In the Right Place: When the Blues Become the Reds

The Penobscot wild blueberry fields were especially fiery in yesterday morning’s early light. It seems that the colors of these “low bush” berry fields are peaking later and later and getting more intense, perhaps due to our increasingly warmer and wetter climate.

The plants’ various shades of red in the fall (and now, winter) are due to significant amounts of anthocyanin, a red pigment, being synthesized by the plant before its leaves drop. Anthocyanin is a flavonoid, a powerful antioxidant that helps make the blueberries a highly nutritious food.

Maine is the world’s largest harvester and marketer of these pea-sized, extra-sweet blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium). Unlike ordinary blueberries, these grow only in the wild; they can’t be planted like a commercial crop.

Nonetheless, many growers do bring commercially available bees to their fields for pollination and harvest the fruit mechanically. On the other hand, many growers still rake them up with tools invented in 1910. (Images taken in Penobscot, Maine, on November 23, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Grumpy Old Rodents

This grumpy old fellow shambled close by me in the Naskeag Harbor parking lot last week without a morning greeting or even looking up. (Sex assumed.) He probably was in a bad mood because he usually sleeps all day and the lobster trap stackers down there were making strange noises.

He’s a North American Porcupine, the largest of the porcupines and the only kind that we have in Maine. Their common name is a derivation of the Latin for “spiny pig.” Researchers say that these rodents can be armed with 30,000 or more barbed quills. They don’t shoot those quills; they defend themselves with amazingly fast swats of that spiked tail. Unfortunately, most dogs appear to underestimate how dangerous these fellow mammals are until it’s too late.

At this time of the year, the porcupine diet turns from fruit and plants to mostly wood, whether it’s part of a log cabin or is natural tree bark or woody bush stems. They can seriously damage (even kill) trees and are viewed by many as pests.

State wildlife managers do not consider porcupines worth conserving at their current levels – they may be killed here at any season, in any number, and at any age. That’s another reason for that old fellow to be grumpy in the morning. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 15, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Collection Reflections

Here’s a bit of a curiosity: a raft of at least 20 wild turkeys just enjoying the sunset over Blue Hill Bay on Saturday evening. They soon flew into the nearby trees to roost for the night.

A group of Turkeys is called a “raft,” originally meaning a large collection of the same things (e.g. a raft of logs). The word was derived from the Middle English “raf,” which also meant a large collection and evolved into such words as riffraff and rafters. (Some publishers of funny group names have incorrectly called a group of turkeys a “rafter.”)

And yes, although wild turkeys spend their days as sauntering nomads, they usually protect themselves at night by sleeping in trees. The exception is brooding hens, which will incubate their eggs in a ground nest in the spring and stay with their poults until the little things can fly to bed. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 20, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Light on Light

Here we see the Pumpkin Island Lighthouse on Friday afternoon. It’s a good place to go in any season, if you like to watch the day do magic tricks with natural light. On Friday, the island was being side-lit by the fast-falling sun in the southwest – a horizontal layer of weak winter light that lengthened shadows into infinity.

It’s different story in the spring and summer here. The sun can go down in a raging firestorm of light directly behind the island, silhouetting its structures and piercing them in places:

Pumpkin Island is located at the northwest entrance to Eggemoggin Reach, a famous sailing channel between the Penobscot Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The powerful light on the island entered service in 1855, when many big-masted coastal cruisers were carrying timber, granite, and other commercial cargo through the Reach.

The light was operated until 1933, when the Island and its structures were sold into private ownership and have remained in private hands since. (Images taken from Little Deer Island, Maine, on November 19, 2021, and May 11, 2018.)

In the Right Place: Chilling

Here we see November’s Full Moon as it finally appeared in clear skies last night. It had undergone a partial lunar eclipse earlier yesterday morning – an eclipse that we didn’t see here because of torrential rains.

This moon was named the Beaver Full Moon by native Americans because it appeared during their beaver trapping season, when humans in this area needed fur to protect them from November’s freezes.

We have yet to have a hard freeze here this month, although the temperatures have temporarily dipped below freezing during some nights and mornings. It is a chilly (but not painful) 34 degrees (F) as this is written. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 19, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Waterfront Report

Naskeag Harbor looks like a Lego® competition lately, as more fishermen bring ashore their lobster traps and stack them for trailering to winter storage.

You can get quite a workout stacking these plastic-coated wire traps. They’re up to four feet long and can weigh up to 65 pounds. You also want to be neat about it so that you don’t bend them out of operable shape or otherwise damage them. They cost about $100 per trap and are more intricate than it might seem to the casual observer.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 17, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Abstractions and Attractions

Here you see the abstract strokes that painted last night’s sky over Great Cove, just after the sun went down behind Deer Isle. Let’s hope that it’s an augury of what we’ll see within the next 24 hours.

