June was sweet and friendly this year. She brought many beautiful summer days, some significant fogs, a few gray days and some rainy ones, but no vicious storms, floods, or heatwaves. We slid into summer with an easy spectacularity.
I mentioned fog. This June brought us some of the foggiest days I’ve ever seen. But, fogs can seem to conjure ancient spirits, especially a soft fog in the woods and a now-you-see-it/now-you-don’t fog on the water:
We’ll come back to the waterfront, but let’s first remember that June is the birth month of many wild animals, especially birds. I have good news and bad news to report on two nests that I monitored.
It was a joyous June in the Osprey Nest, the home of our local fish hawk couple, Ozzie and Harriet. Once again, they produced at least two nestlings and possibly a third that has stayed hidden low in the nest so far. Harriet remained mostly in the nest shading and feeding the youngsters and Ozzie dutifully delivered fresh fish to the family daily.
Unfortunately, however, June was a bad month for Wendy, the black-throated green warbler that I’ve written about. She would fly off her little (3-inch diameter) nest from time to time, which allowed me to see that she was incubating four tiny, speckled eggs. One day, I saw her discovered by a pair of blustering blue jays, which I shooed away. I’ll leave it up to you to imagine what happened to her eggs and nest after I left the area. I never saw her again.
But, in the same area as Wendy’s nest, I did witness a small (5-inch) brown creeper feeding her even smaller fledgling on the side of a spruce tree. Life goes on.
I should mention a concern. It appears that we keep getting fewer great blue herons returning in May and June to breed. It’s believed that the increasing bald eagle population here is driving the GBHs elsewhere. Nonetheless, the few that I saw hunting in the ponds here during June were as dramatic as ever.
Speaking of ponds, June is when the painted turtles arise from the murky depths to bask sedentarily and the dragonflies hatch to patrol the water edges frantically.
I should note that our white-tailed deer started to wear their summer clothes in June. Some deer completed the transition into their slick reddish coats; others were still in molt, and still others — the smallest of them — were trying out their first fur.
On the recreational waterfront, six windjammers visited Great Cove during June, two of them multiple times. Below, in varying weather, you’ll see the following visiting coastal cruisers: American Eagle, Angelique, Capt. Frank Swift, Ladona, Mary Day, and Stephen Taber. You’ll also see Ladona and Stephen Taber sleeping together, but don’t tell anyone.
On the educational waterfront, the famed WoodenBoat School started its classes during June, no matter what the weather. When classes were in session, Great Cove was alive with sailing and kayaking and the shops buzzing with boatbuilding and other marine-oriented activity.
On the working waterfront, June is the month when many of our fishing vessels start their summer lobstering season — trailering traps to Naskeag Harbor, loading them on the boats, setting them in the water, and darting from trap to trap to haul them up and remove their delicious contents.
As far as wild and cultivated flora are concerned, June arrivals that were interesting and/or beautiful were too numerous to give anywhere near a complete account. We’ll be selective. As to the wild flora, we’ll start with waterlilies and then show (in order) the following: starflower and bunchberry; hawkweed, yellow and orange; oxeye daisy and butter-and-eggs; blue flag and yellow flag wild iris; flowering and fading lupines; day lilies and Queen Anne’s lace; American honeysuckle and beach rose, and , finally, field mustard
In the June gardens, the select pairings that we’ve chosen for Postcards are (in order) as follows: purple and white lilacs; viburnum and rhododendron; allium buds and blooms; poppies in a breeze; two poppy “portraits”; two peony “portraits,” and Barbara’s arrangement of peonies.
In addition to the summer solstice, June is best known for celebrating dads, grandads, and great granddads on Father’s day. Fatherly love can include the difficult task of explaining how the world works.
Finally, the June moon is known as the strawberry moon, especially when it is full. However, this year, there was too much overcast to “shoot” the moon in all its fullness. But there were several occasions when we had a revealed morning moon and a mysterious ovoid evening moon.
(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine, in June of 2024.)