In the Right Place: Ice Ages

Our first significant sea ice of the winter started to form in the nooks and crannies of Great Cove during last week’s freezing spell, as you can see in the images here from yesterday. Today’s above-freezing temperatures and driving rain here probably will prove fatal to this starter ice.

The salt in sea water prevents its freezing at temperatures higher than 28.4 degrees (F). However, extended periods of temperatures at or below that sea-freezing temperature can start slower moving coastal waters to coagulate.  At first, as you see in the images, the sea ice usually forms a cloth-like covering on the surface that settles over the rocky sea bottom at low tide like a thin blanket.

The rising tide will float the new ice and break it up a bit. But, once floating, it often will start to thicken as almost circular servings of interconnected “pancake” ice, which can turn into larger, overlapping second courses resembling huge, scalloped potatoes Then, if bitter cold continues, it can solidify into an almost uniform thick mass that can bear weight.

In the colder days of yore, the Cove and Eggemoggin Reach that you see in the image could become entirely covered with sea ice thick enough to support wagon and automobile traffic to the islands from the mainland. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 16, 2022.)

In the Right Place: A Rose by Any Other Name

Here, in yesterday’s extreme cold, are a few of our remaining beach rose “hips.” Through the ages, this plant (Rosa rugosa) and its hips have been known by amusingly crude names that reflect one of its potential problems for humans. But, we’ll get to that in a moment.

For many other mammals and birds, these seed-holding hips are one of Nature’s winter survival foods. The hips are rich in vitamins C and B, carotene (provitamin A), and minerals. But they’re very acidic. Humans usually cook them with sugar to make them into jellies, syrups, soups, and other foods. That’s where the problem arises.

Care must be taken to remove and throw away all the tiny hairs on the seeds and elsewhere inside the hips. Those hairs can irritate our skin, mucous membranes, and our entire digestive tract, especially the end thereof.

That’s why many Native Americans reportedly called the plant the “itchy-anus berry bush” (“kikcokalokiqeminsimus” to Maine’s Passamaquoddy tribe members). Even today, the French call these rose hips “grate-culs,” which translates to “ass-scratchers.” (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 15, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Homework

Here you see the WoodenBoat School marsh pond braving our recent freezing weather. Note the dry and decaying cattails that edge much of the pond. Below the ice, these dead reminders of summer still provide shelter for the small fish and other creatures that remain alive.

They also have special qualities that helped some of the northern tribes of Native Americans survive harsh winters, according to historians. The Indians used them to create mats that became insulating coverings for winter quarters and child carriers.

The shape of cattail leaves allows them to be interlocked in layers. They also contain small honey-comb-like air pockets, making the leaves excellent insulators. The mats of layered leaves also expanded with winter’s humidity, which made them virtually watertight. But, the sheltering effect reportedly lasted only two years or so before replacement was needed. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 10, 2022.)

In the Right Place: What a Drag!

This image appeared yesterday in our monthly column in the Ellsworth American. The column is about the mysteries of scallop fishing in Maine.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 30, 2021.) To read the column, click here: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Warming

After a dangerously cold day Tuesday, the sun decided to light this fire in the evening sky. Winter sunsets are our best.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 11, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Where There's Smoke

Troubled winter has moved back in with us; but, as usual, we don’t know how long she’ll be able to stay. Here you see our first significant sea smoke of the year swarming across Naskeag Harbor yesterday.

The smoke also raced low and fast down Eggemoggin Reach.:

Sea smoke, also known as frost smoke, is a form of fog that is created when very cold winds flow over significantly warmer sea waters. When this happens, the winds enter the layer of moisture-saturated, semi-warm air just above the water surface.

That saturated warmer air layer is cooled by the winds to below the layer’s dew point, which causes the layer to shed some of its water in the form of vapors. These vapors condense into frosted “smoke.” The process is somewhat similar to the creation of “steam” when a bowl of hot soup is served in cooler air.

When these images were taken, the recorded ambient temperature here was 1 degree (F), with a wind chill of minus 14; the wind was at 10 miles per hour with gusts of 24, and the water temperature was 45.4 degrees, according to local reports. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 11, 2022.

In the Right Place: And at the Right Angle

Here you see yesterday afternoon’s waxing gibbous moon in our southeastern sky, 248,147 miles away from Earth. The low winter sun is at the right angle to light the orb up brighter than its surrounding sky.

The moon is “waxing” when it has an illuminated part that is in the process of increasing in size. It is “gibbous” when that illuminated part is 50.1 percent to 99.9 percent of the moon. That’s when the lighted area of the moon is oval (“humped”) or round, but the moon is not yet 100 percent illuminated from our perspective (“full”).  The moon shown here was 61.1 percent illuminated, according to the lunar tables.

This month’s full moon, named the wolf full moon by early settlers, will rise on January 17, 2022, at 3:55 p.m. in our east-southeast sky, according to those tables. If we use a compass pointed north, with east at 90 degrees and South at 180, the moon will rise from the direction of 117 degrees on the compass. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 10, 2021, at 3:34 p.m.)

