March often is bedraggled here. She has nearly impossible responsibilities to fulfill and never enough time to fix herself up. Primarily, she has to eject winter, who often is an aggressive tenant that requires several efforts, and then she has to provide more light and give birth to spring, who always is a problem child. It’s no wonder that poor March often is in a fog. However, as you’ll see, March has a way with fog.
But first, as usual, we’ll wish that you were here with the four iconic scenes that we keep monthly visual track of. This month, you’ll see a panorama of March weather — Blue Hill and Blue Hill Bay with snow and sea ice; the mountains on Mount Desert Island over a mainland field of melting snow, the old red boat house enjoying the full sun, and Naskeag Harbor in rainy fog:
As mentioned, March is good at coastal fog; here are a few of her misty masterpieces:
We had quite a few snow flurries during the month, but most of them merely covered the landscape in a thin purification blanket. Of course, some purification, when combined with plowing, can lead to potholes that need to be filled.
Part of March’s spring birthing duties include providing enough rain to create vernal pools for the rising of aquatic and amphibian creatures and plant life. She performed these duties well this year.
It was not all gloom this March. We had some spectacularly lovely days of eye-squinting sun and blue porcelain skies that often were invigorated with racing clouds.
March flora is of the earliest kind, the cold-resistant pilgrims of the plant world: pussy willow, which wears fur catkin mittens, and skunk cabbage, which provides jester-hatted spathes to protect its flowers. This year, we again have had a few of the uncommon yellow skunk cabbage spathes.
On the furred fauna front, our generation of white-tailed deer yearlings seemed to survive the winter well and emerge in March with their coats almost unblemished.
As for feathered fauna, we’ve had wave after wave of Canada geese honking overhead and stopping for snacks. Some will remain here to breed; some will continue into Canada, if the reciprocal tariff is not too high. Less obvious are the small birds that come to pick holly berries, such as cedar waxwings.
For fauna of the wiggly variety, the glass eel (aka elver) season opened in March with a variety of nets being spread at stream mouths to catch the immature American eels as they migrate up to fresh water ponds. There also was the occasional early-rising garter snake skedaddling across trails.
On the waterfront, the scallop-dragging season ended in March for vessels that dredged Maine’s jurisdictional waters for the tasty mollusks. (Scallop SCUBA diving season ends in April.) Soon, the masts, booms, and shelling huts of these vessels will be taken down and they will spend the summer trapping lobsters.
Meanwhile, recreational craft and their gear continue to hang around waiting for their time or causing traffic jams when being taken to the boatyard for summer preps.
Of course, there always are “signs of the times.” This March, some were nationally and internationally political, some advertised gift shops:
Finally, perhaps March’s most stellar event was to perform a complete full moon eclipse for us (merged images):
(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during March of 2025.)