This image appeared yesterday in our monthly column in the Ellsworth American.
To read the column, click here: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column
We lost an old friend on Tuesday (November 10). It was a 60-foot Red Spruce that had partly framed our view from the house of the North Field, Great Cove, and Eggemoggin Reach. An ancient injury to the Spruce’s trunk was opened up (probably by piliated woodpeckers) and it started to rot internally. We had to have the tree removed; it was beyond repair and large enough to damage the house if it came down in that direction.
Above, we see our tree cutter, Tobey Woodward, beginning to notch the tree base after cabling the trunk to his big tractor about 100 feet away. The fatal cut from the opposite side of the trunk felled the tree obediently, but gracefully, where the cable pulled it:
By the way, Red Spruces are a principal source of building lumber, especially for heavy construction, yet their wood also is valuable for the sounding boards of musical instruments. Their resin was the principal source of the spruce gum chewed and used for healing by Native Americans and American pioneers.
(Brooklin, Maine)
Yesterday was extraordinary. It looked like November: there were very few leaves above ground, the cattails were dead, and the North Field was browning. Yet, the temperatures were in the sixties (F).
Yesterday also was still and quiet near the pond, which became a reflecting pool. We sat unmoving on Flat Rock behind the pond and stared at the Field the way the deer and coyotes do from the woods’ edge, looking for movement before stepping into the open.
There was no movement, but we could imagine the flock of sheep that grazed this Field in the 19th Century, nosing the grass as they moved toward us. (Brooklin, Maine)
The leaves of this young Sugar Maple, photographed here yesterday (November 9), have just recently started changing to their fall colors.
On November 3, when other Sugar Maples were bare of leaves, this teenager’s leaves were still green and collecting snow:
Why do some trees hold onto their leaves longer than others?
Research shows that the more stress that a tree undergoes, the earlier it will shed its leaves to conserve water and energy. The amount of water that a tree gets in the spring and summer is especially important. This year we had semi-drought conditions, but this tree is in a low area (near our raised driveway) that collects some water when it rains. It also is fairly well protected from the high winds that we get on our ridge. Moreover, we’ve been experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures.
Meanwhile, about 200 feet from this Maple, our Katsura Tree looked like this yesterday:
(Brooklin, Maine)
As we walked by this mooring gear yesterday at the WoodenBoat School, Maine’s self-proclaimed status as the nation’s “Vacationland” came to mind.
This gear hasn’t been in the water since the summer of 2019, when it last served the School’s fleet of beautiful boats and the happy students who sailed and rowed them. Now, the gear seems to be a memorial to the 2020 vacation time that never was here. Yet, it also gives us hope – it seems to be eagerly ready for the fleet and smiling students to return in 2021 and for the world to start to return to what is loosely called “normal.” (Brooklin, Maine)
Something unusual happened to the moon this morning. Well, actually, it happened to our view of the moon. While the sun was trying to break through a very cloudy sky, a full moon appeared from time to time. This was at 10:25 a.m. Tonight, only a quarter of the moon is scheduled to be illuminated for us and there is no guarantee that we’ll see that.
Perhaps it was because, from our perspective, the orbiting moon was closer to the sun than usual and at an angle that received more light; but, the moon wasn't so close that the sun’s glare blotted it out to us. And, the clouds helped cut down on that glare. Maybe you have a better explanation for us. (Brooklin, Maine) Click on image to enlarge it.
Now is the time to locate Tamarack Trees, and we did a little of that yesterday, as you see.
In the summer, when gazing at the distant woods, it can be hard to tell the thin and wiry Tamaracks from their sturdier neighbors, the Spruces and Balsam Firs. All are a mass of green-needled branches. But at this time of year, the Tamaracks confess their secret: their needled branches flare into yellow incandescence and then the needles let go and drop like golden sprinkles.
These trees are different. They’re “deciduous,” not evergreen, but they’re also “coniferous” because they produce and drop cones (both male and female ones from the same tree).
“Tamarack” is the Algonquin Tribe’s name for “snowshoe wood,” which is what the tree’s flexible wood trunk and branches could become in the hands of a good craftsman. Nonetheless, the tree also is commonly called a “Hackmatack” (Abanaki Tribe name) and a “Larch” (European name). (Brooklin, Maine) See also the image in the first Comment space.
This morning, I was sitting in an intermittent drizzle on Flat Rock, hidden behind the cattails while scanning our North Field. I wasn’t comfortable. The rock was wet and not equipped with a roll of Bounty Towels.
