This Red Squirrel was trying to shelter itself from the rain while praying for sunshine. Neither worked.
(Brooklin, Maine)
It’s raining hard here, as we speak. It’s rained in deluges or drizzles since our last fair day, Thursday (April 19), and more rain is predicted for tomorrow. We have severe cabin fever, which probably will force us out into the woods today, if the rain lessens a bit.
We did that in yesterday’s intermittent showers, when the images here were taken. The discomfort was nothing compared to the joyous freedom of walking and smelling the wet woods. There was no green haze from sprouting buds yet. However, the spring-fed streams were laughing uproariously and the mosses were lazy and lush. The fruiting bodies (“conks”) of Red-Belted Polypores (Fomitopsis pinicola) had been resurrected from deadness and were oozing their own liquid drops as rain fell on their caps:
Maybe we’ll go out even if the rain does not lessen. (Brooklin, Maine)
The flower-containing spathes of Skunk Cabbages are surfacing like porpoises in the water-logged bogs, bringing the deeper woods some of its first Spring color. We have the Eastern Skunk Cabbage, which emerges out of purple spathes; the Western version has yellow spathes.
By summer, Skunk Cabbages will be regal, shade-producing canopies for smaller wildlife.:
July 2018
The plant’s name is uncharitable, but descriptive; it has bad breath when it flowers or is bruised. But, that’s why the plant has survived for centuries: that odor is very pleasant to bees and other pollinators and obnoxious to larger animals that might crush it. Some gardeners plant Skunk Cabbages at strategic points within their gardens to repel squirrels and raccoons and attract bees and butterflies. (Brooklin, Maine)
We wish everyone a Happy Sunday. We also thank neighbor Judith Fuller for this road banner of symbols that have become associated with Easter, broadly defined.
Some think that Easter was named after Eostre, the Germanic fertility goddess. In spring, she was thought to carry a basket of seedlings and eggs representing fertility and new life. Early Christians stained eggs red in spring to help them think of Jesus having to shed blood before finding a new, resurrected life. Medieval Catholics celebrated the end of Lent’s fasting by bringing baskets of food to church to be blessed and exchanged as part of the cleansing renewal.
European folklore soon created the idea of a rabbit that left baskets of decorated chicken eggs to surprise children at this time of year. If the eggs were fertile, new life soon came in the form of fuzzy chicks. Easter candy in the form of eggs, rabbits, and chicks followed, including little egg-shaped candy that became known as jelly beans. (Brooklin, Maine)
Massachusetts state officials are warning the public to stay away from Wild Turkeys during the present strutting season, according to the April 18 (Thursday’s) edition of the Boston Globe. The newspaper reported that a pregnant woman had been “surrounded by turkeys that pecked at her legs, leaving visible welts.”
We’ve never had that problem in many years of close encounters of the turkey kind, but maybe those turkeys to the south of us were just copying the incivility that seems to be rampant in some parts of the country nowadays.
Nonetheless, Toms are strutting now and hens are submitting all over the place. (The full ritual and consummation are not exactly balletic; we’ll spare you those images.)
Coincidentally, the images shown here were taken on Thursday, the day that the Globe article appeared. However, these are Brooklin Toms; they have proper manners. We even think that we heard the Tom on the left say, “How ya’ doin’?”. (Brooklin, Maine)
As we speak, we’re surrounded by heavy fog that every now and then turns into light rain. We wouldn’t be surprised if April ends up being a precipitation record-breaker. At least we have this memory of our last brilliantly sunny morning, which was Wednesday, April 17.
Our Hibiscus was showing off by displaying two of her large, outlandish blooms at once, which is unusual for this little plant. She’s an incorrigible extrovert who has given us one bloom per month for about six months.
“Hibiscus,” by the way, is derived from the Latin description of naming a baby after a flower, any flower. Apparently, one could say: “Rose’s parents gave her an hibiscus name.” (Brooklin, Maine)
A few male Red-Winged Blackbirds are back, fighting over real estate options.
Image from prior year
The females apparently are waiting for the males to stake out and hold a territory before flying in and setting up house. The females are much smaller and look like gussied-up sparrows.
Image from prior year
The males and females make a very odd couple, but they share an aggressive attitude when it comes to protecting their homestead.
