In the Right Place: Dullness

In the summer, the tiny Male American Goldfinch is the Beau Brummell of the bushes – an eye-wincing dab of sunshine with a black cap that’s flared at other males. His summer mate often is described as “dull,” even though she’s cute and well-tailored in pin-striped wings.

Now, in the leafless winter, however, little Beau gets his come-uppance (some would say come-downance.) It’s impossible to tell his dullness apart from hers at a distance, although they both remain attractively well-tailored. But, that’s good when you’re hawk food flitting through a gray world.

By the way, research shows that evolution favors brighter yellows for summer male Goldfinches: the brighter their yellow, the healthier they are. Females seem to sense that distinction and virtually always choose the brightest bird around for their mates. (Brooklin, Maine)

November Postcards From Maine

This November, as usual, was mostly gray, rainy, and snowy. But, also as usual, these duller days made precious the 10 to 15 beautiful days of sun and blue skies followed by dramatic winter sunsets, including this one from last night:

November here is best remembered for three things. The first, of course, is Thanksgiving, which historically involved Wild Turkeys, of which we have plenty. They’re now in their subdued – but still goofy – winter stage:

The second important November event up here is the White-Tailed Deer hunting season. The bucks seem to know it’s hunting season; we saw only one this month. It was on a misty November night and we nearly trophied him with our car. On the other hand, the White-Tailed does and yearlings were evident this November, if you were willing to go out in the snowstorms:

Lobster fishing was the third important subject this November. Many lobsters move into the deeper seas in November, which is a signal for the end of the lobster fishing season for most (but not all) of our fishermen. The fishermen bring in their traps to the Town Dock to off-load them, and then store their gear and their boats “on the hard” for the winter.

The bait hut in Naskeag Harbor remains as of now, but it eventually will be brought ashore. Some of the boats, on the other hand, will remain in the water and dredge for scallops or become platforms for scallop divers.

Many smaller boats remained in the water until late in the month, when they were taken ashore and stored in boat houses or outside.

November is the “dropsy” month, when the last vestiges of fall flare and disappear. The Tamarack (Larch) Trees turn golden before they drop their needles; the last of the apples hang on, but usually are gone before December, and the Red-Veined Enkianthus leaves explode in flaming colors before dropping.

November usually is the month that we get our first significant snowstorm, and this year was no exception. We had some beautiful snow storms that transformed the woods and local sites.

Finally, perhaps the many moods of November are best shown in Great Cove, where the month’s low sun can turn the sea to diamonds; wind can churn it into froth; freezing temperatures make it form sea ice, and calm, warmer days make us forget that Christmas is coming.

(All images taken in Down East, Maine, during November 2018.)

In the Right Place: Riotous

As you may know, we regularly monitor and photograph a mossy-banked, spring-fed stream deep in the nearby woods. It’s a rough gauge of the environmental status and health of our neighborhood. At the extremes, the stream goes dry (when residential wells may start straining) and gets riotous (when erosion and flooding may occur).

As you can see above, recent snows followed by torrential melting rains have provoked the stream into a near- riotous stage. That image was taken Wednesday (November 28) when the snow and ice was virtually gone from the woods. The imagebelow was taken about 10 days before (November 17).

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: "Wattle I Do with Just a Photograph to Tell My Troubles to?"

We got a big lens close enough to a raft of Wild Turkeys yesterday to take some portraits. Mona Lisa these birds are not.

Their dangling wattles (“chin skin”) and lumpy red caruncles (“turkey bumps”) make them so ugly that they’re photogenic.

These Turkeys are in their quiet winter phase now, so we didn’t see any engorged snoods (“nose hoses”) or pumped up bodies (“strut clothes”) that we see in spring males.

(Apologies to Irving Berlin for the title; he wrote the wistful song “What’ll I Do” – a classic that also is disrespectfully called by some the “Wattles Song.”) (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Last Meal

There are conflicting reports about this year’s appearance of Winterberries: Some have plentiful shrubs and others haven’t seen a single berry. We have a few on our plants. Local legend has it that bountiful Winterberries mean a tough winter and few mean a mild one. These little red berries are a major ingredient in nature’s winter survival kit for 49 species of birds, deer, raccoons, and white-footed mice. The wildlife tend to visit this deciduous holly bush later in the winter because its berries are less nutritious than other winter foods. In case you haven’t seen any this year, here are images from last year’s bumper crop.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Sodden

Its raining heavily as we speak and has been since last night; the snow is retreating fast under the onslaught. November is our wettest month and this November may be the biggest rain producer ever. Here, we have two impressionistic images through our windows this morning:

Below are two realistic images this morning of our raft of sodden Wild Turkeys on their daily ramble through here (taken through an open door):

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Curiosity

Here we are last Wednesday (November 21) in light snow in the unique silence of a wooded country lane after it’s been plowed. We’re feeling free in the fresh air and think that we’re enjoying this alone; then, we realize that we’re being watched as  a curiosity.