I was debating moving to another location when our alarm went off – about 20 crows started screeching their black hearts out in the trees at the edge of the Field. “Eagle!,” I thought and intensively searched the tree tops while the birds went insane. Nothing.
I fortunately looked down at the Field in frustration and there he was. (Sex assumed.) He was loping low and keeping his eye on me. While I was watching crows, he was watching me: a gorgeous mature Bobcat. When I “shot” with a “click,” he stopped and studied me for a second and ran off.
I was lucky; Bobcats are mostly nocturnal. They’re named for their bobbed” (shortened) tails, of course. Although not commonly seen, they’re the most abundant wildcat in North America and have been roaming the earth for about 1.8 million years.
Bobcats can be fierce hunters and kill prey that is much larger than they are, but they usually eat rabbits, squirrels, birds, and other small prey. They’re fast for a small, stocky animal: They’ve been clocked at 34 miles an hour and seen to jump 12 feet high. (Brooklin, Maine)
It seems that traps are being off-loaded daily at the Town Pier in Naskeag Harbor.
Today, as you see above, we had Cool Change bringing her traps in. When they’re all in, she may be refitted for scallop fishing over the winter.
The preferred means of trap transportation is by truck and trailer, as you can see in today’s image below of the traps of a different vessel.
(Brooklin, Maine)
We went by the Reversing Falls in Blue Hill today and noticed that our annual “paddling” of Common Eiders was forming far offshore in Blue Hill Bay. There were about 70 of these ducks have flown in so far – fewer than usual for early November.
These are our largest native ducks. By December, hundreds of them usually have arrived to over-winter as a group in the Bay.
Each year, the Annual Blue Hill Eider Convention seems to attract fewer vacationers. Part of the reason is that this duck’s favorite food, the Blue Mussel, has been significantly diminished along our coast. Actually, these ducks are part of their own problem – each can gobble down (whole) more mussels than you get for dinner at a generous restaurant.
When humans get close to these ducks while they’re feeding, they paddle away in a collective frenzy, which may be a defensive move designed to obscure individual targets and appear to be a single, large body.
We haven’t yet been able to get close enough to the Eiders to take good photographs this year. So, we’ll show a couple of images from prior years. The males are white and black and the females are bronze.
(Brooklin, Maine)
This Election Day morning, we had the first snowstorm of the Winter. Although not a big one — about an inch’s worth — it delivered enough snow to cover the trees and bushes, some of which still were wearing their Fall leaves.
The early morning light gave familiar sights — including two familiar deer caught trespassing (again) — new aspects.
The Winterberry and Viburnum plants were caught by surprise with some of their leaves on when the Winter weather arrived. Some of the Maple trees were caught with all of their leaves on, which can be dangerous if the snow gets too heavy.
In the afternoon, the sun appeared occasionally to dapple the landscape while melting the snow. Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park got caught by a sunspot as the clouds opened for a few seconds.
A similar dappling effect was seen at the Brooklin Cemetery and a local pond..
In the evening, the sunset afterglow was befitting a special day.
(Brooklin, Maine)
Here, we see a pleasing display of garden pots at the Mainescape Plant Nursery in Blue Hill on October 19. We wondered why we found a group of pots so pleasing.
It turns out that there is significant research on the subject of the pleasing nature of circles. It begins with the finding that humans have had a predilection for circles and other curvilinear shapes for at least 40,000 years and the addition of colors and concentric lines has been a traditional way to make those forms even more pleasing.
The reported three leading theories on why we like circles start with an evolutionary finding that ancient humans found that curvilinear shapes in nature, such as bushes, generally were safer than angular ones, such as animal teeth and rocks.
The second theory is based on tests in which most humans associated circles and other curvilinear shapes with happiness and associated triangles with anger. The final theory is that circular shapes conform with the circular and curvilinear shape of the human eye and complement the act of viewing. (Brooklin, Maine) Click on the image to enlarge it.
This October and its fall foliage were not as spectacular here as in some prior years. That said, the month was a remarkable one. The month’s early clouds and light were special, even though, during the first two weeks, Apples, Beach Rose Hips, and Winterberry fruit hung on for dear life.
Eventually, the leaves began turning in earnest on trees and bushes.
The wild Low-Bush Blueberry leaves were stunning in their fields that slowly became raspberry red. The Viburnum bushes also were especially vibrant this year, producing their full range of colors — from blazing red to purple.
