April Postcards From Down East Maine

April here this year threw everything she had at us — sun, snow, rain, wind, fog, cold, warm, clear skies, cloudy skies, and a lot of indeterminates. Meanwhile, our flora and fauna flourished with buds, early flowers, the return of migrant birds, and the seeming joy of all-year resident wild life.

As usual, we begin our Postcards with the monthly view of four iconic scenes for future reference. The views of Mount Desert Island (where Acadia National Park is) and the white house on Harbor Island deserve contrasting images this month:

The views of the near-mountain named Blue Hill and the old red boat house in Conary Cove look best in sunshine and amid evergreens in mostly-leafless April:

Many of us will remember April of 2025 for its magical spring snowstorm that swept in one day, covered spring growth in crystals, made everything dazzle in the next day’s sun, and melted away almost before we knew what had happened:

As for wildlife, the April resident standouts included our resolute white-tailed deer herds that bedded down in rain and enjoyed making shadows on the sunny new grass. Porcupines came down from the winter trees to nibble grass that had newly-turned green, painted turtles and North American river otters appeared in ponds, and resident black-capped chickadees kept a sharp eye on their territories while migrant birds started to arrive.

The big news among migrant wildlife was that Ozzie and Harriet returned to their nearby nest once again. These osprey (fish hawks) busied themselves in April by copulating often, fixing up their huge nest with new branches and moss, and defending their home from jealous ospreys who can’t afford waterfront property:

Canada geese flocks made many stopovers on their way north and we might have convinced a great blue heron to stay and be a warm weather resident.

Incoming wood ducks loved to parade in the ponds while rain drops plinked the water around them.

Finally as to fauna, April is when the glass eel season begins in earnest here. Large nets are spread at the mouths of the streams that these migrating baby American eels (“elvers”) use to get to the freshwater ponds and lakes in which they’ll mature.

As for flora, April is when much of our vegetation starts to awaken and a few traditional spring plants burst on the scene in dramatic flowerings. In terms of trees, the biggest contrast is the new growth on our mighty white pines compared to the flowerheads on red maple trees:

Two favored spring bushes that are famous for producing beautiful flowers before they grow leaves are forsythias, which have small yellow flowers, and star magnolias, where the white flowers begin as pussy-willow-like buds and burst into shooting stars.

Of course, it wouldn’t be spring if it weren’t trumpeted in by daffodils and sprinkled with wild bluets

Around and in the vernal pools, orbs of Japanese sweet coltsfoot and spires of skunk cabbage were the usual early risers that produced life-saving nectar for our first pollinating insects, while young fiddle-headed ferns sprung to attention and began to unfurl.

On the working waterfront, the season for hand-harvesting divers’ scallops ended in April. Here, sporting the blue and white international diving flag, is a fishing vessel used as a platform for winter scallop harvesting by a diver in a wetsuit and underwater breathing apparatus:

April also is the month when many Maine towns hold their Annual Meetings at which the townspeople make community-related decisions for the future:

Finally, and perhaps most spectacularly, there was the April full moon that we never saw fully. It snowed that night and the sky was full of fleeing storm clouds. But, the full moon had plenty of luminescence and shone through those storm clouds to create a night-time (2 a.m.) snowscape of extraordinary drama:

(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during April 2025.)

In the Right Place: Maple Marvels

Some male red maple tree flowers have opened recently and their leaf buds are evident at branch tips. Apparently, depending on their inclination, red maples (Acer rubrum) can produce both male and female flowers, or just male flowers, or just female flowers.

Male flowers, as you see, have long stamens that extend beyond the petals; their tips will get covered in yellow pollen, which the wind will whisk away. In the female flower, the stigma extends past the petals, ready to catch some of that pollen. The female flower then produces the tree “fruit” in the form of double samaras or “spinners” (winged seeds that “helicopter” to the ground). (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 29, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Tiny Bird Report II

Here you see an eastern palm warbler standing tall – all 5 inches of him – among the blossoming maple tree flowerheads. This bird usually is among our earliest spring warblers.

The eastern subspecies (Setophaga palmarum hypochrysea) that we have here usually is called the “yellow palm warbler” due to its bright yellow underparts, whereas the western subspecies (Setophaga palmarum palmarum) usually is called the “brown palm warbler” due to its much drabber, gray-brown appearance.

The yellow palm warbler’s most significant characteristic was perhaps described best by Edward Howe Forbush in his incomparable Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States: “It flits from bush to ground … with its loose-hung tail almost continually wagging with methodic regularity, not from side to side like that of a dog, but up and down like that of a Phoebe, and with the same easy unhurried motion.” (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 24, 2025; sex assumed.)

