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In the Right Place: The Last Chance

This image, taken yesterday, is poignant for two reasons.

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First, it’s the final sail by the women in the first sailing class of the year at the renowned WoodenBoat School. They were ending a five-day basic course for women only called “Elements of Sailing I,” which was taught by super-sailors Jane Ahlfeld and Robin Lincoln. The sailboats used are 12 ½-foot Herreshoffs and Havens, usually shepherded by WBS Waterfront Manager Greg Bauer in one of the School’s motorized skiffs.

The second reason why this image is poignant is that these four little boats are tacking out of Great Cove into Eggemoggin Reach on a fair (albeit hazy) afternoon. The weather has been miserable here most of the week, forcing these sailors to stay in the Cove, often in fog and/or drizzle – which they didn’t seem to mind! But, the weather gods smiled on them for their last WBS sail yesterday.

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Above, we see the class at an early, show-and-tell stage of the cours:

(Brooklin, Maine).

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In the Right Place: Curiosity

Here’s a moment from yesterday at dusk. Part of our local “herd” of adult does and yearlings have started browsing slowly up the North Field. Some of these White-Tailed Deer will stay the night, curling down and making a grass nest; others will move on to another bedding place on nearby property; others will not sleep.

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Three browsing yearlings on the flank get to about 100 yards from us and see something curious in the surrounding woods. They don’t do a yellow alert freeze; they keep coming, but with eyes and ears in action mode, unable to get a whiff of an unusual shape that is upwind from them. That shape is not moving and crouched over a camera and monopod. On hearing a “click,” they veer off toward the rest of the herd, but at a walk. They’re very calm tonight. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Bejeweled

If you like to go out singing and dancing in the rain, Brooklin has been the place for you lately. If you’re not quite that exuberant, but feel cooped up, you can join us for this short, virtual walk to see some of our summer flowers being bejeweled by yesterday’s weather gods.

The tough Beach Rose (Rosa rugosa) seems to be warning the wind and rain not o dare to come closer, while the disheveled Iris seem to open their mouths to drink in the rain.

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The modest Peonies remain closed to the showers, while the mysteries of the flamboyant Poppies are revealed after gentle persuasion.

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The colorful mazes of Azaleas and evergreen Rhododendrons confuse and trap the wandering raindrops.

And, of course, the impervious wild Lupines pretend that nothing is happening.

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(Brooklin, Maine):

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In the Right Place: Short Lives

Here we see three young male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies (Papilio glaucus). They’re “puddling” on Great Cove’s shore during low tide Monday (June 24). That is, they’re sucking up sodium ions and amino acids that will help them reproduce.

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Usually, only males do this and only during the first few days of their existence. Tiger Swallowtails live only about a month as butterflies.

Prior year image

Prior year image

Above, we see a female ETS drinking the nectar from purple cow vetch, which has recently emerged around here. Females have hind wings that are hemmed with blue jewels, whereas the males’ wing borders are black, except perhaps for a button or two of blue near the abdomen. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Little Devils

Hawkweed has suddenly been brightening the fields here, joining the daisies:

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Most of it is Yellow Hawkweed:

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About 10 percent is Orange Hawkweed:

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t seems that experts now consider Yellow and Orange Hawkweed to be two different plants. Nonetheless, both are in the dandelion/chicory family and share the common name Hawkweed.

That common name derives from whimsical folklore in which hawks supposedly ate parts of the plant to improve their eyesight. Other common names include the word “devil,” because farmers found the weeds to be invasive and virtually impossible to kill. On the other hand, Native Americans used these plants like chewing tobacco. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Greatness

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Each year, it seems, we see fewer Great Blue Herons here. It’s not that they’ve become endangered or rare; it’s just that they were once common sights and now they seem to be occasional glimpses.

In the 1990s, there was a small rookery of them in the spruce and balsam fir overlooking Great Cove. But, we haven’t seen a Great Blue nest there for decades.

Great Blues are our largest and most regal Herons, hence the title “Great.” They’re at their most graceful in slow flight when their supple wings seem to furl and unfurl in waltz-like rhythms: one-two-three-glide..