By mid-month, the Goldenrod had turned fuzzy gray, the Cinnamon Fern was turning gold, and the red fruits of invasive Asian Bittersweet were emerging from their yellow husks. Some of the trees also had dropped most of their leaves by then, including the Camperdown Elm in Brooklin Cemetery and many old wild apple trees.
But, the Chrysanthemums were at their prime and truckloads of them were arriving to decorate Fall porches.
On the waterfront, we had our share of whitecap days, but the big activity involved our fishing vessels ending their lobster season and taking in their traps and buoys. Many of the vessels will get refitted for scallop dredging during the winter.
Although there was some recreational sailboat activity in October, many of the boats were in storage by then and some of them never left storage to sail this summer due to the Covid 19 plague.
Those of our Sea Gulls that intend to migrate south usually start in October. We hosted m,any sandpipers on their way south, including the Greater Yellowlegs Sandpiper below. Our White-Tailed Deer don’t migrate — they grow dark and deep winter coats and stay put.
By the end of the month, the sunsets were starting to get dramatic, as usual. The low sunlight in winter produces yellow, pink, red and occasional greenish sunsets. Of course, the last evening in the month is Halloween, which was historic this year.
The reason that Halloween was historic this year had to do with the moon: We had two full moons this October and one of them was on Halloween. Below, you see the first one, the Harvest Moon on October 3:
It’s unusual to have a full moon on Halloween and even more unusual for that moon to be the second full moon in the month, making it a “Blue Moon.” Yet, we had one last night. That October Hunters’ Moon also was a “Micro Moon,” meaning that it was unusually far away — the opposite of a “Super Moon,” which is unusually close. Below, we see it rising over Acadia National Park and sending its glitterpath over Blue Hill Bay.
Now that we think about it, maybe October was spectacular.
(All images above were taken in Down East Maine in October of 2020.)
Now that many of the leaves have dropped, we can see our beautiful, but lethal, galaxies of Asiatic Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), sometimes known as Oriental Bittersweet.
This silent assassin has been growing quickly under cover all summer. The trees and bushes that are its prey are helpless as this Bittersweet squeezes them to death like a python winding higher and higher toward their tops.
As you can see from the October 24 images here, this is the time that many of the red fruits are emerging from their yellow skins, making themselves available to hungry birds. The droppings of those birds, in turn, propagate the plant faster than humans can eradicate it.
The State of Maine has acknowledged that this nuisance is too far-gone to be eliminated. But, the State has listed it as an invasive species that may not be encouraged or sold or distributed here for wreathes or other decorative purposes.
There is an innocuous native version of this plant, aptly named American Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens). Its leaves are elliptical, not rounded, and its flowers and fruit occur in clumps at the end of the stems like pendants, rather than being strung along the stem like a pearl neckless. (Brooklin, Maine) See also the image in the first Comment space.
It’s easy to ignore common things. For example, many people seem not to pay attention to seagulls or even know that there are various seagull species that look different from each other and, depending on age, look different within the same species. Here, we see the most common of our gulls flying in Naskeag Harbor on October 24.
This is an American Herring Gull. It’s sometimes called a Smithsonian Gull due to the fact that its scientific species name, “smithsonianus,” honors the English chemist James Smithson, whose financial bequest enabled the Smithsonian Institution to become successful. Here’s the same bird after it alighted on the Town Pier nd eyes us suspiciously:
We can tell from this bird’s gray-mottled head and pink legs that it’s a nonbreeding adult that is four or more years old. We can’t tell whether it will migrate south, which most of our gulls do. But, we always have a few true Mainer gulls that hunker through the winter. In fact, the number of fulltime gull residents seems to have increased in the past few years along with our ambient and water temperatures. This one seems comfortable now, however.
These birds can be brash when it comes to getting the food that they need, especially in winter. But they’re also smart and don’t waste their time on useless acts. This was proved by a British experiment during World War II.
One of the birds’ traits is to flock around food sources, be they schools of fish or discarded food. The Brits decided to train Herring Gulls by feeding them fish from partially submerged periscopes. The hope was that the trained birds would automatically swarm German U-Boat periscopes to find fish and give notice of the presence of a subs. The gulls swarmed the training periscopes that had been supplied with fish; they ignored the same periscopes when they had no fish. (Brooklin, Maine)
There are many ways to take lobster traps ashore at the end of the season. The crew of the Fishing Vessel Cassie Marie seemed to like to make a game of it on Saturday (October 24). They seemed to be playing a fishermen’s version of Blind Man’s Buff.
