In the Right Place: Upside Downy

This downy woodpecker has been excavating that cavity in the birch tree for several days, and I’m wondering about the little guy. (The six-to-seven-inch downies are the smallest woodpeckers in North America, and only the males have red nape patches.)

My initial, unthinking reaction was that he had gone crazy and was creating a breeding and birthing nest in the fall instead of the spring. (It doesn’t seem unreasonable to wonder whether a creature that bangs his face against hard surfaces most of the day might go a little crazy every now and then.)

But no, this little guy isn’t crazy. He’s almost certainly creating a winter roosting shelter for himself. After the breeding season, downies part from their mates and usually occupy or create individual roosting holes for warmth and protection during the cold and snowy weather. (See also the image in the Comment space.)

Of course, the cynical among us might see the symbolism in considering this bird a downy real estate speculator. The affordable housing (habitat) crisis has spread from (and by) humans to many species. (Images taken October 19, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Don’t Worry About Kelce

Here you see Conary Cove in Blue Hill Bay at about low tide:

The average high tide here is about 10.5 feet. That is, if Travis Kelce decided to leave Taylor Swift’s side to see how it feels to wiggle his toes in the mud at low tide here, his head would be more than four feet under water at high tide. But, don’t worry about six-foot Kelce, the tide is not swift -- it takes about six hours and 12.5 minutes for the water in this Cove to go from low to high tide.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on October 17, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Life with Bernie, III

Bernie is still here – and he’s a dynamo. This American beaver has taken down 16 trees since he arrived last month and cut them into pieces for various uses. Fortunately, they were in dense growth surrounding a boggy area. He created a new pond, which remains full of water, but does not appear to be a flood threat. At least, yet.

In the above image, you see Bernie eating his dinner one evening last week. The entrée then apparently was a delicious, fresh speckled alder tree chunky and salad. He ate it with a grinding-crunching sound similar, at times, to the sound of a fresh celery stalk being chewed steadily.

He felled that alder the night before and dragged parts of it into that area, a pond that’s adjacent to the one he created. He’s apparently building a winter residence in the original pond. I hope it will be a one-bedroom apartment and not a luxury beaver condo for a colony. I also hope that he’s not thinking of trying to make the two adjacent ponds into one pond by flooding the dirt road between them. Some of his work:

The mud-and-wood dam that he created to form a nearby body of water that we call Bernie’s Pond is a work in progress that is a little more than three feet high and about seven or eight feet long. Bernie’s Pond actually is a visual improvement over the run-off gulley that he started with:

As far as I can tell, Bernie remains a one-man wrecking crew. The hope is that he’s one of those crotchety “bachelor beavers,” and just wants to create a livable small territory that’s defensible against other beavers and his primary predators. (Around here, mature beavers are preyed upon mostly by coyotes, black bears, and humans.)

If Bernie remains a bachelor, we probably will be able to work out an accommodation with him. If he wants a large family and large watery territory, we’ll likely have to make some tough decisions about trapping and transporting him and his kin.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, October 15 and 18, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Smaller But Lighter

The Salt Pond blueberry barrens were in a good mood yesterday afternoon. And, as often is the case, that good mood was contagious. There was a slight bite to the bracing breeze, the sky was vastly blue with clouds that mimicked the glacier-strewn rocks below, and the blueberry leaves were a warming and reassuring red.

Those who climb the worn, crusty trails to the bluff overlooking the Pond there can learn, if the conditions are right, that feeling small and insignificant at times is a necessary realization. Most of us need to be put in our place every now and then, and this is a great place to have that happen.

I almost always come away from there feeling smaller but lighter.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on October 17, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Embers and Wine

This fall the toothed leaves on our doublefile viburnums seem especially striking. Maybe it’s the drought. When backlit by a lowered October sun, the leaves glow like embers, as you see here. On cloudy days, they look like they’ve been dipped in a rich Burgundy wine and left to dry:

The doublefile viburnum (Viburnum plicatum) is known for its distinctive horizontal branches that are covered in lacecap-style flower clusters in the spring, full of berries loved by the birds in late summer and early autumn, and decorated with colorful hanging, ovate leaves in the fall and early winter.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 5, 2025.)