In the Right Place: More See-Sawing Expected

Here you see Conary Cove’s iconic red boathouse during the golden hour before sunset on Saturday. After yesterday’s heavy rain and warm temperatures, virtually all of that snow is gone now.

We await tomorrow with a shudder; the weather tellers say it will be sunny, but the coldest day of the year so far. We’re expecting only a 12-degree (F) ambient high temperature tomorrow with a windchill far below that. However, the rest of the week is supposed to be considerably warmer. Thus, we’ll be seeing more meteorological see-sawing, which is not good for flora or fauna. (Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 8, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Decline and Potential Fall

The Grand Convention of Down East Common Eiders is an event held annually from January into March near the Blue Hills reversing falls. The accommodations are good there: the fast-moving waters not only don’t freeze, they expose crabs and mollusks for easy picking.

Eight years ago, more than 400 eider conventioneers were celebrating at this time in January. Their numbers have been declining here each year since then. Yesterday, as you see, there were fewer than 50 eiders dancing a thin conga line here, the males in formal black and white, the females bronzed.

Perhaps there will be latecomers flying in after being distracted by our relatively warm winter (until recently). However, common eiders (Somateria mollissima) reportedly have been in steady decline throughout their entire Atlantic coast range. The causes of the decline are not fully known, but research indicates that warming waters may be part of the problem.

Atlantic blue mussels, the birds’ favorite food, are declining severely due to the warmer waters. More bald eagles are staying north in the warming winters where they are significant eider predators. In addition, eiders, our largest native duck, are favorite targets during winter duck-hunting season. (Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 8, 2022, [swimming] and February 17, 2016 [in flight].)

In the Right Place: Benign

Yesterday’s storm brought us eight inches of benign snow and produced this beautiful morning. By the time that the sun reached this field, it had warmed up to 15 degrees (F).

There was, however, a wind chill of 5 degrees due primarily to wind gusts of 14 miles per hour. Nonetheless, walking in the woods was wonderful for those of us who dressed warmly.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 8, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Nasty Nor'easter

The biggest snowstorm of the winter arrived this morning in the form of a Nor’easter full of fine snow. A foot of the white stuff is predicted for us here in Down East. Although it is dumping more snow than we’ve had since last winter, this is just a slightly nasty storm, not a homicidal one. Nonetheless, caution is needed when driving. A few images taken at various times today follow:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 7, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Needle Work

I came across this perfect Christmas tree being back-lighted beside the trail this morning. It’s a balsam fir that was lucky enough to be seeded in the right location.

Judging from its height of about 15 feet, it ought to be about that many years old. If its luck continues, it may grow 90 to 100 feet tall.

By the way, the easiest way to tell our conifers apart is by their needles. Fir needles are flat; you can’t roll them between your fingers easily. Spruce needles are four-sided, which makes them easy to roll between the fingers. Pine needles grow in groups of two or more, not in uniform lines. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 6, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Illusory Moments

Yesterday was the first sunny day of the year and the first day of wintry temperatures. At first light yesterday, the temperature here was +5 degrees (F) with a windchill of -9 degrees. But, it apparently was an illusory moment.

Today, exactly 24 hours later, it was cloudy, the temperature was 39 degrees and rising, there were 19-mile-an-hour wind gusts, and more rain was predicted. Another wet, windy, and gray March-like day is in the offing. Our poor sick climate is calling for the nurse.

Nonetheless, let’s celebrate the brief arrival of winter yesterday with an image of Blue Hill’s “Hill” in the afternoon’s sun and Brooklin’s Great Cove under dusk’s waxing crescent moon.

(Images taken in Blue Hill and Brooklin, Maine, on January 4, 2022.)

In the Right Place: It's Back

Yesterday, temperatures plummeted, and we flipped back into a cold, gray winter again. A very light snow fell early yesterday, covering the inner woods’ floor with frosty spackles.  

The thawing of the ponds was abruptly reversed, making their previously melting ice groan at the harsh change. (See the image in the first Comment space.) The dangerous seasonal seesawing of Climate Change continues.

This morning, as I write, the sun is rising, but the temperature is 5 degrees (F) with a wind chill of -9. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 3, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Essential to the Spirit

Here’s a local scene from last week. It makes me wonder what J.M.W. Turner and Winslow Homer would do today, if these great seacoast artists were alive and here now. Would they paint winter seascapes featuring these kinds of day-sailing fishing vessels?

Methinks yes. These vessels are essential to portraying the spirit of many waterfront scenes in Maine. Although not worthy to be even in the same thought as a Turner or Homer painting, this image does show the varying lines and equipment of winter day-fishing vessels here under typical conditions.

The scene is Naskeag Harbor at midday when the tide is half out. It’s drizzling and the wind makes it a bit nippy; but, it’s not uncomfortable by Maine standards. From left to right, we see “Long Set” and “Captain Morgan” lounging at their moorings and “Dear Abbie:” eagerly coming in from a morning’s fishing.