Tonight’s full Beaver Moon is scheduled to be partially eclipsed from our viewpoint. This should be one of the longest, most colorful lunar eclipses we’ve had in many years – if we’re awake and IF the sky is clear enough.

The moon is scheduled to begin passing into the Earth’s shadow here at 1:02 a.m. (Friday) and last almost three and one-half hours for us. (The full eclipse seen by some in the world will last for about six hours, the longest in 580 years.)

The eclipse should reach its maximum for us at about 4 a.m., when the full moon may become red or brown due to the refraction of sunlight around the Earth’s edges. If you can see it, the moon initially will be heading southwest from the northeast. Set the alarm and check the sky. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 17, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Late Again

It’s important to know that this image was taken yesterday. It’s a nearby pond that, in summer, is filled with native water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) and their floating pads. If you have good eyes, you may see a few pads still floating on its breeze-rippled water.

As of this time last year, this pond was completely “iced-in”; and, a week after that, its ice was covered with snow.

The icing-in of ponds and lakes plays a significant part in maintaining their water quality, including clarity. The delay of that phenomenon is yet another indicator of harmful climate warming.

The ice and its accumulated snow protect against continued atmospheric oxygen exchange with the water and block much of the light that penetrates it. This inhibits the growth of tiny aquatic plants (algae or phytoplankton) and animal life (zooplankton) that can adversely affect water quality if their populations get too large.

The cold lid also helps the water to “turnover” (colder water sinking, warmer rising) and cleanse itself. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 16, 2021, [water] and November 19 [ice] and 25, [ice and snow] 2020.)

In the Right Place: Parade

Here’s what a good November day looks like when gazing east from Amen Ridge here. Stratocumulus clouds parade over Blue Hill Bay as Mount Cadillac in Acadia National Park stands stiffly in review. Later, it will be the clouds that you remember.

Stratocumulus clouds reportedly are the world’s most common clouds, and the derivation of their name is not flattering. They are a “flattened heap,” according to their Latin origin. Yet, they’re friendly. They usually don’t rain on us and, if they lose control and do, it’s usually an apologetic sprinkle.

In fact, they are the sky’s fortune tellers -- they tell us when the weather will change for the better or worse. That’s because they’re usually visible when a warm, cold, or occluded front is forming nearby. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 1, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Classic

Here you see the Fishing Vessel Dear Abbie: coming into the Town Dock in Naskeag Harbor last week. Her crew has been pulling some of their lobster traps from the water and is about to offload them onto a trailer and take them to winter storage. The lobstering season here usually ends in November.

Dear Abbie: has the kind of jaunty beauty that a good hunting dog has. But, part of that beauty derives from her classic characteristics as a Maine or Down-East-Style lobster boat.

Among other characteristics, she has a graceful but functional sweep or “sheer line” from a high, flared bow that can handle head-on seas to a low working freeboard area that makes hauling traps aboard easier. Dear Abbie: sits relatively high in the water, which helps maneuverability due to less water displacement. Below the waterline, she has a rounded hull and a keel in which the propeller is set to protect it in low water. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 6 [moored] and 8 [moving], 2021.)

In the Right Place: Seeing the Light

The winter months of November through January here can be the best for what photographers call “the golden hours” – the first hour of light after sunrise and the last hour of light before sunset.

That’s when shafts of warm light can filter through woods like messages from heaven and glowing warm light can slowly retreat across open landscapes, taking back the day’s color as it goes.

The sun’s path (“arc”) controls our light and thermal heat. In our Northern Hemisphere during winter, the sun rises in the southeast, transiting “our” sky at low angles, and setting in the southwest. The lower angles and colder (less moist) atmosphere often provide warmly colored golden hours and the best sunsets of the year. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 9, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Seeing Red

Many of us hereabouts are obsessed with this iconic boathouse in Conary Cove. In fact, some of us take far too many photographs of this everchanging view. Nonetheless, here’s a November scene for my fellow obsessives:

This landmark has been repaired, restored, and repainted a number of times. As far as I can tell, the original boathouse was built around 1913 and it was white or gray then. Perhaps originally, but at least by the early 1950’s, it had a pier extending far into the Cove from those two side doors. I’ve been unable to determine when and why the pier was removed and to find out when the boathouse first was painted red.

Perhaps one of you can help us with some of the boathouse’s unknown history. (Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on November 6, 2021.)