Self-consciousness returns. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Character

If you want to peer into the soul of a small Maine coastal town where fishing is still a prideful vocation, you often need go no farther than the harbor on a gray winter’s day. There usually is a working monument to fishing there – the town dock (aka pier), built with local tax and other funds.

These are stolid landing places where lobster traps and other gear can be off- and on-loaded. The docks have little superficial grace and beauty, but they often have inherent character beauty that can make you feel better just by being near them. Here, we have the Brooklin Town Dock on November 21, the day before Thanksgiving, where stacked lobster traps signal the end of the lobstering season for some fishermen.

These traps got caught in the November 20 snow storm and soon were dusted off and trucked to their winter storage, usually in a fisherman’s back or side yard. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Tough Birds

It’s hard not to admire the tough Herring Gulls that brave the winter here. Yet, there are those who view these commonest and hungriest of our shore birds as being nuisances and even “winged rats.” Those who view the animal kingdom as a caste system this way apparently have not yet looked at wildlife life close enough. Here we see an adult Herring Gull in its sleek white breeding suit:

Herring Gulls are useful, good-looking birds. They’re especially wonderful to watch as they race with a high wind at their backs, then swoop up and make wafting landings as softly as snowflakes. Here we see another adult puffed up last week in its speckled winder plumage:

They often swarm after fishing boats for scraps, which led to a British experiment during World War I: scientists fed Herring Gulls from fake German periscopes, hoping to condition the birds to swarm around the real thing and help detect submarines. It didn’t work; the smart Gulls worked only when they saw food. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: A Boring Post

It’s a cold 17 degrees (F) here as we speak, and our minds are turning to the sea ice that is beginning to form in Great Cove.  If you’re like most people, watching sea ice form is about as interesting as watching your toe nails grow; you certainly should stop reading here. (Are they gone? The rest is for the few of us.)

The ice often initially forms and gets stranded at low tide, lying like a white silk robe over the rocky bottom. The rising tide will come in and float the ice, which will break up a bit, then start to reform, first as overlapping formations that look like scalloped potatoes.

We’ve had no thick, massive slabs of sea ice form yet because we haven’t had a sufficiently uninterrupted period of freezing weather. Due to its salt content, sea water doesn’t freeze until the temperature drops to 28.4 degrees (F) and stays there or below for some time. In days of yore, Great Cove and Eggemoggin Reach beyond froze entirely, enabling people to travel between the mainland and the islands in horse-drawn carts.(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place

In the Right Place: Transported

We had a good, old-fashioned New England snow storm last night – plenty of fat flakes falling slowly and sticking to whatever they touched, no wind to speak of, and cold of the reasonable kind. Our vegetarian neighbors even came by at dusk to have a salad al fresco.

It was still snowing when we went to bed and, when we awoke at first light today, we realized that we had been transported into a Christmas card. The sun has to climb over a line of spruce and fir before it reaches us.

Parts of the North Field and Great Cove then get the light.

The early light created pockets of shade and light in which bristly textures were softened with snow.

As this is being written, however, it’s starting to gray up and get cold. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving is supposed to be a frigid one, according the weather tellers. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Good Vibrations

Here we have a Northern River Otter with frozen whiskers. She’s cavorting briefly in a local pond’s open water before disappearing somewhere under the ice, never to reappear within the 30 minutes that we waited for her.

It’s a good sign for us, since these large weasels will not inhabit polluted areas. Otters are adapted for hunting and playing in water: they have webbed paws; powerful undulating tails; ears and noses that can be sealed shut; lungs that allow submersion for up to eight minutes; eyes that can see through dark water, and whiskers that sense vibrations caused by underwater prey.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Trespassing

The woods are silent, snowy, and icy now, which makes us look down a lot for our own protection and to be amazed at the number of tracks made by our unseen smaller fellow-travelers. As we crunch along looking down, we often don’t see Raccoons and other members of the night-working shift rouse themselves from sleep to see what our damn racket is all about. So, we usually stop every hundred yards or so, slowly turn and look around and up. Every now and then, we have a gasp-inducing moment when we peer into the angry eyes of the little owner of the territory on which we’re trespassing.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Eyefuls

Winter light up here is an adventure. The first image above and the ones below were taken almost exactly two hours apart yesterday. Above, at about 11 a.m., curdling clouds mass above ancient apple trees on a hill above Great Cove, which lies unseen just below the horizon. A monochromatic soul-searching moment.