In the Right Place: Misery Loves Company

I was out and about a bit yesterday in the cold and rain and it was miserable. I came across a bevy of white-tailed deer, does and their yearlings, and my misery was compounded by envy.

The deer were resting and dozing off and seemingly thoroughly enjoying the dousing of a Maine April shower. They appeared to have some of their protective winter fat left and still were wearing their heavy winter coats, which L.L. Bean has been unable to replicate.

The winter coats of white-tails have two layers of fur, the outer one of which is designed to trap air for insulating heat and to shed rain; their skin also produces an oil that coats the coat hairs and makes them more water repellant.

But, these coats are not completely waterproof; a hard, drenching rain can make our deer miserable, too. I wasn’t so envious as to wish that on them.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 27, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Tiny Bird Report, I

This is the first of a series of occasional collections of a few interesting facts about some of our smallest feathered cohabitants that I encounter in the wild. I’ll eventually get to some of the flashy tiny birds, but it’s only right that I begin the series with the plain-dressed black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus), who usually gets to achieve about 5 inches in length. This bird is seen by more people on Maine license plates than on branches, which is part of a little-discussed embarrassment.

The black-capped chickadee apparently was intended to be the Maine state bird when Maine legislators were choosing one in 1927. They then designated “chickadee” as our winged symbol, apparently thinking that black-caps were the only chickadees in the state. But, ahem, we also have the less common boreal chickadees.  Attempts by Audubon society members and others to correct the birding faux pax have failed, apparently due to black-capped chickadees having very little political pull.

(Related interesting fact: By the time that Maine was ready to name its state tree, however, our legislators had learned their lesson. In 1946, instead of picking simply the “pine tree” to symbolize this “Pine Tree State,” they specifically named the eastern white pine tree [Pinus strobus] as the state tree to avoid confusion with the three other native pine species that we have.)

As for Maine’s intended state bird, it gets its species differentiating name, “black-capped,” from that sailor’s cap that it likes to wear pulled down low over its ears and eyes. It gets its bird group common name, “chickadee,” from its call, which sounds like a kazoo playing variations on a “chick-a-dee” theme.

The more “dees” at the end of the black-cap’s call, the more alarmed or annoyed the bird is. Five “dees” (“chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee!”) often signifies that a bird-eating hawk or a cat is in the area. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 14, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Mini Milky Way

This is not a fat and furry pussy willow catkin; it’s a fat and furry star magnolia bud that has been visited by one of our first spiders of the year. This bud soon will be one of a small, dense Milky Way of bursting white stars that appear before the plant’s leaves do. Here’s a Leighton Archive image of a star magnolia flower in full bloom:

Star magnolias (Magnolia stellata) are one of the smallest magnolias. They usually are cultivated in bush or small tree forms that produce their showy flowers in early spring. The plant reportedly is from the highlands of the Japanese island of Honshu and was introduced into the United States in the 1860’s. (First image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 24, 2025.)

In the Right Place: What’s in a Name, Deer Department

Here you see two female white-tailed deer and their offspring at first light yesterday. I realized when seeing them that I have no idea why those creatures are called “does” and “yearlings” and other age descriptors such as “fawns” and “bucks.” “So, I did some quick online research, which I share here with those who might be interested.

White-tails usually are born in May or June and called “fawns” then. It’s a lovely description that apparently derives from Old and Middle English words meaning “glad” and “joyful,” which is what a fawn usually is and what it often makes us feel like. (Thus, in cynical modern English, if you “fawn over someone,” you gush about and praise the person too much.)

Somewhat strangely, white-tails are called “yearlings” at about 1.5 years old, the fall following their birth. This is when, on average, they become capable of sexual activity, although they have not fully matured physically otherwise.

I found no reliable etymological reason for calling deer that are older than a year “yearlings.” It appears that it just seems logical to call a deer that is older than a year, but younger than two years a “yearling.” So be it. However, if that 1.5-year-old white-tail is a male and has small bumps on his head, he is likely to be called a “button buck.”

The names “doe” for a female deer and “buck” for a male apparently are mere derivatives of “da” (Old English for female deer) and “bucca,” “bukkon,” and “bookkr” (Old English and Germanic for male deer). Curiously, in Britain now, it’s apparently more common to call a mature male deer, especially a red deer, a “stag.”

