In the Right Place: Summer School, Mainely

Two Alumni Work Weeks began at the WoodenBoat School campus on May 15 and will end May 28. This popular tradition involves WBS alumni taking a spring vacation here and helping to ready the School’s classrooms and boats for its 2022 courses, which begin May 29 this year.

Above, we see a colorful part of the WoodenBoat School’s collection of small jewels being readied yesterday for the sailing class season, which begins June 19. Most of them hibernated during the winter in the WBS boat shed:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 23, 2022.)

In the Right Place: The Fog of May

Yesterday morning’s fog swept lightly back and forth over this fragrant water lily pond on the WoodenBoat School campus:

The lily pads have been rising slowly and soon will be joined by gold-centered white lilies that perfume the breezes. Male red-winged blackbirds now stand guard amid the spires of their foggy cattail kingdoms, while their mates protect the family legacy in nests near the water below:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 22, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Survivors

Here, in yesterday’s light rain, is a stand of old, gnarly, and “wild” apple trees. They rise desperately out of dense invasive shrubs that have taken over what was their orchard about 100 years ago.

Most of the abandoned apple trees here no longer get the attention and care that apple trees need. Their fruit usually is not harvested; their apples drop in the fall and feed the wildlife or just rot. Yet, at this time of year, these deformed old survivors seem to be remembering more pleasant times, “memories” in the form of thousands of young buds and blossoms of exquisitely delicate beauty.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 19 [blossoms] and 21 [trees], 2022.)

In the Right Place: Lights in the Darkness

Rhodora flowers, shown here, have been lighting up our bogs for the past week or so.

These flowers appear in the dimness like purple flames on candelabras due to their arrival before their plant’s leaves:

The complete plant (Rhododendron canadense), also known as Canada rosebay, is one of only two azaleas that are native to Maine, according to State reports. The other is the endangered swamp (or “clammy”) azalea (Rhododendron viscosum).

Azaleas, as you probably know, are deciduous members of the rhododendron genus. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 18, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Weekly Osprey Nest Report

These are the trying times – for Ozzie and Harriet and for those who watch and wait with Harriet while she incubates her eggs. At least, that’s what we infer she’s doing from her lying low in the nest for hours, with only the top of her head occasionally visible.

That’s what she was doing when Ozzie did a brief fly-in during yesterday’s cold and drizzly morning, shown above. He soon left the nest and perched in a nearby tree. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 19, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Patience

It can be difficult to get a good photograph of an Eastern painted turtle in rural Maine without a super-powerful lens. Our PTs (Chrysemys picta picta) often are very uncomfortable seeing people nearby, unlike some turtles that have gotten accustomed to being ogled in more populated areas. However, being aware of a few facts from the research literature might help increase your turtle-vs-splash image ratio.

The painted turtle’s most developed defensive sense is its sight, which is good at a distance. Its senses of smell and hearing appear to be short-range.

Thus, when hunting with a camera, if you see a basking or otherwise exposed PT at a significant distance and it doesn’t immediately dive, don’t stop to watch and don’t walk toward the turtle. Walk slowly out of its sight and stay there a while (five minutes, if you can stand it). Then, if you can, devise an approach that keeps you out of the turtle’s sight until you get within shooting range of the reptile. If you have a “Quiet” shutter mode, put it on.

When you get within range, slowly step into a position in which you can focus on the turtle; begin shooting as soon as you do, even though it means focusing through vegetation. (It may be the only image that you get.) Keep moving slowly and shooting with the hope that you’ll reach a point with a clear line of sight before the turtle dives:

Finally, don’t sneak up on the turtles in the same place often – they may decide that the place is too creepy to stay. It’s all part of working on your patience. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 17, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Incongruity

Here we see a small sea boat, that is within a small field pond, that is within a small town where incongruity is smiled upon.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 15, 2022.)

In the Right Place: A Cat in Fog

We’ve had fog in Center Harbor during the past four days, but some of the boats look especially good in the mist. One of them, shown here, is Planet, a 25-foot Charles Wittholz catboat from his Prudence series.

Wittholz (1918-1993), an MIT-trained naval architect from Maryland, designed hundreds of boats in his 50 years of practice, but he probably is best known for his catboats.