In the Right Place: American Neoclassical

Here you see a Baptist church that was built in 1845 and, I believe, still is attended by a congregation. It seems typical of many of the 19th Century rural New England churches that were built in what is now called the Vernacular Greek Revival style. Their new, hard-working congregations could not afford (and did not want) a grand Greek Revival building of the type going up in wealthy areas in the quickly-expanding United States.

That is, this church is Vernacular (of a localized style) because it is close to a road, made mostly of wood, and painted white in imitation of marble. It has a Greco-Roman triangular temple front (pediment), as did many real Greek Revival buildings, but no marble or stone columns to hold the pediment up – just wooden impressions of plain Doric columns (pilasters). It has a multi-stage belfry, but maybe no bell. (Some Vernaculars used stucco and/or brick, according to the literature and what I have seen.)

Nonetheless, who would want a large Greek Revival edifice in this setting? This apparently well-maintained church seems appropriate and inviting for a local congregation. It sits there in quiet brightness by a rising rural road in the shelter of tall trees – not proud, but certainly not shy. (Image taken in North Sedgwick, Maine, on October 11, 2025.) Click on the image to enlarge it.

In the Right Place: And Then There Were Two

Yesterday there were only two boats left in all of Great Cove, both owned by neighbors who live on the Cove. Above you see one of the two: EO, a 12 ½-foot sailboat (Herreshoff or Haven). Below, you’ll see the other boat: RIVERBIRD, a recrafted Chris-Craft runabout/sport boat:

Living on Great Cove is like having year-long box seats at the Circus Maximus. There’s everything from the pageantry of windjammer sail-ins, to the competition of regattas, to the tragedy of duckling flotillas being attacked by bald eagles.

In the summer, the Cove is full of fascinating boats: sailing classrooms owned by the WoodenBoat School; recreational sailboats owned by neighbors and visitors; tall-masted coastal cruisers with tourists eager to explore the School campus; exotic motor yachts; fast motorized runabouts; fishing vessels (lobster/scallop) taking a shortcut; working boats full of marine equipment; skiffs; pulling boats; kayaks; paddle boards, and other watercraft.

Moored boats start to disappear in September, and all usually have moved out before November. Waterfowl then move in. At first, it’s often flocks of Canada geese migrating south. In addition to our resident sea gulls and common loons, at least 18 species of waterfowl winter in the state. In the Cove, it’s mostly common eiders, scoters, mallards, black ducks, mergansers, and bufflehead ducks each year.  There also are the occasional seals and porpoises chasing fish. Thumbs Up!

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 14, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Season’s Greetings

October in New England is the beginning of that special season that is NOT the leaf-turning, apple-picking, pumpkin-finding, deer-hunting, baseball playoff, football or other outdoor activity season. It’s the coming of the indoor STEW season, which arrives best when the nights are crisp outside the house and glowing inside from a wood fire.

Barbara and I had our favorite stew Sunday night. That would be beef (or boeuf for you Francophiles) bourguignon, as prepared by our daughter Jessica, who is a great cook. You can practically smell and taste the hearty deliciousness from this image of Sunday’s dinner:

This classic French stew contains lots of chuck beef that is slow-cooked with onions, carrots, garlic, mushrooms, herbs, bacon and, especially, lots and lots of added, big-bodied red wine for the ingredients to tread in. As you might have guessed, the stew originates from the Burgundy region of France and is renowned for its savory gravy and fall-apart-tender meat.  

Beef bourguignon began as a peasant recipe designed to make tough meat more palatable, according to what I’ve read. It was then modified for complex tastes and popularized by Julia Child, among others. Here on the Blue Hill peninsula, you’ll probably also want to have some crusty Tinder Hearth bread handy to sop up that exquisite gravy. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 12, 2025.)

Barbara and Dick's Birthday Dinner

Last night, the birthday codgers were served a wonderful meal and wine by their personal chef, sommelier and flower provider, the talented Madame Jessica Dentzer (aka Julia [our] Child). A magnificent boeuf Bourguignon was well-accompanied by a bold Orin Swift Palermo cabernet sauvignon:

In the Right Place: Life with Bernie

You may remember that an American Beaver visited us in late September, and we weren’t sure what to do about him. Well, he apparently has decided to stay and we still don’t know what to do about him, other than to name him Bernie and see what happens.

