March Madness this year included much more than college basketball here. It was a time for brilliant sun; torrential rain; damaging floods; super-high tides; murky fogs; unexpected snows; high winds; freezing and thawing ice, a Presidential primary vote, St. Patrick’s Day; the closing of scallop-dragging season; the opening of glass eel season; the beginning of spring (the vernal equinox); the beginning of the geese migrations; Easter, and a full moon that is unfortunately called the Worm Moon.
Let’s begin our review of the transitional month with cheerful scenes of this March’s good side, its sun and blue skies over our local bays and ponds.
March’s varied moods created special effects in the bogs, including large, plunging rain drops that created water spouts and bubbles, as well as floating targets.
Local piers pointed to sun-dazzled islands, foggy islands, and islands under siege of significant storms.
Our March woods were easy to roam under blue skies and through dappled sun, but a bit tricky when various snow flurries arrived without notice.
This March will probably set precipitation records. The downfalls engorged our wooded streams, large and small, and our culverts were working at capacity to prevent road flooding (which was not always prevented).
Incidentally, speaking of precipitation, our rain chain “downspout” seemed to become schizophrenic during all of the freezing and thawing:
The March flora was more reserved than our streams and rain chain. The American holly, skunk cabbage spathes, and ancient apple trees actually remained quite attractive throughout the month, especially when snow-dappled. Alder catkins and rhododendron buds also made decent spring appearances.
On the commercial waterfront, March was the last month of the scallop dredging (“dragging”) season, which was interrupted several times by significant storms and heavy fog. However, some of our handsome fleet sat for their portraits when the sun came out. So did a rogue scallop shell caught in March.
While March was the end of the scallop-dragging season, it was the beginning of the glass eel (aka elver) season. These migrating baby American eels from the Sargasso Sea are funnel-netted in rivers and at the mouths of streams as they travel to the lakes and ponds where their parents matured.
Recreational boats remained warm in their sheds while their mooring gear iced up outside during the month. Here you see three March scenes from the WoodenBoat School campus.
As for March wildlife, the month is when Canada Geese begin to migrate here from the south. Some will stay for the summer and breed here, others will continue on up to their namesake country.
Our resident white-tailed deer were never fazed by March’s tantrums. As you’ll see below, they even held pajama parties in pouring rain and didn’t pay attention to the cold and snow. That’s because they’re still wearing their winter wonder-coats. (It’s raining steadily in the first two images.)
March calendar events included a Presidential primary on the 5th; St. Patrick’s Day on the 17th; the vernal equinox on the 19th; the Full Worm Moon on the foggy night of the 25th, and Easter on the 31st. (By the way, that’s our heroic Christmas Amaryllis below, which kept blooming long enough to become our Easter Amaryllis.)
Finally, although March sunsets and afterglows usually are not among the best that we see, this March sunset warmed the heart while the hands froze.
(All images except the St. Patrick’s Day banner were taken in Down East Maine during March of 2024. That banner photo, a Leighton Archive image taken here in a prior March, was again posted on March 17 of this year.)