Recreational catboats, such as Planet, are descendants of broad-beamed, single-masted working boats of the 1800s that fished, freighted, and ferried. They often were sailed by one person. The name catboat reportedly came from one of two sources: the cat-like maneuverability of the boats or the actual cats that greeted the fleet when they off-loaded fish.

More and more boats are mooring at the Harbor each day. The boating season usually is considered to open in June. Here’s the Brooklin Boat Yard pier during the same fog:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 15, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Good Plumbing

The blooms of flowering plum trees have been peaking here for about a week. They’ve been a boon to the early bumble bees in need of nectar and a welcome sight for spring-starved residents.

There are over 200 types of trees known as plums, and they’re generally divided into those that are grown primarily for their fruit and those with no or very few fruit that are grown for their beautiful flowers. (The tree shown here annually produces one or two plums and many flowers.)

The flowers of all plumb trees resemble those of cherry, apricot, and peach trees, to which plums are related as members of the huge rose family. Fruit plums usually have white flowers, while the flowering versions often have pink as well as white blossoms.

As with most fruits from the apple family, plums make excellent brandy. In fact, Serbia’s national drink is plum brandy (“slivovitz”), which it distributes worldwide. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 11 [bee] and 12, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Survival

Here you see a majestic white spruce tree enjoying yesterday’s warm sun.

It looks to be about 70 feet tall and is filled with new cones:

Each white spruce (Picea glauca) produces both male (pollen-producing) cones and female (seed-producing) cones.

There’s an old saying that a bumper crop of spruce, fir, and/or pine cones means that nature is providing extra wildlife food for a rough winter ahead. Research has indicated that these conifers are not so generous; they’re trying to survive as a species. The bumper crop comes after the trees suffered a stressful prior year due to a dry or otherwise significantly-changed climate. Producing more seeds increases the odds of their species carrying on during difficult times.

White spruce trees are an important Maine softwood resource used for pulp, paddles, oars, piano sounding boards, lumber, and wreath cones. Their durable roots were used by Native Americans to tie canoe birch bark panels together. They’re also called skunk spruce due to their odor at times, especially when their seeds are crushed. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 14, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Another First

We saw this welcome sight Thursday morning: the first sailboat of the year, catching light wind in Great Cove. She appears to be one of the WoodenBoat School’s small shellbacks with two WBS staffers aboard.

The boat is part of the School’s fleet of small craft, which is being readied now for the beginning of sailing classes in June. 

The shellbacks are small recreation boats designed by famed Brooklin naval architect Joel White and built at the School. They’re 11’ 2” long with a beam (widest part) of 4’ 5”, according to WBS data. They have standing lug rigging, which can be put up easily and, in sudden bad weather, taken down quickly. The rigging also conveniently allows the sail to stay on the same side of the mast when tacking to port or starboard. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 12, 2022.) See also the image in the first Comment space.

In the Right Place: Weekly Osprey Nest Report

Harriet apparently has started incubating eggs; she spent most of her time this week flattened in the nest bottom. Ozzie brings her food and does some of the incubation himself occasionally, allowing Harriet to take a break and fly away for a time. Here you see Ozzie returning to the nest at Harriet’s request this week:

With Harriet spread out in the nest, Ozzie sometimes has to slowly helicopter into the nest to avoid hurting Harriet (and getting too close to her pecking beak:

Research indicates that female ospreys lay between one and four eggs, with each egg being laid a day or two after the prior one. The most common clutch is three eggs, which is the number that Harriet usually lays. The reported incubation time range for the first chick to be hatched is 35 to 43 days, with birds incubating in the northern latitudes, such as Harriet, taking longer than those in southern ones. She remains feisty when Ozzie is around:

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

In the Right Place: Bear in Mind Some Facts

This image of a black bear is appearing today in my monthly column in the Ellsworth American.