This is an image of Bernie at dusk Tuesday, when he was working hard in a pond that he alone created and that apparently still is a work in progress.  He did it by putting up a dam across a stream that acts as an overflow channel from our large pond. Except for his first day here, I have only seen Bernie at dusk, which apparently is when he starts his solo shift at the new pond.

As of yesterday, his dam was about three feet high, which is not nearly the size of some beaver Hoover Dams that I’ve seen. (Not yet, anyway.) He also has taken down at least eight of the many trees in that area. He prefers birch but also has taken down a small maple and several alders as far as I have seen.

Bernie’s new pond is in a wooded area where a reasonable amount of flooding likely won’t be a problem. In the morning sun, the still, new waters give off reflections of the vegetation that the impressionist Claude Monet probably would like; Bernie probably improved the scene:

Bernie also has created what looks like a relatively small, wood-and-mud-covered residence on a little island in an existing, adjac:ent pond, but I’ve seen no dam engineering going on there. I’ve also seen no signs of another beaver in the whole area.

My hope is that Bernie is one of those crotchety “bachelor beavers” that like to live alone and don’t build large dams or colony lodges. They usually build just enough to protect themselves and then get very territorial about keeping other beavers out, according to the literature.

If that’s what happens, he and we probably will be able to come to an understanding. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 7 (Bernie) and 11 (Bernie’s mew pond).

In the Right Place: The Last of the Queens?

Here we see one of the last royal female insects on one of the last royal female flowers. That’s a female monarch (i.e., queen) butterfly trying to find nectar in a Queen (i.e., monarch) Anne lace flowerhead yesterday when the temperature was 55° (F).

Judging from her awkward flight, I don’t think that this beauty is part of the monarch migrating “super generation” that has the special genes to live longer and be stronger than the year’s prior generations. Those pilgrims left for Mexico in September, I believe. I think this butterfly was born in Maine this year and will die here, perhaps before all the royal lace does.

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

In the Right Place: October Revelations

Leaf-by-leaf, our deciduous trees are slowly revealing their intriguing inner selves and provoking our imaginations.

Above, you see a young, glowing red maple, standing straight and true and silhouetted stylishly in the October sun, seemingly daring us to stare at her. Below, you’ll see a very old, seemingly aching, Camperdown elm bending to keep shading her assigned graves from that same sun, while no longer being able to hold her leaves well:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 9, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Did You Forget Something?

This image of a buck appears with my monthly column in the current print edition of the Ellsworth American.  To read the column about the history and ramifications of wearing (and not wearing) “hunter [blaze] orange” clothing during hunting seasons, use this link:

http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: On Tranquility

It’s time to see one of our many soothing local scenes and wonder why it soothes. Here’s a glimpse of the near-mountain called Blue Hill as it looms above a reflective Blue Hill Bay last week:

Studies show that scenes with water, often called "blue spaces" by researchers, are especially beneficial for mental health due to our evolutionary development. For many people, apparently, simply gazing at bodies of water – or images of them – can lower their heart rate and blood pressure and reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol. 

Nature’s abundant “cool” blue and green colors historically have been associated with the evocation of tranquility in people. Seeing a calm, reflective, watery surface has been found to make people pause and reflect on their own thoughts and emotions while also feeling reconnected to nature. These feelings, in turn, can reduce anxiety and stress and lead to feelings of peace and a better mental balance.

Of course, I’m not qualified to say that the reported psychological observations are accurate for anyone other than me. But I do know tranquility when I feel her, and she comes silently to me sometimes when I visit scenes like this. (Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on October 3, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Loon in Winter

The common loon in winter is drab. And that’s okay with the loon. Coastal bald eagles now hang around all year and prey on what they can find and catch. The loon that you see here was transitioning yesterday to its winter attire:

In the summer, when they’re trying to mate, loons are fashion plates wearing birdland’s version of Giorgio Amani formalwear: white-spangled, rich black plumage, ruby eyes, shiny black bill, and a flickering iridescent necklace:

Leighton Archive Photo

In their winter wear, when they’re trying to survive, they ditch the startling red eyes, black and white attire, and iridescent jewelry and don grays and whites that have the brilliance of dishwater.