Below, a few miles away at about 1 p.m., a big blue sky above Blue Hill Bay hosts fast-moving cloud wisps. Its reflections spill into little Conary Cove, where the flamboyant Fishing Vessel Sun’s Up dares to wear a yellow hull with a blue mooring float. A color-popped visual laugh.

Smaller craft in Conary Cove add to the delight.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Merry Mimics

As with other feathered winter residents, Blue Jays are beginning to flock here for protection (more eyes and ears) against predatory raptors that can see their prey better in a leafless landscape.

But Blue Jays also use winter fears to their advantage, especially near bird feeders. When they can’t scare off their competition with Blue Jay curses – Northern Cardinals usually won’t budge – the Blue Jays give a perfect imitation of a Broad-Wing Hawk scream; this usually clears the feeder quickly, even though the Broad-Wings have moved south.

Some people think that the origin of the Blue Jay’s name is another of its calls: a slurred “Jay.” But more think that the name is a carryover from “Jai,” the Old French name for “gay” or “merry” given to some birds that the English later called “Jays.” See also the image in the first Comment space.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Sleety Look-Around

That ill-tempered little Nor’Easter that’s been creeping up the coast reached here late last night and dropped on us the first appreciable snow of the winter. This storm is laboring hard to continue as we speak. But, it did have its moments earlier today when we took a sleety look-around between 6:30 and 8:30 a.m.

This storm is no Fluffy Winter Wonderland that makes you want to lie back and make snow angels. It’s mostly a mix of rain, sleet, and snow that’s more annoying than awesome; in fact, the early sleet stung enough to make you wince. The main roads were well-plowed, as usual, but the Lanes to driveways and had nor been plowed (or melted) as of early morning.

The Town Offices, Library, General Store, and Cemetery seemed to take the weather in stride.

At Naskeag Point, the wind and rain limited snow accumulations. Nearby, recently brought-in lobster traps stood out in the gloom.

Back at 5 Back Road, every now and then Babson Island appeared in the distance as the storm ebbed and flowed.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Novembah Weathah

Tuesday’s rain storms turned into Wednesday’s (yesterday’s) bright sun, near-gale winds (gusts up to 33 miles per hour), and freezing temperatures (low 20s F). Great Cove, which usually is calm, threw a low-tide fit, as you can see here. But, she’s pretty when she’s angry.

She’s also devoid of boats, except for the occasional fishing vessel. Floats on piers are up and ducks and gulls have taken full occupancy.

At seven this morning, it was sunny, 15 degrees, and there was virtually no wind. Late tonight and tomorrow are supposed to be snowy, sleety and windy, followed by a half-decent weekend. It’s already hard to remember summer’s easy-going sensations. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Where's Noah When You Need Him?

Unlike in Spain, the rain in Maine falls mainly down the chain – if you have a rain chain instead of a drain pipe and a deluge such as yesterday’s storm here.

That rain also fell on the garden while high winds frenzied the grasses there:

Inside, the constant rain on the windows created an abstraction of the garden:

Fortunately, rainy days are not without their beautiful moments, if you don’t mind getting wet to see them. Raindrops on Chokecherries and Asiatic Bittersweet berries come to mind:

One of the artistic effects of rain comes when a storm is just beginning over a pond and the rain drops create water wheels within wheels:

(Brooklin, Maine) [The last three images were not taken yesterday.]

In the Right Place: Blurs

Sparrows are more noticeable now that the leaves are mostly gone and the small birds are gathering in flocks. Basically, there are two types of sparrows out there now: brown blurs and white-streaked gray blurs. As to the grays, we seem to be getting more than our usual share. They’re Dark-Eyed Juncos and many are year-round residents here.

But this year, apparently, more of their Canadian relatives have decided to visit and join the family feeding flocks here. Winter flocking is thought to be a defensive maneuver: the more eyes and ears they have, the easier it is for sparrows (and Crows) to detect hawks and owls that can see them better in leafless vegetation and on bare or snow-covered ground.

No one seems to know why these birds are called Juncos, however, that name is derived from the Spanish word for the rush plant. Similarly, some people call them “Snow Birds,” derived from inaccurate yarns about the bird’s appearance predicting snow.

(Brooklin, Maine)