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They can achieve a respectable air speed of about 30 miles per hour once they get cranked up. When it comes to speed, however. It’s their fishing spearing technique that is most impressive — it’s an extremely fast blur.

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Great Blue Herons have a decidedy mysterious quality that perhaps is best experienced in a heavy, silent fog, when they sail over us like dark spirits on broad wings that whisper “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh” — pause for gliding — “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.”

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Fast Flora

If plants could experience growing pains, flora “ouches” would be louder than bird songs around here. Coastal Maine has one of the shortest, but one of the most robust, growing seasons for native plants. Each year, we photograph the growth of an Arrow Arum (Peltandra virginica) in a nearby pond and an Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) in our bog.

Below is an image of the Arrow Arum taken yesterday above one taken about a month before:

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Below is an image of the Skunk Cabbage taken yesterday above one taken about two months before:

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Miserable

Many of our fishermen (male and female) are still getting their lobster traps into the water. Record amounts of unseasonable cold, fog, and rain seem to have complicated our spring and early summer, including the beginning of the summer fishing season. Here, we see the Cassie Marie being loaded with traps at Naskeag Harbor in the fog and drizzle that made Thursday (June 20) miserable. 

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Cassie is a “Novi”-style fishing vessel that moors in the Harbor. These boats are called “Novies” because their basic design originated in Nova Scotia. Usually, they have stepped up hulls, utilitarian cabins with banked windows, upswept sterns, and rounded bottoms. (Brooklin, Maine) (By the way, it’s a beautiful day here as we speak.)

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In the Right Place: Seeing Red

Here we see the Angelique resting in Great Cove earlier this month:

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She soon raised her famous tanbark-colored sails and left the Cove fully loaded:

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Angelique is a 130-foot gaff topsail ketch out of Camden, Maine. She’s one of our more easily identified tourist coasters due to her distinctive overhanging fantail, plumb bow, and, of course, reddish sails that evoke thoughts of historic sail-making. In days of yore, when sails were made of cotton, the sailcloth often was dipped in a vat of tannins extracted from tree bark to protect the sails against rot. The resulting red-brown color was (and is) called tanbark, although “bark-tan” would seem more apt.

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Another distinctive characteristic of Angelique is that her crew encourages their passengers to row the schooner’s longboat ashore and back for land activities.

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Delicacy

This little fellow could sit on a nickel and still have room to stretch. He’s an Eastern American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus) and part of the toad migration now hopping through our woods. A few days ago, the little toads like this were tadpoles; now, they’re looking for homesteads.

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If he grows up, he’ll be somewhere between two and four inches long and capable of eating 1,000 insects daily. To protect against predators, he exudes a mild poison from his cranial crests. That toxin can irritate human eyes and mucous membranes and make dogs sick, but it doesn’t bother the Garter Snakes that think toads are a delicacy. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Late Bloomers

Many of the more exotic Rhododendrons, including Azaleas, were late in blooming on our coast this year, apparently due to our freeze-thaw-freeze winter and wet-cold spring. However, during this week, we’ve finally seen the riotous colors that some of these Rhodies produce.

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Our favorites are the stunning pink-orange Azalea above and red evergreen Rhody below.

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Blur

This bird is heard more often than seen. When seen, he’s usually just one of several flying brown blurs that are impossible to focus on without equipment. But, when occasionally seen clearly in the underbrush, he’s surprisingly cute in a brown-feathered way.

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Yes, he’s a Song Sparrow. Here, he’s apparently trying to attract a mate late in the courtship season. As with many other birds, female Song Sparrows are attracted most to the males that add novel improvisations to the specie’s usual calls. This lonely soloist inserted some complicated cadenzas that sounded pretty good to us, but no female Sparrow showed up to applaud. There was no sense in taking a bow.

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Cushy

We’re in Great Cove yesterday morning watching the Stephen Taber. There’s virtually no wind, so she’s being turned by a crew member in her powerful yawl boat, Babe, which is lashed to her stern. Once the Taber is pointed toward Eggemoggin Reach and its better winds, the crew member will climb onboard and Babe will become the vessel’s outboard motor.