Images from prior year
(Brooklin, Maine)
We were trying to capture a good fog in Great Cove on Monday (April15), when we spotted something strange emerging.
At first, we thought it was a lost lobster trap buoy. When it got closer, however, we saw that it was a cluster of escaped party balloons. Thus, we had to get a little wet to remove a happy thing that had turned dangerous.
This is the second time this year that we’ve seen balloons in the Cove. As you know, for wildlife, these are as bad as or worse than plastic, especially after they burst or otherwise deflate. We all must be careful with them. More images of the fog and balloons:
(Brooklin, Maine)
Two good looking, but interestingly different, fishing vessels were moored close together in Naskeag Harbor last Friday (April 12). Both are lobster boats in summer and scallop boats in winter and spring.
Dear Abbie: is trawler-rigged now with a mast and boom to work a bottom-scraping dredge that nets-in scallops. She also has a temporary “shelling house” just aft of the cabin, where the muscles from the mollusks (what we eat) can be shucked out with some protection from cold winds.
Miss Millie, on the other hand, comes from another school of scallop fishing and has no such equipment.
She goes out with a wet-suited, air-tanked diver who swims along the sea bottom hand-harvesting “divers’ scallops.” and putting them into scallop bags to be hauled up by a crewman. (Brooklin, Maine)
A flight of fast-flying Green-Winged Teal darted into Great Cove yesterday. They’re our smallest dabbling ducks, usually no more than 15 inches in length.
Image from a prior year.
The spiffy green-masked males, shown here, have a strange call that sounds like a frog – a high-pitched “dreep”; the all-brown females have a more duck-like sharp “quack.” Both sexes are relatively easy to spot by their silhouettes: they’re compact runts with short bills and they sit high on the water.
What their bills lack in size, they make up for in design: compared to other dabblers, Green-Wings have more combing structures (“lamellae”) around the insides of their mandibles to trap small food – on each of their upper and lower mandibles, GWTs have about 120-130 lamellae, compared to about 50-70 for other dabblers. GWTs, apparently, are gourmets that feast on the smallest delicacies. (Brooklin, Maine)
Yesterday’s fog kept creeping in and out of our Center and Naskeag Harbors, as if it had doubts about coming ashore. Sometimes. It was a frosted glass panel, hiding the horizon and darkening the day at Center Harbor:
Sometimes, it was a thin vapor veil, through which we could see hints of the fishing vessels moored in Naskeag Harbor.:
Yesterday’s air temperature was seasonably warm. As you probably know, fog forms when there is only a small difference between the air temperature and the dew point temperature at which water droplets in the air start condensing.
(Brooklin, Maine)
It’s raining and foggy now and it was overcast yesterday when these images were taken. But that’s okay.
Temperatures are rising nicely; virtually all of the ice and snow are gone; the exposed earth and mosses are exuding an almost-arousing aroma;, and the small streams have broken through their frozen prisons and are bounding joyously through the woods after their jailbreak.
The ice is out of the marsh ponds, which sit serenely, fat and full, as small flights of ducks drop in and consider moving into the neighborhood.
Vernal pools have been formed and are awaiting the annual amphibian invasion.
Are we finally at the season’s tipping point? Hope has arrived for some, anyway. (Brooklin, Maine)
In the Right Place: Homeland Security
This is the image that appeared yesterday in our monthly column in the Ellsworth American.
To read the column, click here: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column
Everyone is hoping that yesterday’s tantrum by the weather gods – cold, snow, sleet, rain, and, finally, slushy thaw – is the last of that kind of behavior until winter. Nonetheless, their gray moodiness had some memorable moments, including the Camperdown Elm in the Brooklin Cemetery seemingly trying to protect huddled gravestones from the fine snow and sleet:
The nearby reflective fire pond seemed to be gulping the fluttering snowflakes when they turned fat:
The woods’ streams were bursting out of their snowy overcoats.
Country Lanes were plowed while, of course, wooded paths remained undisturbed, except by wildlife and a wild photographer:
The gnarly character of old apple and crab apple trees seemed to be enhanced by snow.
