JOURNAL
We say goodbye to March today with an image of her on one of her better days, a day when she wasn’t suffering from her severe meteorological madness:
That’s the Naskeag Harbor house and its buddy, the fishing vessel TARRFISH, trying to show March what spring should look like. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 28, 2026.)
Our white-tailed deer seem to have overcome the vicissitudes of March, assuming there are no more climate surprises in these last two days. Here you’ll see part of the herd that has hung out at our place all winter. These white-tailed deer that can move fast like to engage in long-range staring contests with white-headed men who can’t.
Those beautiful and phenomenal deer eyes rotate independently and have oval-shaped pupils that enhance the white-tails’ ability to see along the horizon. In fact, these deer reportedly have an amazing 310° peripheral field of view. We humans have 180°, if we’re lucky. White-tails reportedly also have about 18 times better nighttime vision than we do. But they are impolite when it comes to staring at those who are physically less fortunate than they.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 28 and 29, 2025.)
I happened to catch two of our scallop draggers (dredgers) moored at Naskeag Harbor in the friendly late light yesterday. Above, is TARRFISH, a traditional Down East lobster boat with added mast, boom. drag (dredge) and winch for winter scalloping. Below, is CHRISTOPHER-DEVIN III rigged similarly, but she’s a “Novi” (Nova Scotia) vessel, a design favored by our neighbor to the north.
The scallop rigging soon will disappear as the boats get spruced up for summer lobstering. Maine’s scallop dragging season has ended in some areas and will end state-wide on March 31, unless the regulators decide to do something unexpected. Some diving for hand-harvesting scallops in wet suits will be allowed into April, unless sustainability requires closure. David Tarr, the owner of TARRFISH, is a scallop diver as well as a dragger. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 28, 2026.)
The Brooklin Boat Yard pier in Center Harbor is an enigmatic sight that is best seen in the open air, as French artists say, “en plein air.” It’s one of the many places that can’t be seen as it really is in a photograph’s reproduction of an instant.
It’s best to see the ever-shifting light, shadows and reflections here while feeling a sea breeze and breathing in a sea scent. And, as part of getting to know the place, you should see, feel and smell the differences that weather, seasons, tides and various perspectives make.
This pier shows the scars of modern replacements of historic parts that were destroyed by a nasty winter nor’easter in January of 2024. Metal and composite walkways now balance on the ancient granite block pilings; a bigger shed seemingly stands precariously on stilts and, in winter and early spring, the docking floats and colorful small boats are gone and its gangway is pulled up like a pirate’s plank, perhaps for long-winded photographers.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 20 and 23, 2026.)
As you’ll see below, Toms around here have gotten their spring testosterone spike and are now performing the wild turkey strut. This performance is one of the most complicated and strenuous displays in the animal kingdom.
There seem to be three major aspects to the turkey strut, a courtship and domination phenomenon. First, there’s the swelling-up. The Tom contracts his many muscles at the base of each feather on his back, breast and sides, making his tail fan out and other feathers stand up. Most Toms can swell themselves up to twice as large as they were when relaxed.
Second, there’s the related dance moves and sound effects. The Tom’s primary wing feathers are drooped down while he shuffles, stiff-legged. The wings scrape the ground and make a rustling sound, while he pulls back his head to expand his chest to the ultimate size possible. While doing this, he growls with a drum-like sound and “spits” or “huffs” with sounds amplified by vibrating his breast feathers. He then periodically shakes himself all over to make his fanned tail and wings rattle.
If that hasn’t made you wonder about the biological purposes of the varying concepts of male attractiveness in this world, the final phase of the strut should. The Tom uses his blood pressure to transform his head and face. The top of the Tom’s head turns red, white and blue, while his “snood” (that fleshy flap that dangles from his face) gets engorged with blood and elongates over his beak. As if that’s not enough, he then elongates and swells his “caruncle” (that testicular-like growth on the neck), while making it flaming red.
Ah, romance …. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 25, 2026.)
