In the Right Place: Attached

You’re looking at the subject of an important recent court decision on Maine shore rights. This is Rockweed, which is the common name for several forms of seaweed that attach themselves to rocks. The plants are havens for marine life, but also are harvested commercially for human food and fertilizer uses.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court held that Rockweed that is growing in the inter-tidal zone (ITZ) of a private property belongs to the owner of that property and may not be harvested without that owner’s permission. The ITZ is defined as the area between the average high and low tide lines up to a maximum distance of “100 rods” (1,650 feet).

Everything within the ITZ belongs to the upland property owner, but is subject to public use for “fishing, fowling, and navigation” – ancient words that are broadly interpreted to provide a reasonable balance between modern public and private shore rights. For example, the public has a right to dig (colloquially, to “fish”) for clams and bloodworms in the ITZ. But, the Court ruled, it would be going too far to interpret Rockweed harvesting as fishing, fowling, or navigation. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: All in the Family

Our nectar-starved bees are overjoyed: Azaleas are now appearing in profusion. The cold spring apparently delayed many Azalea blossoms.

There also is the question of what to call them now. Since the nosy horticultural genealogists reclassified Azaleas into the Rhododendron genus, there has been some confusion among those of us who are not experts.

 As we understand the situation, all Azaleas are now Rhododendrons, but not all Rhododendrons are Azaleas. Most Azaleas are deciduous; most non-Azalea (“true”) Rhodies are evergreen. Azaleas have funnel-shaped flowers; most true Rhody flowers are bell-shaped. Most Azaleas have 5 stamens per lobe; true Rhodies have 10 or more.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Elongated

This is one of our bears that probably won’t destroy any bird feeders. It’s a Banded Woolly Bear, also called a Woolly Worm and Fuzzy Worm. These caterpillars are the just-hatched larva of the Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharcticia Isabella).

According to unsubstantiated folklore, Woolies predict the weather (especially winter weather) by the number and size of their reddish-brown segments – more red means milder. By the way, the origin of the word “caterpillar” apparently is the Old French word “chatepelose,” literally “hairy cat.” But, English children thought that the lumbering insects looked more like little elongated bears. (Brooklin, Maine)

May Postcards From Maine

This year we had the most disappointing May that we’ve had here for a long time: mostly cold fog and rain But it did provide some wonderful experiences.

When the sun did come out, we jumped at the chance to experience the jewel-like Maine spring days. that May is (or was) famous for.

Nonetheless, our resident Gulls seemed not to mind the drizzly fog and our large migrant fishing birds seem to have wintered well. We have a pair of Ospreys building a love nest in the top of a Balsam Fir on the shore of Brooklin’s Great Cove and colonies of Double-Crested Cormorants seem larger than usual.

Tree Swallows have been here all month and our spring warblers are still coming in. (Below there are three images of Tree Swallows, then these Warblers: Common Yellowthroat, Yellow-Rumped, Northern Parula, American Redstart, and [singing] Yellow.)

In terms of our tough resident birds who braved our winter, our male American Goldfinches donned their summer yellow suits and our male Wild Turkeys were still strutting in May.

Our favorite reptiles came out of hibernation in large numbers, We have at least seven Painted Turtles in our pond; they usually bask in threes and fours.

Moving from pond water to the sea, Great Cove came alive in May. Blue Sky was the first fishing vessel to set and tend lobster traps there, small sailboats and pulling boats were moored there again, and the first Coastal Schooner, Angelique, arrived on May 30 and left the next day.

Of course, May also is the month for blossoms. Here are just a few (Shadblow, Quince, Forsythia, Plum, and Crabapple. )

We celebrate Mother’s Day and Memorial Day in May, when neighbor Judith Fuller hangs her famous road banner and flags fly over veterans’ graves. This year, we also had a “Flower Full Moon” that was a New Moon, as well.

(All above images taken during May of 2019 in Down East, Maine.)

In the Right Place: She's Back

This is Blue Sky coming into Great Cove yesterday morning.

She’s one of our fishing vessels that are starting the summer-fall lobster season now, after spending the winter “on the hard.” Here we see owners Sandy and John White hauling up a trap as Blue Sky idles

The traps need to be emptied and rebaited (preferably with smelly herring) in a bait bag.

Below we see Sandy putting bait into the orange bait bag and John tossing back lobsters that are not within the legal limit. (You can see a baby lobster in mid-air.) The legal limit now apparently is from 3 1/4 to 5 inches of carapace length. The carapace is the lobster’s armored body part that contains the legs and claws.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Tale of Two Tails

We were lucky to catch this mature male American Redstart at rest for a second before it resumed its flitting patrol among the thick alder branches. Both sexes of these Warblers are vigorous invaders and defenders of territory.