On a gray winter’s day, you’d hardly notice a loon fishing alone as they do, very low in the water, disappearing and appearing without hardly a sound – except when it can’t help being loony and emits a startling winter wail, then laughs tremulously at itself. (Primary image taken in Little Deer Isle, Maine, on October 7, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Lunar Three-Fer

Here you see October’s full moon rising over Blue Hill and Jericho Bays while the sun was setting yesterday evening.  Haze and particles in our atmosphere distorted it and made it appear reddish until it broke through the pollution band.

This visit by our faithful companion is a three-fer: it’s the Harvest Moon, because it’s the full moon closest to our autumnal equinox; it’s the Hunter’s Moon, because that’s the traditional name given to the October full moon, and it’s a Super Moon because it’s close to its lowest orbit of Earth (its “perigee”). We’ll have Super Moons in November and December, also.

The Harvest and Hunter’s Moon designations reportedly are the most popular names that this month’s moon was called by northeastern Native Americans (Algonquin, often), as adopted by early European settlers and collected by the Farmers’ Almanac.

However, the October moon has other historic Native American names that vary geographically. For example, Maine's Abenaki people referred to it by various names depending on the month’s events, such as the Dying Grass Moon or the Travel Moon. 

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 6, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Bon Voyage!

Fall warblers are coming through in good numbers now.

I’m a considerably-less-than-awesome birder when it comes to identifying warblers, especially dull-hued fall warblers. They seem to have a habit of staying mostly in the leafy shadows. And, they’re usually only about the size of a Snickers® candy bar or standard playing card. And, the damn things hardly ever stay still when I try to focus binoculars or a long lens on them. And, and, and …. (Why can’t warblers be like pushy black-capped chickadees?)

You might appreciate my situation by trying to find the warbler that’s staring straight at me (hence, you) in this photograph taken Saturday:

I don’t see any really good identifying marks from that perspective; stripes are common to many types of warblers. However, as usual, he didn’t stay still long and I managed to get a privacy-invading shot of him and his bold butt:

That dab of yellow on his rear (and a little on his side) make me believe that he’s a Yellow-Rumped Warbler and that he’s on his way with his kind to the southern states, Mexico, or Caribbean. Bon voyage, you little devil! (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 4, 2025; sex assumed.)

In the Right Place: The Art of Feeling Better

For some of us, a fine fall morning at high tide on Maine’s Down East coast can be more satisfying than the best Scotch. As you may know, this is the old red boat house at Conary Cove just doing its job of making passers-by feel better.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on October 3, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Do Opposites Attract?

Above, you see FROLIC yesterday, the last sailboat in Great Cove. Below, you’ll see VULCAN visiting the Cove yesterday. If anyone wants an illustration of the difference between elegance and inelegance, there it is. Beauty and strength are welcome, but often come separately.

FROLIC is a Luders 16. That is, her design is by the renowned naval Architect Alfred E. (Bill) Luders and she’s 16’4” long at the waterline. She’s a racer owned by a neighbor and probably will be “taken out” for winter storage soon.

VULCAN is a moorings service vessel owned by Brooklin Marine, LLC. Her crew installs, removes, maintains and repairs moorings and mooring equipment. Her crew apparently was replacing the large, summer ball buoys that float on mooring chains with slim, winter mooring sticks (long, thin, vertically-oriented buoys that are better at withstanding ice).

As with most of life, it takes all kinds. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 4, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Good and Bad News

As you see, Mount Desert Island was under celestial shark attack on Wednesday. However, the large island survived and its Acadia National Park reportedly is remaining open despite a federal government shutdown. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that we’ve been having a lot of beautiful weather of the type that you see here. Yes – you read that right; that’s bad. We need about a week of steady rain. We remain in an extreme drought and the possibility of catastrophic wildfires in our extensive woodlands is real. See the latest official map:

(Photograph taken from Brooklin, Maine, on October 1, 2025.)