Maine’s glass eel season opened Sunday. Above, is a Fyke net perched at the mouth of Surry Stream to trap migrating glass eels, sometimes called elvers, that will swim up the stream when the tide comes in. These nets, named after a 19th Century Dutch fish trap, apparently are the favored method of catching the transparent baby American eels. Below is an eel’s eye view of a trap:
Fyke (usually pronounced “Fick”) nets, basically, are large, thin-meshed funnel nets supported by long poles with an eel trap and capture bag at the end. They’re placed in the historic paths of the incoming eels that migrate here from the Sargasso Sea. Most of those that are caught here will be air-shipped to Asia, where they’ll be cultivated and sold as delicacies when mature.
These prized baby fish (yes, eels are fish) are seeking fresh water to mature and reside in. After several years, the adults will migrate back to the Sargasso area, breed, and die there. Many of their offspring mysteriously will return to American waters to have their fates sealed with a Fyke net or some other means. Under Maine regulations, the young eels also may be caught with a dip net or a “Sheldon eel trap,” which is a netted or screened box trap that is named after its Maine inventor.
The Maine glass eel fishery has been in decline for complicated reasons. There were only two Fyke nets at Patten Stream yesterday, while there were as many as seven in prior years. Meanwhile, Surry Stream has kept on churning.
(Images taken in Surry, Maine, on March 25, 2026.)
Here’s a visual update on the three remarkably diverse projects that were designed by the Brooklin Boat Yard and are now being built there. Shown in the foreground above, in the main shop, you see DYLAN. She’s an Eggemoggin 47+ (47’ 6” overall length) racing sailboat that’s coming along nicely and may be done by June. In the background is a unique 47’ Express Cruiser, a sleek power boat that apparently hasn’t been named yet. She’s in line to be completed and painted slightly after DYLAN, I’m told.
Below, you’ll see the no-name 18’ skiff being built in the auxiliary shop. She’ll be the first one completed, I assume. She has a remarkably good profile for a utility boat; I especially like the way her bow flare eases into the hull.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 23, 2026.)
These masked characters slipped over our northern borders under cover of another snowfall yesterday and the only ICE in sight was on the ground. Canada geese have been coming south for at least two weeks.
In Maine, Canada geese consist of both migratory birds such as these and rapidly increasing "resident" populations that stay here year-round, adapted especially to environments with large lawns and still, open water.
There were no Maine breeding populations of these birds before 1960, but restoration programs were highly successful, if not too successful in some areas. Canada geese are magnificent creatures that are monogamous, extremely territorial, and can live over 20 years. But, as you’ll see, they’re not always nice neighbors.
The Canada geese that choose to reside here increasingly are the "giant" subspecies of Canada goose (Branta canadensis maxima), which were once near-extinct. The literature reports that the adult giants average around 12–15 pounds, with exceptional specimens exceeding 20–24 pounds. The common Canada geese adults migrating through usually are in the 7–9 pound range or just slightly heavier.
Yes, there are issues with resident geese. They can be highly aggressive in populated areas, especially when nesting. They threaten and scare approaching pets and people by hissing, honking and even striking. They also have been known to overgraze and ruin public and private lawns, and create significant scat buildup in public areas and water sources.
Thus, Maine wildlife regulators advise against feeding Canada geese, because it causes them to lose their fear of humans and build resident populations in numbers that are not naturally sustainable. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 23, 2026.)
Isn’t it just like March? She notices that her snow and ice have melted, and the beloved green ground is showing itself to those that need to eat it and those, such as Yours Truly, who need to see it in spring.
March apparently decided that there was too much indecent exposure going on. She cast down millions of tiny snowflakes in plumes of white yesterday, which lay like a cheap blanket on the awakening earth and returned us to what has become decent, but boring, whiteness.
Yes, of course, snowfalls and their effects are beautiful. But they can become like engaging guests who overstay their invitation. Nonetheless, now that I’ve finished my first rant of the day, here and in the Comment space are a couple of images of March’s outdoor madness yesterday. (Fortunately, the indoor basketball madness has been mostly exciting, but that’s another story)
Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 22, 2026.)
The steady decline in Maine farms has led to an increase in traditional barns being converted into what some are calling "barndominiums" – residences, B&Bs and other shelters with all the modern conveniences for people, rather than the necessities for farm animals.