I found no clear explanation of when to begin calling a deer a “doe” or a “buck.” White-tails reportedly don’t completely physically mature until 4 or 5 years of age and most males don’t peak in neck blending, frontal body mass, and antler spread until 5.5 to 6.5 years. But, generally, white-tails that are two years or older apparently are called “does” and “bucks.” (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 24, 2025.) Click on the image to enlarge it.

In the Right Place: O-Nest Report II

Harriet arrived! She seems to be in excellent shape after her long migration north. I first saw her on Monday. Here she is imperiously reigning over her nest yesterday. Both she and Ozzie have been very busy since she arrived. Their two principal activities have been almost-constant copulating when they’re together and fixing up the nest. It seems that they’ve gotten their evolutionary priorities right. 

Ozzie has been doing most of the fixer-up foraging for repair materials: principally collecting new branches for the nest’s siding and gobs of moss for its new floor. Here he is returning with a branch. Both Ozzie and Harriet also have been rearranging some of the older branches that form the almost 100-foot-high nest. The old place had gotten a bit catawampus from the winter winds.   

Harriet already has been spending most of her time in the nest, while Ozzie is leaving it more and more. This is typical. Yesterday, for the first time that I’ve heard, she started what’s called osprey “solicitation calling” while Ozzie was away. This calling is a form of routine, high-pitched begging (some would say “nagging”) by females for food and/or attention from their mates:

The females seem to know that they’ll be spending much of their time in the nest and usually will be dependent on the males’ delivery of the fish that will feed them and the pair’s nestlings. The females’ initial soliciting may be an evolved attempt to establish a necessary routine with their males before life for everyone gets more complicated.

The solicitation calls clearly are distinct from alarm calls that nest-sitting females make when their home is invaded by a rogue osprey, bald eagle, high-climbing raccoon, or other intruder. The male ospreys often are a bit slow to come to their mates when they hear a solicitation, but they come lickety-split if they hear an alarm.

Both male and female osprey homeowners will attack an invader ferociously with everything they have, especially when nestlings are cowering at the nest bottom. Some osprey parents have been known to die doing so. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 21 and 23, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Return of Happiness

Here, bobbing eagerly in yesterday’s light rain, are the first daffodils that I’ve seen blooming in the neighborhood. Daffodils always seem as happy as puppies to be back.

Daffodils usually are the first popularly-known planted flowers to bloom after the cold gray of winter. Thus, they’ve come to symbolize rebirth, resurrection, and/or hope for many. They’re perennials of various species in the amaryllis family, which makes them part of the narcissus genus.

Many people call them “jonquils,” but, as I understand it, jonquils are a specific species (Narcissus jonquilla) within the genus and “daffodil” is the collective name for all of the species that look ready to play something joyful on their frilled trumpets.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 22, 2025; background eliminated in first image.)

In the Right Place: Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?

I'm trying to sort out the types of rock lichens growing on this restored pasture wall and having a painful time of it. Sometimes it’s hard for an old man without a science background to make sense of life, especially when some of the explanatory literature seems denser than these rocks.

But I’m heartened to find out that I’m in good company: Lichens, themselves – whether growing on rocks, trees, or elsewhere – seem to be inherently confused about what they are. They’re classified as fungi, but they’re not fungi; that is, they’re not JUST fungi.  Lichens apparently are symbiotic combinations of a fungus and either a green alga (a plant) or a blue-green alga (a bacterium). But the dominant partner apparently always is the fungus.

It’s a start. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 7 and 21, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Glorious Feelings

During a darkly wet spring rain shower recently, I came across a stunning pair of wood ducks who seemed to be enjoying the raindrops that were plunking into targets around them. The opening of Gene Kelly’s famous song came to my old mind, with a slight variation:

I’m floatin’ in the rain,

Just floatin’ in the rain,

What a glorious feeling,

I’m happy again!

Above, you see the male trying out his spectacular wardrobe, apparently to make sure that it’s waterproof as advertised. The Cleopatra eye makeup on his pretty mate is not smearing at all:

Wild duck feathers are interlocked by barbs and hooks into a tightly-zipped barrier that makes their plumage water-repellant. They then spread oil from a gland near the base of their tails over their feathers to coat them into a virtually (if not completely) waterproof state.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 15, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Easter Otter

Happy Easter.

I haven’t seen much evidence of the Easter Bunny around our house since the kids grew up – no tracks, hidden eggs, jellybeans, or marshmallow chicks. However, I have come to learn that this is a good time of the year to see a mainly nocturnal Easter Otter during the day.