In the early afternoon, Naskeag Harbor was experiencing more rain and sleet than snow, and the temperature was rising to the point that the thaw had begun along the beach:
The thaw was remarkably fast. Here you see our frozen rain chain starting to melt yesterday afternoon and being virtually bare early this morning:
Speaking of this morning, that’s when the weather gods redeemed themselves with a sparkling blue and white gift::
(Brooklin, Maine)
It’s not only still snowing as we speak, most of the large raft of Common Eiders are still “wintering” off Blue Hill Falls, where these images were taken last week.
Why haven’t these ducks left? Probably because it still feels like winter here.
The brown females outnumber the males, as usual, but the white males stand out at a distance.
They’ll soon leave to nest, primarily in colonies on sea islands off Canada, Maine, and Massachusetts. They prefer islands that are free of their larger predators: humans, seals, dogs, coyotes, foxes and raccoons.
However, they have perennial problems protecting ducklings from Bald Eagles and Gulls, especially Great Black-Backed Gulls. After the ducklings can fly, the Eiders will head out to open sea and remain there in relative peace until winter.
(Brooklin, Maine)
Significant April snowstorms usually are uncommon and always are inconvenient, not to mention boring after a snowy winter. It snowed virtually all day yesterday, when the following images were taken; it looks like we got about three to four inches.
It was a relief to see a calm early morning from the bedroom, albeit one with overcast that presages the snow forecast for later today.
IOur bog area was re-winterized, which likely will postpone the plans of salamanders and other amphibians who need to return there to breed some night soon when it warms up.
The snow-covered spruce and fir are picturesque, which can be distracting when trying to get some work done.
Fortunately, we’re not likely to get one of the surprise April super-snowstorms that have occurred in New England occasionally. The apparent record for one of those was set on April 1, 1807, when Gardner, Maine, got 20 inches of wet snow and Danville, Vermont, got a suffocating 60 inches. (Brooklin, Maine)
It’s been snowing all morning, but guys gotta do what guys gotta do when the calendar says it’s Spring.
We caught Tom here performing his famous annual engineering and chemical stunt in our side yard a couple of hours ago. He’s strutting slowly while flexing connected muscles in his skin to erect body and tail feathers; simultaneously, he’s contracting blood vessels in his head to change skin color and lengthen his nose snood.
The hens were not interested at all; we think we heard one shout, “It’s snowing for God’s sake, Tom!”
(Brooklin, Maine)
As of yesterday afternoon, the snow and ice were virtually gone in the woods’ trails that are frequently traveled by the local wildlife and tamelife (hikers). However, there still are favorite deer trails that are icy bone-breakers, passable only by hoofed and clawed wildlife and booted and cleated tamelife.
The wooded streams mostly have escaped their icy cages:
The ponds are in the process of opening their waters for the Spring waterfowl tourists; some still have relatively thick ice, others just a film that will disappear if we don’t have a cold snap:.
Vernal pools have formed and are awaiting a “Big Night” for salamanders and other amphibians to come for their annual dark orgy:
We’ve seen no Red-Winged Blackbirds yet, but there are reports of them being close. (Brooklin, Maine)
American Woodcocks are arriving here and seem surprised to see patches of snow and ice. The zaniness of these small birds has inspired some funny common names for them, including Timberdoodle, Mudsnipe, and Bogsucker.
But, the Woodcock’s weird looks actually are functional: its extra-long beak is an earthworm probe; Its small head and large eyes allow sight all around when feeding and aid in its nocturnal flights, and its stubby camouflaged body makes it disappear in ground cover.
At dusk and sometimes dawn, the males court by doing a bizarre “sky dance”: They ascend in fast concentric circles hundreds of feet while making buzzing, cicada-like sounds; Then, they helicopter down fast. The females watch this air show closely, then they work out a prenuptial agreement and nest. Click on image to enlarge it. (Brooklin, Maine; images from a prior year)
The tide was rising, the wind was up, the sun was out, and the temperature was reaching for a bracing 40 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday morning in Great Cove and Naskeag Harbor.
White-capped green and blue water was moving and tethered fishing vessels were pulling and rolling.
Vistas were sprinkled with sun diamonds.
Wind gusts were staggering surprises, reportedly up to 37 miles per hour.
This wasn’t Spring; this wasn’t Winter; it must have been Sprinter..
(Brooklin, Maine).