Barndominiums often preserve or simulate the original barns’ historic post-and-beam exteriors, but contain features such as great rooms with large fireplaces, central air conditioning and heating, and other good-life amenities. Some barndominiums keep (or replicate) a barn’s large sliding doors, but when those doors are slid open, you’ll see large windows or glass-paneled doors. Here’s one under construction:
Leighton Archives (March 14, 2022)
Many Maine farmers relied on animal warmth or sometimes a small wood stove to heat barns in winter. Today, you’re as likely to see a propane truck backing up to a barndominium to supply heating fuel as you were in days of yore to see a manure truck backing up to a barn on mucking-out day:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 18 and 20, 2026.)
This well-proportioned, 18-foot skiff had just been rolled over when I visited the Brooklin Boat Yard’s auxiliary shop yesterday.
As you may know, in custom boat building, a boat’s being “rolled over" refers to the critical, often celebratory, moment when a boat hull is completely (or virtually completely) formed and the boat is flipped from its inverted build position (bottom-side up) to its upright finishing position (right-side up). Then, the boat’s interior supports, etc., can be worked on:
BBY’s auxiliary shop is in the historic (rehabilitated) Odd Fellows Hall near the main boatyard. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 20, 2026.)
Our bogs are finally flooded into vernal pools. Skunk cabbage shoots are rising from the water again and soon should open and expose the purple and mottled spathes that protect the plants’ tiny flowers:
In a week or so, we should begin to hear the first rehearsals of our competing peeper, brown frog, and green frog choruses, each with its own version of call-and-response amphibian gospel music. In early-to- mid April the silent salamanders should be arriving for their annual life-creating dances in these waters.
That’s assuming that all will go well. I can’t shake the creepy feeling that Mother Nature doesn’t feel well and the causes may be fatal and too late to cure. And that one day the amphibian gospel music will stop, never to be sung again. The beginning of a bad ending. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 15 and 18, 2026.)
It’s time to take another peek at what is perhaps Brooklin’s most historic structure – this time without snow. Here you see the seaside facade of “The Lookout” basking in yesterday morning’s sun:
The original parts of this structure have sheltered people since about 1760. It sits on a promontory at the end of the Flye Point peninsular, where there is a panoramic view of local bays and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a perfect spot for an observation point, which it has been from its beginning, hence its name.
At first, The Lookout was an observation point for British colonists watching primarily for unfriendly Native Americans in canoes. Later, it may have been used by rebelling American colonists watching primarily for unfriendly British in ships. Now, it’s used by summer tourists watching primarily for small sailboats, large windjammers, lobster boats and sunsets, perhaps while sipping some giggle enhancers in that screened porch dining room. Here’s one of its rooms with a view:
Leighton Archive image
Throughout all this time, The Lookout has been in the hands of one or more members of the Flye family. The present proprietor, Butch Smith, is the grandson of Lettie Beryl (Flye) Smith. The original house was expanded upward in the late 1800s into an Inn by Butch’s great uncle, Owen Flye, and has remained one since then.
The Lookout has a fine restaurant that’s open to the public in the summer, and its extensive sea vista grounds are popular for weddings and other outdoor events. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 18, 2026, except as noted.)
Here you see the mouth of Patten Stream at Patten Bay yesterday. The swollen and turbulent stream is forcefully ejecting the run-off water from the torrential rains of March 16-17. This phenomenon is akin to the vomiting of excesses, and it demonstrates one of the problems causing our long-term severe drought.
Under certain conditions, such as frozen ground and sudden sheet-rain, much of the rainwater runs off and eventually finds a stream or river to take it away. We need slow, soaking rain to make a comeback from our drought.
Our recent gale-force winds and rain reportedly brought various locations in the Down East pounding rainfall that ranged from 1-to-2.5 inches in a relatively short time. That’s energetic March for you. Let’s hope that April is languid with her showers this year. (Images taken in Surry, Maine, on March 17, 2026.)
We’re on generator as I write; last night’s 50 mph+ gale winds knocked out our pole-line power somehow. But a quick survey this morning indicates that no significant damage was done to our property or any nearby.