There was no sign of a mate. Female Redstarts have no red jewelry. They’re white and gray-olive, with yellow patches on their wings and tail. So are first-year male Redstarts, making identifications difficult for amateurs like us.

The mature male’s red-orange tail patches are how the birds got their name, even though that name is descriptive only of older male Redstarts: “start” derives from the Middle English “stert,” meaning tail. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Welcome

It’s another foggy-drizzly-chilly day here in the Vacationland State. Old-timers are saying that this has been the most disappointing Spring ever. Nonetheless, many of the purple azaleas are at their peak and deep red tulips are standing tall.

Thye’re like neon Welcome signs on a dark road.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Game of Stones

This is Schoodic Point on Saturday (May 25), where exciting scenes can be enjoyed without staring at a digital screen.

This peninsular, located in Winter Harbor, is the only part of Acadia National Park that is not on an island.  Its massive granite ledges and volcanic basalt dykes have been fighting a war of attrition against the Atlantic Ocean since time immemorial.

Danger is in the history here, where sailing ships have foundered and a few careless climbers have had serious falls and even been caught by rogue waves and swept to sea.

Real thrills mixed with three-dimensional beauty are still possible.

(Winter Harbor, Maine)

In the Right Place: Service

Today is the most profound of our three annual military recognition days: it’s Memorial Day, when we honor those who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. The other days are May 18, Armed Forces Day, when we honored those on active duty and November 11, Veterans Day, when we’ll honor those who previously served in the military.

The image above is from the full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery for someone we think of on all three days: Don Green, a good friend, colleague, and former Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps. More images of his ceremony are below, followed by local images.

The above military ceremony for our friend was several years ago, but we also visited Brooklin’s Naskeag Cemetery yesterday to honor many local veterans whom we never knew. Most notable, perhaps, was William Reed, a Captain in George Washington’s Revolutionary Army who participated in “The Battle of Naskeag,” a 1778 skirmish with Redcoats not far from the cemetery.

Veterans from many other eras are buried there, including those under these gravestones:

At the Naskeag Cemetery yesterday, we were reminded that hope often emerges from sadness — the beautiful crab apple trees there are about to bloom.:

(Brooklin, Maine).

In the Right Place: Dabs

For once, the Ornithological High Priests who name birds were able to come up with a name that is simple, true, and memorable: this is a male Yellow Warbler.

Yellow Warblers have more yellow on their little (about 5-inch) bodies than any other of our warblers. Both sexes resemble dabs of sunshine. The males have rusty breast streaks, as you see above. The females don’t have those streaks or only faintly have:

The males are very musically talented – they reportedly compose and perform up to 3.240 different happy arias a day to attract females, but they also hiss like snakes when protecting their territory.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Persnickety

Sailing season must be coming: WoodenBoat School staff members attached the docking float to the WBS pier at low tide on Thursday (May 23).

Many consider a “dock” and a “pier” to be interchangeable words. But some of us are persnickety and consider a dock as a parking place for boats, a place that may be part of a floating pier that is in the water or attached to a stationary pier that is above the water. The pier, in effect, is the walkway or roadway to the dock area. That area may be a docking or boarding “float” attached to the pier by chains and accessed via a gangway down from the pier, as is the case at the WBS.

[Added later: The gangway was affixed in the morning of May 28:}

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Baptism

Here we have a newly-arrived male Northern Parula Warbler busily gleaning insects from emerging Speckled Alder leaves.

The female NPW looks the same, except she’s neater and doesn’t have dark “food stains” on her chest. Compare her with him: 

James Audubon named these little birds “Blue Yellow-Backed Warblers” because that’s what they look like:.

However, our ornithological high priests who prefer obscure terminology baptized them Parulas (“little titmice,” the genus for titmice being Parus).

Our Parulas are called Northern because they live mostly in the United States and Canada, compared to the Tropical Parulas, which are yellower and live mostly in Central and South America. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Vintage

Here we have neighbor Cynthia Stroud’s beautiful Frolic pulling at her mooring line in windy Great Cove on Tuesday (May 21). As usual, Frolic was the first sailboat to moor in the Cove this Spring and remains the only one there as of today.

She’s a “Luders 16” sloop. That is, she’s part of a class of graceful boats designed by famed naval architect Alfred Edward (“Bill”) Luders, Jr., and is a little over 16 feet long at the waterline (26’4” overall length). These boats originally were designed in 1934 for junior sailors, but have become favorites for many highly-experienced sailors who love to race vintage boats. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Looking Down

Waves of warblers are now coming through, driving us crazy as we try to identify the flitting and confusingly-named beauties.  Here we have a Common Yellowthroat Warbler, which is not to be confused with the different Yellow-Throated Warbler.