In the summer, these vessels are lobster boats; now, they’re scallop trawlers. They’ve been reconfigured with masts, booms, and wooden “shelling houses” to protect scallop-shucking crew members from the cold. Unfortunately, you can’t see the vessels’ complicated trawling “drags” (dredges) that scrape the sea bottom and scoop up the tasty mollusks.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 30, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Seesaws

January has gotten off to a bad start. Here’s what a local woods trail looked like yesterday, New Year’s Day: wet, warm, and soggy from all the rain and fog.

It reached 46 degrees (F) here. The snow is long gone, and the ice was almost out of the cold, spring-fed streams:

Today is more of the same. Soon, freezing weather will return. Seasonal seesawing is not good. Among many other effects, less snow and ice mean less insulation to protect wildlife that hibernate just below the frost line, such as toads and bumblebees. When the cold returns, they can freeze to death.

On the other hand, ticks have a greater survival rate and a longer questing period during warm winters. They can reach infestation rates great enough to suck the life out of moose, especially calves. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 1, 2022.)

December Postcards From Maine

Turbulent 2021 ended yesterday with a sigh. The morning was so still that Little Babson Island floated among clouds, real and reflected. In the afternoon, the island disappeared slowly into a fog under darkened sky. It was the last of the strange, sometimes mysterious, days of December.

Looking at it as a whole, December this year was more of a fall or even early spring month than a winter month. Temperatures and precipitation were well above average. We not only had days of calm, we had days of March-like winds that whipped the sea into froth and bent the grasses to their breaking points.

Of course, we had cold days and days of snow and rain in December. The snow was always light. It would lay on the ground and the ice would form in the ponds during cold days and let us imagine winter. Then, they would melt and let us think of spring — a cycle that repeated itself several times during the month.

It was a month of easy living for most of the wildlife. Our mature white-tailed deer especially took advantage of the warm sunshine while their yearlings prospered.

On the waterfront, December means scallop season. Lobster boats become scallop boats. They’re fitted with masts and booms and trawl the sea bottoms for the tasty mollusks with a dredge (usually called a “drag” here). Temporary “shelling huts” usually are added to the fishing vessels behind their cabins to protect scallop shuckers from cold and rain. The boats often have an ardent avian following.

Of course, December means Christmas and Hanukkah time for many and holiday festiveness for all. The Brooklin General Store and the Town’s Friend Memorial Library were decked with boughs of greenery, Santa was not deterred by a little snow, and he had the strangest helpers. Even Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer made local appearances.

We had a good number of clear nights to watch the magnificent December night skies, especially the moon as it grew into what Native Americans called the Cold Full Moon.

Perhaps most important, December is the peak of our sunset season, when the colder and cleaner air allows us to see more of the sun’s full rainbow of colors. It is when we watch the winter solstice sun reverse course and start to give us longer and longer days and the hope that they can bring.

(All images in these Maine Postcards were taken in Brooklin, Maine, in December of 2021.)

In the Right Place: Tradition

Here you see the end of one of Maine’s many scenic private lanes and the beginning of one of the driveways connected to that road. The gracefully curved lane is maintained entirely by the owners of the shore residences that it serves.

This is private property where the public could be excluded. But, that is not the Maine way. It’s a tradition here to allow the public to enjoy scenic private lanes, roads, and woodlands. In fact, the public is encouraged to wander the private paths in the woods surrounding this lane.

The most spectacular example of this tradition is the North Maine Woods, a privately-owned 3.5-million-acre working forest. Outdoor enthusiasts may enter through staffed gates to enjoy its woods and thousands of miles of dirt roads, provided that they follow minimal safety rules and pay a $10 fee to help defray the costs of the gate personnel. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 9 [snow] and 14 [sunbeams], 2021.)

In the Right Place: Having a Gland Time

Here you see a white-tailed deer yearling that didn’t know what to do for a few seconds when she saw me Tuesday. Note her ears-back anxiety display. She bolted off when she heard the “click.”

However, she’s a good illustration of the answers to two common questions:

1. How do you tell the difference between a large yearling fawn and an adult doe? The yearling has a flattened and foreshortened head compared to her mother; from certain angles, her face looks a bit like a donkey’s. Also, the yearling has an almost square body compared to the sleeker rectangle of her mother:

2. What are those things that look like sores on the rear legs of both male and female deer? Those are some of the glands that play important roles in the lives of the animals.

a. The tarsal glands are located on the inside of each rear leg at the hock (“elbow”). Deer can flare their tarsals to release a pungent scent. They also urinate on their tarsals, making that combined scent unique to each animal – one of the ways a fawn finds its mother.

b. The metatarsal glands are located on the outside of each lower rear leg, closer to the hooves (which have their own glands). The metatarsals don’t release scent, but are thought to be natural thermostats that help regulate the deer’s body temperature and conserve energy in the cold.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 28 (yearling) and October 4 (adult), 2021.)

In the Right Place: Great Goodbyes Department

Yesterday morning and early afternoon were wet, gloomy, and not worth thinking about. But, late in the afternoon, the wind started to tear apart the dense cloud ceiling and long nebular trains began to streak through the sky. Soon, the falling sun said goodbye with a glitter path that ran all the way from Deer Isle to our shore.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 28, 2012.)