On Mount Desert Island, Maine
This is not about David Bowie.
But, it is about a strange and oddly beautiful rock star that makes unique music. Some of you already are fans of this star, judging from the surprising number of requests for information about it, after it first appeared here as an unexplained image in our July Postcards From Maine.
Here’s a new image, one of the star making its music with waves and whistling wind:
This promontory has been a landmark to seafarers for centuries. It’s known as Star Point and it’s located in Salisbury Cove on the north shore of Mount Desert Island. Here’s the star at sunset during low tide:
Salisbury Cove is full of remarkable rock formations formed by glacier activity and erosion. The geologic reports on the area indicate that much of these is metamorphic shist and flint-like bedrock, plus some petrified ash that arrived after ancient volcanic eruptions. It would appear to our uneducated eyes that Star Point was a compressed combination of hard and relatively soft rock and ash that, over the eons, suffered major wounds in its continuing war with water and wind.
Star Point is not the only attraction here. This rocky shore is now part of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory campus. MDI Bio Lab is very visitor-friendly and community oriented. In fact, it offers regular, fascinating lectures and exhibits to the public, after which one can explore the shore. You may want to scan their website: https://mdibl.org/ .
The art exhibit at MDI Bio Lab now is “A Fresh Field of Life: Artists, Naturalists and the Vision of Acadia.” It celebrates Acadia National Park’s 100th federal anniversary and relationships between art and science. This is a remarkable exhibit of the works of over 40 artists, including a startlingly beautiful rendition of a Red-Winged Blackbird's nest of marbled eggs by Brooklin's Sherry Streeter. The show can be seen via one of the free scheduled tours, for which you may register on the Lab’s website.
Those of you who want to see larger versions of the Star Point images above, plus a few others, can access them via the link below. (We recommend that the initial viewing be in full-screen mode, which can be achieved by clicking the Slideshow button [>] in the upper right of the gallery to which the link will take you.) Here’s the link:
https://leightons.smugmug.com/Maine/Out/The-Rock-Star/
Cheers,
Barbara and Dick