In the Right Place: The Wet Threat

This image of Brooklin’s Naskeag Harbor appeared yesterday in my monthly column in the Ellsworth American.

To read the column, which is about dangerous flooding in Maine and the rest of the nation, click here: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Drought Report

Here you see Patten Stream tumbling into Patten Bay at low tide on Tuesday. We have no lack of life-giving fresh water along the coast of Maine. (Image taken in Surry, Maine, on November 9, 2021.) However, Maine’s northwestern counties are still suffering abnormal dryness and drought.

Today’s U.S. Drought Report map shows the areas in Maine that, as of today, are “abnormally dry” (yellow), in “moderate drought” (tan), or in “severe drought” (burnt orange):

In the Right Place: Proud Smiles

Virtually all of the wild winterberry bushes (Ilex verticillata) have now dropped their leaves, revealing large blushes of berries on the subdued November landscape.

It looks like this year will be an exceptionally good one for this wildlife food.

Winterberry fruit is a major ingredient in nature’s winter survival kit. The small red berries reportedly feed at least 49 species of animals, especially birds, but also including deer, raccoons, and small rodents. The wildlife tend to eat these berries later in the winter after they have consumed more nutritious foods. This is a good deal for those of us who like to see a few bright colors in the winter woods.

The berries grow only on the females of this native deciduous holly, but they are proof that at least one gray fertilizing male is nearby (with, one likes to imagine, a proud smile on his face).

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 9, 2021.)

In the Right Place: 'Tis the Season

November begins our sunset season when colder, cleaner air and lower light angles allow more of the sun’s rainbow of colors to be seen by the human eye – especially those at the red-orange end of the spectrum.

Above, you see last night’s sunset afterglow above and in Great Cove. Below, you’ll see the moon high above that afterglow.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 8, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Arghh!

Chokecherry Tree leaves are dropping, which advertises their cherries to the birds. Our variety of this native tree is the Eastern Chokecherry also known as Bitter-Berry and Virginia Bird Cherry (Prunus virginiana var. virginiana). See also the image in the first Comment space.

This small tree/large bush is called Chokecherry because that’s what you’ll do if you taste the extraordinarily bitter fruit fresh off the tree – “Arghh!” Yet, it was one of the most important foods for Native American tribes. The very nutritious cherries were pitted, dried, and mixed with tallow and dried meat to make pemmican, a staple and hearty food for many Native Americans.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 2, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Waxing

This is a moment last night, just after sundown: The moon is a gleaming sliver rising through a tangerine sky; the blue waters of Great Cove and Eggemoggin Reach are fading into the night’s blackness. The temperature is hovering around freezing, but it doesn’t feel cold; the air smells of salt and dried leaves.

In lunar-speak, the moon was starting its “waxing crescent” phase with less than one percent of its disc surface reflecting the sinking sun’s light. The moon “waxes” when it is in a period of increasing illumination and it “wanes” when illumination is decreasing. It is “full” when 100 percent of its facing surface is illuminated.

November’s full moon, the “Beaver Moon,” will rise here on November 19 and be subject to a partial lunar eclipse, which we should see here, weather permitting. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 6, 2021;.)

In the Right Place: The Price Is Right (Maybe)

The 2021 lobster season is winding down fast here; fishing vessels are continually bringing in their traps and stacking them on the Town Dock at Naskeag Harbor.

The traps are stacked neatly on waiting trailers like a package of Legos® and motored away for winter hibernation.

This year’s lobster harvest was down and unusual, apparently due at least in part to our warming waters. When asked to describe the 2021 season, one of our veteran fishermen concisely said, “Good thing the price was up.” What will happen next year is anyone’s guess. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 4, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Hot Topics

It’s finally getting chilly enough here to say that November has arrived. And, so has the split Maine firewood for wood stoves. (Maine bans importation of firewood from other states or countries [i.e., Canada] unless it is specially heat-treated to kill invasive and disease-spreading insects.)

Above, you see two cords of firewood delivered to one of our neighbors in late October, which were neatly (and back-breakingly) stored by early November:

Supplemental and primary wood heating is being promoted here by some groups to reduce fossil fuel use. The use of logs and wood pellets is expanding in New England, where Vermont and Maine are ranked 1 and 2, respectively, in the country for use of wood (logs and pellets) for primary residential heating, according to the latest (2019) Census data.

It’s unclear whether warming weather due to climate change will affect wood stove use. Some groups advocate federal and state tax rebates for wood heating due to modern wood stoves’ ability to heat relatively cleanly and efficiently, thereby reducing fossil fuel use. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 21 [wood pile] and November 3 [no pile], 2021.)