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This 110-foot windjammer has no engine, which is the way things were in 1871, when she was launched into the rugged 19th Century commercial coasting fleet.

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Now, the Taber is a spiffy National Historic Landmark out of Rockland, Maine; life on her can be pretty cushy.

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She’s now on an advertised five-day “Gourmet Gastropub Cruise” with Chef James Tranchemontagne at the stove and lecturing on cooking. He’s the owner of the Frog & Turtle restaurant in Westbrook, Maine.

Don’t get fooled into thinking that she’s just a lush floating lounge, though. When she’s racing with all her canvas up, passengers better hold on:

Prior Year Image

Prior Year Image

(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Dark and Darker

Deciduous tree leaves have filled much of the canopy of our spruce-fir-hardwood forests, making the woods darker in many areas. Two of our more bashful plants that love shadows are emerging there: Star Flowers and Lady’s Slippers.

Multitudes of tiny Star Flowers are sprinkling the dappled and dark mossy areas of our woods and many of them are “Lucky Stars”: plants that have seven leaves and seven-petalled flowers.

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The less common Lady’s Slippers need things darker and danker for their delicate foot-ware. These wild orchids grow only in moist soil that contains the mycorrhizae fungus, which provides the plants necessary energy and nutrients.

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Down East Tale

This is the Lewis R. French in Great Cove early yesterday morning, waiting to raise sail.

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She sailed out of the Cove in a light rain that, by afternoon, had worked itself into a psychotic torrent of a storm. The drenched tourists on this schooner will have a good tale to tell when they get home.

The 101-foot French was launched in 1871 out of Christmas Cove, Maine. She was built there by the French brothers and named after their father. In her youth, her life was varied and hard: Among other things, she freighted bricks, granite, fish, lime, firewood, and Christmas trees.

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Now, the French is a classic and almost luxurious coastal cruiser out of Camden, Maine; she takes visitors out for leisurely multi-day sails, roving the islands and coves of Down East Maine and serving exquisite food. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Candelabra Time

Our Horse Chestnut Trees (Aesculus hippocastanum) are sprouting their beautiful candelabra-shaped flower stalks now.

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These unusual trees are native to the Balkans. They were imported into England in 1616, primarily for landscape use, and then exported to the United States for similar purposes – it’s unusual to find one within the woods. It was called a chestnut tree because of similarities to the European Sweet Chestnut Tree (Castanea sativa), but it’s not related to that tree.

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Most botanists say that it was called a “Horse” Chestnut because the Turks fed its seeds to cure coughing horses. Some also say that it got that name because, when the trees’ leaves fall, they leave scars on their twigs that look like horseshoes with nail holes. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: The Chase

These are our Lilac days. The bushes are offering large, fragrant scoops of their delicious-looking dessert. The flowers are edible, but they don’t taste nearly as good as they look and smell.

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Folklore tells us that the purple Lilac is the flower of our first love and the white Lilac is the flower of our once youthful innocence.

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In Greek mythology, Pan, the god of the forests and fields, saw the beautiful nymph Syringa and immediately gave chase for reasons other than conversation. She escaped his clutches by turning herself into a Lilac bush (probably white). That’s why the scientific name for the Lilac genus is Syringa. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Awakening

This is early yesterday morning. The sun has just crested the ridge and is peering into Great Cove; there’s virtually no wind; the tide is rolling slowly out as an undulating mirror. It’s quiet. There are no other people here to see the boats awaken.

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We focus on an odd pair of residents. Martha is a gracefully sturdy 20-foot Salee Rover Sloop owned by neighbor Rich Hilsinger. She squints into the sun, languidly taking in its warmth.

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Geronimo is a strong and fast 18-foot West Pointer skiff designed and originally built by Alton Wallace. She’s fully awake and eager to be let off the leash to start the day’s ferrying, pushing, and pulling for her WoodenBoat School masters. See the image in the first Comment space. (Brooklin, Maine)

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