This post contains two images taken in yesterday’s rainy, high-winded buildup to last night’s howler. On their face, these images will seem completely unrelated. Yet, sadly, there is a relationship.
This first image is of the fishing vessel ALL-IN tossing and swinging wildly at her mooring yesterday, even though she was somewhat protected by the islands around Naskeag Harbor:
The second image is of the ancient Camperdown elm in the Brooklin Cemetery yesterday. Her stolid body was unaffected by the winds, but her leafless branches were unable to protect against the rain that was falling on the graves of those she tries to protect:
The elm principally shelters the grave of Rodney S. Blake, who went down with the side-wheeling passenger steamer “Portland,” when everyone onboard drowned in a gale off Maine in 1892.
As for ALL-IN, despite being somewhat protected, boats similar to her have slipped their moorings in Naskeag Harbor during high winds and been sunk or severely damaged. When I checked on her this morning, however, ALL-IN was swinging contentedly on her mooring, seemingly proudly.
While in bad last night as wind and rain pounded the house, I remembered the words a veteran commercial fishermen told me with a shrug: “Nothin’ good about a gale.” (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 16, 2026.)
Here you see an image taken last week of a bog that usually is a good-sized vernal pool by now. Despite numerous rain and snow showers since late February, a long-term drought of varying intensity persists for much of the Northeast.
We here on the Down East coast have been in the “Long-Term,” “Severe Drought” category since last summer, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor:
The hope is that we’ll at least improve to “Moderate Drought” by end of spring. Seems to me that’s a pathetically weak hope, as hopes go. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 13, 2026.)
Our two most renowned piers stand patiently in March on their ancient granite pillars. They’re unfinished roads to nowhere now, with their floating docks disengaged and stored on land. But they provide faint memories of summer and boats and ropes and the mixed sounds of lapping water, creaking gangways and warm weather laughter.
Above is the Brooklin Boat Yard pier and shed in Center Harbor. Below, you’ll see the WoodenBoat pier and boathouse in Great Cove:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 10 and 13, 2026.)
It snowed again last night, and now we’re getting ice-cold rain. But the eastern skunk cabbage plants don’t mind; they’re born with built-in heat pumps. More on their thermodynamics later.
Skunk cabbage spathes have been surfacing through snow, ice, standing bog water and frozen ground for at least a week here. Most plants have sported the common purple-red and red-mottled spathes, as shown above. However, we’re also getting a few of the uncommon yellow-spathed varieties:
As usual, these are the year’s first flowering annual plants to break ground. A cluster ball of pinhead-sized flowers (a “spadix”) is hidden inside the jester-hat-like spathes:
Leighton Archive Image
This amazing plant (Symplocarpus foetidus) is one of a very few plants that has evolved the ability to metabolically generate considerable internal heat. It uses intense cellular respiration to convert starch into heat-energy. Skunk cabbages have been reported to have raised the temperature of the flowers in their spathes to 71.6˚ F (22˚C), even when the surrounding temperatures are freezing.
This heat enables the plants to get a jump on competitive plants before true spring arrives. Being warm and cozy is thought to attract and shelter the earliest pollinators, which crawl into the side openings of the spathes for a little refreshment (nectar and pollen), as well as protection from the elements. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 12 and 13, 2025, except as noted.)
This image of a black bear appears with my monthly column in the current Ellsworth American. The column is my annual report on last year’s human fatalities from black bears and the latest advice from experts on what to do if you encounter a black bear. Click on the image to enlarge it. To read the column, use this link: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column
Above, you see the two boats now being constructed in the Brooklin Boat Yard shop, both designed by BBY designers. The racing sailboat in the foreground is DYLAN, an Eggemoggin 47+ (47’ 6” overall); it’s the third of its type to be built so far at BBY. In the background, you’ll see a power boat; she’s going to be a custom 47’ Express Cruiser. She may not have a name yet.
Meanwhile, in the old BBY storage shed, small boats and mooring gear await their return to the water in late spring and early summer, when Brooklin begins to bustle:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 10, 2026.)
