asters, which bloom through cold snaps:

Not all of the October beauty is in the month’s bright colors. Fall rains swell our woods streams, which become mossy-banked canals for leafy gondolas:

(All images taken in Brooklin, Blue Hill, and North Sedgwick, Maine)

For larger versions of the above images, as well as many additional images, 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/2018-in-Maine/October-Colors/






Fall

In the Right Place: Silly

This cute guy is a little more than seven inches long and we’re a bit worried about him (sex assumed).

He’s been here alone for almost a week, and it’s not usual for small Sandpipers to be alone. He’s also been hunting a quickly-disappearing live food supply along Great Cove’s pebbly shore. He can fly well, but doesn’t seem to be inclined to take a trip south. The days are getting colder, but he doesn’t seem to be getting the message.

Do you know which Piper he is? We weren’t sure and had to call in one of Brooklin’s black-belt birders, Kim Ridley, for help. If this were a Wheel of Fortune game and the board showed S_ _ _ _ _ D, what letters would you pick? Yes, he’s a Spotted Sandpiper without spots – a silly juvenile in fall plumage.

Thanks, Kim. (Brooklin, Maine)