To read the column about what to do if you meet a bear in its habitat, click here: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Lush Life

Green arrow arum plants (Peltandra virginica) are now emerging from marsh ponds like batteries of missiles, as you can see from this image taken yesterday:

By mid-June they’ll be a green tangle of lush and graceful arrow-tipped stalks. Here’s an image taken of same colony of plants taken on June 17 of last year:

Leighton Archive Image

The plant is sometimes called tuckahoe, its Algonquin Indian name. Of course, the first word in its arrow arum name reflects its arrowhead leaf shape. The name arum shows that it is part of the arum family of plants. That group name is thought to derive from the Arabic word for fire because many of the family plants have toxic sap that burns those crazy enough to taste them. However, the edible fruits of arrow arum are loved by ducks, muskrats, and other marsh creatures. (Primary image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 10, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Padding

The lily ponds here are full of water, as you see from this image of the WoodenBoat School pond taken yesterday.

Moreover, the pads for our native fragrant water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) are starting to rise to the surface:

Lily pads are the leaves of the water lily plant. They grow on flexible stalks arising from submerged roots (“rhizomes”). The pads will attract insects and become floating al fresco cafes for small frogs and birds. Underneath the lily pads, fish and aquatic invertebrates, such as dragonfly nymphs, will enjoy the shade.

Leighton Archive Image

Leighton Archive Image

The genus name for the water lily, Nymphaea (“nim-FYE-ah”), is derived from the Greek and Roman name for “water lily,” which, in turn, originated as a reference to mythological water nymphs. Our native species’ name, odorata (“o-dor-RAH-ta”), means “fragrant,” as you probably guessed. (First two images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 9, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Anticipation>Presentation>Decapitation

A few of our forsythia bushes continue to be robust for early May, but all of their little yellow flower heads soon will be decapitated by natural forces. This may be your last chance to view some of our more fulsomely flowered forsythias.

The plants were named after the 18th Century Scottish botanist William Forsyth. They’re part of the olive family and are native to east Asia and southeastern Europe, but they’ve been popular in Great Britain and the United States for centuries. Victorian gardeners considered forsythias to be symbols of anticipation, perhaps because their blooms are among the first flowers of spring.

Those flowers, by the way, are edible and can be made into teas, syrups, and a traditional Chinese medicine to treat the common cold.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 5, 6 [landscapes] and 8 [closeup], 2022.)

In the Right Place: Sharing

Happy Mother’s Day! Today, we’ll share the Fuller family’s road poster on Naskeag Road with the hope that the thought is widely applied.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 7, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Seeing Stars

Star magnolias have been at their most magnificent this week. Each of their fragrant flowers continually changes its flowing form in the wind, light, and shadows.

The plants, also called magnolia stellata, love full sun and are among the first large plants to flower in the spring. They also can be trained to grow into a shrub or tree:

As with many of our ”showy” flowering plants, star magnolias are natives to Japan. They were introduced in the United States in the 1860s.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 5 [tree] and 6 [flowers], 2022.)

In the Right Place: Weekly Osprey Nest Report

Ozzie and Harriet continue to look healthy. As is common during osprey breeding season, Harriet has begun to engage in almost incessant, loud chirps that are called “food-begging” and “solicitation” calls. She does this whenever Ozzie is in the nest with her or visible to her while she is in the nest alone. This image shows her making such calls yesterday:

Male ospreys bring most of the pair’s food (fish) to the nest when their mate is laying eggs and brooding there. When the nesting female osprey sees her mate flying in with a fish or eating one nearby, she often chirps loudly. Ornithologists have dubbed these sounds “food-begging calls” when it is apparent that she’s looking at food.

Nonetheless, a breeding female osprey will make the same calls directed at her mate when he does not have food and she does not appear to be hungry. Why she does this apparently is still a matter of debate among researchers who call them simply “solicitation calls” without identifying what the female is asking for (if anything).

Although Harriet is spending much more time lying down in the nest, she does get restless and take off for flights of up to 30 minutes, often returning with some moss or a new stick for the nest:

This flying leads me to believe that she hasn’t laid any eggs yet. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 2 [Harriett flying] and 5 [the pair], 2022.]

In the Right Place: Odd Couples

A few male red-winged blackbirds are back, fighting over real estate options and screaming at photographers.

The females usually arrive here when the territories have been settled and the males have time to woo them. The females are much smaller and look like gussied-up sparrows:

The pair is an odd couple, but a very aggressive one; if red-wings were eagles, we’d be in trouble. (Leighton Archive images taken in Brooklin, Maine.)