In fact, this is a male Common Yellowthroat, which is not to be confused with the female; she does not wear a mask, but loves them – she reportedly chooses a mate based on the size of his mask. (Bigger is better, when it comes to this species.) Here’s what she looks like

Common Yellowthroats are our only warblers that nest low in reedy marshes and like to hop around at the water’s edge; they’re easily missed by those who always look up for warblers.

However, the males frequently sit in low trees just above the cattails to sing over their domain:.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Battle Fatique

Here we see the sun early this morning riding to the rescue of Great Cove, which was being throttled by fog. By about 6 a.m., the fog was gone.

Ever since, the sun has been fighting desperate battles with avenging clouds; it brightly wins one, then is beaten back in a gray counterattack. It looks like we’re going to see such meteorological trench warfare most of today. Nonetheless, this is a considerable improvement from yesterday and the day before, when it felt like we were trapped inside a rainy and foggy terrarium most of the time.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Being Bright

This has been a dark and dank Spring in which many of our trees and bushes have not yet fully leafed-out. Yet, our male American Goldfinches already are wearing their outlandish summer suits. Their genes apparently gave them no choice; it’s time to for them to attract a mate and help the species survive.

Evolution has dictated that the brighter the male’s yellow plumage, the healthier he is. Female Goldfinches instinctively know that: male color brightness is a major criterion for them when they choose a mate. These females remain conservatively-tailored all year, which helps camouflage them when they are nesting as well as when the branches are bare:

On the other hand, the males’ bright yellow vests in bushes without leaves can attract hawks as well as mates. There are downsides to being handsome. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: The Blues

This is an image of last night’s uncommon “Full Flower Moon” that is merged with an image of one of our most common flowers. A May full moon is called a Flower Moon for an obvious reason: May is when many flowers appear, especially Dandelions.

But, last night’s moon was special because it was the third full moon in Spring, which began with the March 20 equinox. There will be a fourth full moon on June 17, before Spring ends on June 21. By astronomic definition, the third full moon in any one season that has four full moons is a “Blue Moon.” (The second full moon in any one month also is called a “Blue Moon.”)

These white moons are called Blue Moons because they are relatively rare, as are real blue moons caused by smoke or other atmospheric disturbances. Here is last night’s moon as it really was:

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Getting Ready

Many of our lobster fishermen (a term that includes females) are getting their gear in shape now to return to the water in late May or June, when the lobsters should be very active near our coast. Here we see neighbor Sandy White apparently working on trap identification tags in the Whites’ side yard.

She’ll soon be fishing with her husband, John, on their boat Blue Sky or its newer version now being built. As with many of our lobstermen, the Whites run hundreds of traps.

The current limits for most Maine fishing zones reportedly are 800 traps per licensee with no more than five traps on a single trawl line. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Summer Construction

This presumably female Broad-Winged Hawk has gotten our hopes up. We’ve seen her several times this week near a historic raptors’ nest.

In June of 2017, a pair of BWHs successfully raised four of the cutest raptors you’ll ever see in that secluded nest.

Female BWHs are the primary movers in selecting and building sturdy nests, although males have been known to help in the summer construction.

They usually nest in dense woods, where they can better protect their eggs and fledglings from raccoons, porcupines, owls, other hawks, and crows. Initially, they’ll hunt with their offspring in those woods and around field and pond edges for frogs, toads, snakes, small rodents, and large insects.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Land of Plenty

When it’s clear, we can see two island mountains that remind us of the area’s French history. Below this paragraph, we view the top of Champlain Mountain rising above and well behind the islands in Eggemoggin Reach.  (May 8 image) Mount Champlain is about 11 miles to the south-south-west of us on Isle au Haut (“High Mountain Island”), which was named in 1604 by French explorer Samuel de Champlain.

Below this second paragraph, we view Cadillac Mountain across Blue Hill Bay. (Last Year’s image) That mountain is about 18 miles to the east-north-east of us on another French-named island, Mount Desert (“Barren Mountain”) Island (MDI). It’s in the original part of Acadia National Park and was named in honor of French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Sieur de Cadillac who, in 1688, was given ownership of MDI, among other lands around here.

During the 17th Century, much of North America’s northeast, including what is now the Canadian Maritime Provinces and Maine, was the French Colony of L’Acadie (“Acadia,” a transliteration of a Native American word for “Land of Plenty”). (Brooklin, Maine)