Early spring is when North American river otters try to consummate their final mating of the year. Every now and then, we get visited in the daylight by a lustful loner who can’t restrain itself from playing in our ponds. It’s probable that the otter shown here is randy in that uniquely, hippy-dippy otter way. These joyful weasels (Lontra canadensis) are lithe, three-to-four-foot furry creatures, and they may be the world’s most agile swimmers.

The otter glides through the water in a seemingly frictionless, body-rippling state. It will do slow-rolling dives during which its head slips under water like a submarine bow and its long, arching body slowly follows lengthwise until only its tail waives a quick goodbye, and the otter disappears fully. It leaves us a circular ripple that often makes a sudden licking sound before even that disappears.

Where and when a submerged river otter will pop up usually is impossible to predict. They reportedly can hold their breaths for up to eight minutes, which is longer than sea otters can. When gliding half submerged on the water surface, they’ll also suddenly decide to twist and turn and swim on their backs, apparently just for the hell of it. If only they could lay colored eggs …. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 15, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Early and Earlier

Here you see a worker tricolored bumblebee (Bombus ternarius), one of our earliest pollinators. It’s on a Japanese coltsfoot flowerhead (Petasites japonicus), the earliest open flowers of the year and perhaps the bee’s only opportunity to find accessible, life-saving nectar now. In the kind of chilly, wet, and windy spring that we’ve been having, our earliest nectar-sippers have trouble getting out and about. (It’s 45° F and raining as I write.)

These bees, also known as orange-belted bumblebees, are fairly common ground nesting, social insects here that prefer other flowers for their energy drinks. But, they’ll have to be patient until things warm up sufficiently for them to conduct their usual, crowded happy hours.

Nectar, as you probably know, is a sugary fluid produced by flowers to attract bees and other plant-visiting creatures (including humming birds) that acquire and disseminate the plants’ reproductive pollen during their journeys. Nectar is a crucial source of carbohydrates that provides the energy needed for flying and other activities. Bees not only sip nectar for themselves, they convert it into honey, which they store as food for their hives. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 18, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Great Ideas

The spring migration brought us this Great Blue Heron, seen here performing in Tuesday’s light rain as only a Great Blue can. She would imitate a graceful French curve for many minutes, then suddenly uncoil and become a lethal fishing spear.

We hope that this immigrant will like our community and become a resident. Feathered residents don’t need fishing licenses here, nor do they pay taxes.

There’s a growing concern by Maine wildlife officials and bird lovers generally about an apparent steady decline in Great Blue Heron breeding in Maine. Human disturbances of the birds’ habitat and the resurgence of bald eagles, which prey on the herons’ young and otherwise harass nests, apparently are at least part of the problem.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 15, 2025; sex assumed.)

In the Right Place: O-Nest Report I

The first wave of ospreys has arrived and, sure enough, good-old-reliable Ozzie was among them. He stayed hunkered down on his nest alone yesterday during a very gusty morning. The high winds were ruffling his head feathers and creating a few whitecaps in Great Cove below him.

Northern-migrating ospreys usually return to the same nests that they build and constantly decorate and repair over the years. Many older males seem to come first to secure their nests and are followed shortly thereafter by their mates-for-life. Based on his markings, I’m almost certain that this is the same Ozzie whom readers of these posts have come to know and love. We’ll be reporting regularly on these birds and their offspring until early fall, when the ospreys leave us for warmer climes.

As many of you know, our protocol for interesting narration is to call our returning  mature male “Ozzie,” the mature female “Harriet,” the first-born “David” and the second-born “Ricky” – just like in the old sitcom TV show about a happy, attractive, and talented family.

(The sexes of the immature birds have to be assumed. We sometimes can tell the sex of mature ospreys by appearance alone in situations where the larger size of females is apparent. The sexes of adults do become evident during mating [who’s on top] and long-term brooding [who stays in the nest to brood and be fed].)

There always has been a third-born in this nest, whom we call by the month of her birth, usually “June.” There only has been one fourth-born that I’ve seen in this nest, but she was bullied by her much-larger siblings and eventually thrown out of the nest by them. It turns out that the real family life of birds of prey is not a sitcom. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 16, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Good Deeds

We’ve been undergoing a chilly and wet period. So, it seems fitting that this maligned plant is doing some good here. Its very early flowers provide life-saving nectar for our pilgrim pollinators.

The plant is Japanese sweet coltsfoot (Petasites japonicus). It’s listed as invasive in Maine and was used unsuccessfully to treat the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages. It’s an Asian plant with stalks that are a very popular ingredient (“fuki”) in Japanese cuisine.