They loaded the traps in the front of their outboard motored utility boat until the driver was, in effect, blindfolded by them. The boat was pointed toward the shore and driven until it beached itself with a crunch. (We think we saw the driver peek and swerve several times.)
The traps were stacked on the beach until there were enough of them to make a trailer load to carry them off to storage:
By the way, the origins of the game Blind Man’s Buff (often called Bluff) date back to ancient Greece, according to historians. Versions of it were popular in Henry VIII’s court, Colonial America, and, especially, in Victorian England. (Brooklin, Maine)
Here, you see one of our Viburnum bushes on October 19 and, below that, you’ll see the same bush as it was yesterday in a decimated state.
Within a day or so, there will be virtually no Viburnum leaves to admire. The plants deserve a rest. From spring to fall, they put on a spectacular performance involving white flowers and green leaves, red and black berries, and bright red leaves that become wine-purple in color.
There are between 150 and 175 native and imported species in the Viburnum genus, according to what we’ve read. Our plants are Mariesii Viburnums, named after19th Century English Botanist Charles Maries. (For the scientifically oriented: our plants apparently are the tomentosum form of Viburnum plicatum.) They do well in Down East Maine. (Brooklin, Maine)
On Saturday (October 24), we thought that we heard some snoring and peeked into the WoodenBoat School Boat Shed and saw this:
Some of the WBS small boat fleet have been sleeping there since the summer of 2019. The School cancelled its 2020 sailing and building classes due to the Covid plague.
To give you a better idea of the size of these boats, look at “Swifty.” She’s the double-ended Caledonia yawl in the left of this image. She’s 19’6” long and has a beam (greatest width) of 6’2”. As with all of these boats, “Swifty” looks much better in the water, which we can show you. Here’s our archive image of her being expertly sailed in pre-plague days:
Leighton Archive Image
(Brooklin, Maine)
This tall, but relatively young, White Oak (Quercus alba) is one of our more famous trees for reasons that will become clear. But, the point that we want to make first is that Oaks hold onto some of their leaves longer than most deciduous trees and some Oaks will keep a few (sometimes almost all) of their leaves through the winter.
This tenacity, called marcescence, is not fully understood, but usually occurs in younger trees. (Keep in mind that Oaks have been known to live longer than 400 years – “younger” is a relative term.) Apparently, in most other trees, a layer of cells forms around the base of leaves as the weather gets colder and seals the leaves off from water and nutrients. This “abscission layer” does not completely form in Oaks and a few other trees. Many of their leaves don’t completely die; their diet is severely diminished and they turn dry and brown, but they hang on. The leaves on some Oaks also take longer to change color:
We know that you’ve patiently been reading about science, but really wanting to know why this particular Oak is famous. Well, it was planted in the back of the Brooklin Cemetery by one of Brooklin’s most famous residents, the writer E.B. (“Andy”) White. He planted it when his beloved wife died and was buried there in 1977. His wife, Katherine Sergeant Angell White, also was a famous author and editor. When Andy died in 1985, he was buried next to her under the Oak and their plain gravestones receive a scattering of its leaves every Fall.
(Brooklin, Maine; images taken October 24, 2020)
Here, we see one of our favorite places, as it was Thursday (October 22). We keep a visual record of this iconic connected farmhouse on Bay Road (Route 175).
10/22/2020
But, it’s sad to watch it die a little each day while seemingly trying hard to maintain some of the dignity that it had when a large family called her home. At one time, part of this house also acted as a local Post Office. Now, she’s a place visited mostly by seagulls that befoul her roof:
Leighton Archive Image
Small farms – real working ones – are declining fast here due to changing times. Maine land values are increasing exponentially; insurers are refusing to insure old houses without extraordinarily expensive safety renovations; mortgage institutions are refusing to fund houses that don’t have adequate insurance, and many older owners do not have the heart or money to tear down their former homes.
Leighton Archive Image
There is a movement in Maine to use land trusts to try to conserve some of these farmhouses by subsidizing organic and other small farmers to inhabit them. However, it may be too little too late. The inhabitants of decently reconstructed connected houses and barns now often are not farmers, cows, goats, or horses; they’re business people or retirees who use the barns for cars, snowmobiles, and (in the winter) boats. (Brooklin, Maine)