Apparently, the plant was introduced into North America in the 19th Century by Japanese immigrants to Canada’s British Columbia. It has a sweeter scent than other coltsfoot plants, including Maine’s native (non-invasive) sweet coltsfoot (Petasites palmatus).

This Asian import also is known as giant butterbur, great butterbur, and simply butterbur due to its large leaves that were used (as were those of related plants) to wrap and store butter and other perishables in cool places before refrigeration was common.

Japanese sweet coltsfoot goes through an enormous transformation in which the little one- and two-inch flowerheads shown here are replaced by sturdy stalks of about three feet in length with giant leaves at their ends. Those leaves can grow up to four feet in width and are shaped like a colt’s hoofprint, hence the plant’s name. Here’s a Leighton Archive image of the plant’s leaves:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 15, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Flags, Animal Variety

Maine is home to two members of the deer family (the Cervidae family): moose and white-tailed deer. Also in that worldwide family there are elk, caribou, and various other species of “deer.” All family members apparently use their tails to swat flies, but only the white-tailed deer use their rear appendages to communicate significantly, according to the literature that I’ve seen.

As deer-watchers say, white-tails use their tails “to flag” messages by raising and flaring their white tails and buttocks areas. (Think of the old semaphore signaling systems of messaging with flags and other visual objects.) Researchers and hunters report a variety of messages that white-tails send by flagging, singly and as a group.

From an evolutionary standpoint, one of the more intriguing white-tail communications is the “I-see-you” message to predators, human and otherwise. This is thought to discourage pursuit by the predators who should realize that they are slower and should not waste valuable energy on a difficult, and eventually useless, chase.

There also apparently is the white-tails’ use of their highly visible raised white tails and exposed rumps as a general warning or notification to other nearby white-tails. This flagging often is accompanied by grunts, bleats, and other sounds that may make the message more comprehensive to the other deer as to what and where the threat or object of interest is.

Flagging is thought to be used for community purposes by white-tails, as well, especially by females that travel in groups. It can help them stay together when browsing or fleeing. It also can make it easier for fawns to follow moms in flight. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 7, 2025, and April 24, 2017.)

In the Right Place: Maine Mystery

“Tarrfish,” seen here, is the only fishing vessel that has been moored in Naskeag Harbor recently. The presence of that blue and white flag on her stern and the absence of her scallop-dragging equipment (mast, boom, dredge, and shelling hut) are clues as to why.

The scallop dragging season in Maine waters concluded last month. However, our scallop-diving season continues well into April. All of our local fishing vessels are exclusively scallop draggers in winter – except “Tarrfish.” David Tarr’s “Tarrfish” is both a dragging and a diving vessel. David is one of the state’s relatively few licensed scallop divers. He hand-harvests the more expensive “divers” scallops” while donned in a wetsuit and self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (“scuba” equipment).

That blue and white flag is an international diving flag, which is recognized worldwide as indicating that underwater operations are conducted from the vessel flying it. When the boat is circling in open water with the flag flying, other vessels must give way and keep clear of her. In addition to the international flag, there’s another “diver down” flag that is recognized in North America; it’s red with a white diagonal stripe, but I haven’t seen that used lately.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 11, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Tiny Royalty Department

Here you see what appears to be a golden-crowned kinglet (i.e., a small king wearing a crown) reigning over alder bush catkins.

However, perhaps this one should be dubbed a “yellow-crowned queenlet” because the bird apparently is female. (Unlike males, female GCKs have no orange in the crown.)

Orange-crowned kinglets are about four inches long and weigh less than an ounce. They’re our second-smallest birds. Only our ruby-throated hummingbirds are slightly (1/4”) smaller. The kinglets seem mostly to eat live insects when they can and insect larvae when they have to.

This kinglet may have migrated here to breed or perhaps was just resting on her way farther north, but she also may be a year-long resident. How these little unobtrusive neighbors survive our winters is one of our wonders. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 11, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Swinging, Moodwise

The moods of spring swing wildly on the Maine coast. Above, you see the view from Amen Ridge yesterday: a sun-shiny morning with a cheerful crowd of clouds in a bright blue sky over bluer waters, beyond a burnished gold field. Blelow, you’ll see the same view two days before: a snow-flurried morning with somber clouds hanging heavy in a gray sky over grayer waters, beyond a powdered white field.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 11[sun] and 9 [snow], 2025.)