In the Right Place: Cafeteria Visits

The woods were virtually silent Wednesday as I was trying to pick my way through an off-trail patch. Then, there came some very unwoods-like sounds behind me – “scruch, scrutch, scrutch.” The strange sounds raised in me the involuntary fear that always comes with knowing someone or something is very near and secretly watching. I slowly turned around.

And, there she was: a white-tailed deer that was within 30 feet of me. She also apparently had felt an uncontrollable sensation – probably a stinging bite – which made her instinctively scratch herself and continue to do so as I watched. When she finished scratching, she stood up and looked at me with a “Who-do-you-think-you’re-looking-at?” attitude. Then, she dashed away with a flick of her white tail.

The beauty of these animals makes it easy to forget that they’re cafeterias for hordes of nasty little creatures. Over 100 species of internal and external parasites are known to be hosted by white-tailed deer, including biting insects such as black-legged ticks (“deer ticks,” which are vectors for Lyme disease in humans), bot flies, horse flies, and mosquitoes. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 24, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Reflections of a Scottish Nature

I caught this beauty sleeping with her mizzen mast off in Great Cove last week. She’s a Caledonia yawl, part of a worldwide fleet of light, very sailable 19.5-foot double-ended boats designed by Iain Oughtred.

Oughtred, an eminent designer of plans for home boatbuilders, was born in Australia, but migrated to Scotland to do some of his best work. The design for his Caledonias was inspired by traditional Scottish boats that, in turn, were created under the influence of old Scandinavian designs. (“Caledonia,” as you may know, is Latin for Scotland.)

Curiously, the Caledonia shown here is named “Ned Ludd,” after the legendary 19th Century English weaver. Reportedly, Ned Ludd, after being whipped for idleness, became enraged, destroyed machinery, and started a violent movement against the Industrial Revolution. His followers were called “Luddites.”

Ned’s wooden namesake shown here was built by New England boatbuilder Geoff Kerr and launched in 1994. She’s been a familiar sight sailing around here this summer with her mizzen sail on:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 20 [no sails] and July 7 [sails], 2022.)

In the Right Place: Maine Drought Report

Here you see one of our small streams in the woods this morning. It was stone dry for months prior to this week.

Some good rain in Maine during the past week very slightly improved it and other abnormally dry conditions here. As you may be able to see from the image, this mossy-banked stream actually had a trickle of flowing water and one or two small pools containing about half an inch of water. The recent rain even encouraged some mushrooms to emerge and try to sow some seed:

Nonetheless, today’s federal drought report shows that the Maine coast and almost the entire southern half of the State remain abnormally dry, in moderate drought, or in extreme drought as of Tuesday’s data:

The harm that this dryness has been doing is difficult to assess. What it will do to New England’s fall foliage and the tourism thereof is one of the questions to be pondered. (Photographs taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 24 [mushrooms] and 25 [stream], 2022.)

In the Right Place: Osprey Nest Report

Below you’ll see a troubling image. It’s shows the youngest and smallest of Ozzie and Harriet’s osprey fledglings, whom I assume (for narration) is a female named June. She’s alone in the family nest and has just dropped into a severe defensive crouch – an overreaction to an unrelated osprey that was flying so high above that I could barely see it.

After the stranger disappeared, she rose and began to eat a fish that Ozzie had brought to the nest, as he has done regularly since his offspring were born:

While she was growing, June was bullied by her two older and larger siblings, David and Ricky (names and sexes also assumed). At feeding time, her siblings would edge her out and spar for the food in Harriet’s beak. She got fed when they were sated.

Perhaps this is just the predators’ way of assuring survival of healthy and hearty birds. (There are reports of older osprey fledglings attacking and forcing younger siblings out of the nest during lean times.) There also is a possibility that something is wrong with June that I can’t perceive.

June can fly well, but seems to prefer spending time alone in the family nest while her siblings are out over Great Cove learning from their father the tricky business of plunge-diving for fish. I urgently hope to see her fishing successfully soon because Ozzie and Harriet always have migrated south in September.

Osprey migration in Maine reportedly begins in August, peaks in September, and straggles into November. During migration, the birds have to provide for themselves. It’s a rare osprey that overwinters here, but perhaps June will become one of those rarities that delight birders. However, whether she stays or migrates, June soon will have to learn to fish for herself, if she is to survive. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 20, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Long, Low, and Slim

Here’s the schooner “J&E Riggin” in Great Cove at dawn on Sunday. Her mainsail was up to smooth out the effects of winds and tides and her temporary tarpaulin awning was raised to provide shade until she took off a few hours later.

This sleek windjammer from Rockport, Maine, was launched originally in 1927 as an oyster dredger. She’s long, low, and slim for a vessel of 61 gross tons.

More specifically, the Riggin reportedly is 120 feet long overall; draws only 7 feet of water without centerboard; her deck is close to the surface (for hoisting shellfish, remember), and she’s only 23 feet wide at her widest point (beam). Here she is departing the Cove:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 21, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Reassuring

Wild highbush cranberry fruit are starting to appear here on time, which is reassuring. This historic native of Maine and Canada actually is a viburnum (Viburnum trilobum). However, it also is commonly called American cranberrybush and, in Maine’s north woods logging camps, the plant was known as “crampbark” because its bark was used in a cooks’ concoction to relieve muscle cramps.

Those luscious-looking fruit are not cranberries; this plant is from the honeysuckle family. Nonetheless, the fruit look like cranberries and, when properly prepared, provide very tasty and tangy jams and sauces.

Henry David Thoreau, describing his travels in Maine’s woods with two companions, reported that, “notwithstanding their seeds, we all three found them equal to the common cranberry.” (Many recipes for highbush cranberry fruit apparently call for removing their seeds first.) (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 21, 2022.)

In the Right Place: When "New" Is 39 Years Old

Here you see the schooner “Heritage” at dawn yesterday in Great Cove and a few hours later:

She was pushed by her yawl boat out of the Cove – there was no “air” and she has no motor.. (No motor means more cabin space for tourists.)

The “Heritage” hails from Rockland, Maine, and is one of our largest schooners; she’s 145 feet long counting bowsprit with a 24-foot beam (widest part). She’s also advertised as our “newest” coastal cruiser, having been built in 1983 for the tourist trade. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 20, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Convenience

Here you see the busy “convenience raft” in the middle of Naskeag Harbor yesterday afternoon. You also see that lobster boats come in various shapes and sizes, but usually have a significant “sheerline” that sweeps from a high, flared bow for breaking waves to a stern that is low for hoisting traps.

That’s Blue Sky on the left approaching the raft, where Jack Black and white-hulled Sea Princess are moored. Fishermen can buy fuel and bait at the raft when going out in the morning and then sell their catch there on return. Jack is the provisioning boat owned by the raft’s enterprisers.

Sadly, we’re told that this year’s season continues to be a disappointment for fishermen due to low lobster prices and significant costs of operation. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 19, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Think "Blocked Berries"

Common blackberries here are starting to ripen into high-summer delicacies for outdoor hikers who don’t mind consuming unwashed fruit. (The dark ones shown here were scrumptious.)

These wild brambles also are known as Allegheny blackberries, as their scientific name indicates (Rubus allegeniensis). They are members of the rose family and native to eastern and central North America.

Common blackberries on the vine often are difficult for the casual observer to differentiate from their rose family cousins, black raspberries, which grow in the east as Rubus occidentalis and along the west coast as R. leucodermis.  

However, after a berry is plucked, anyone easily can see if its center is hollow like a thimble (a raspberry) or “corked” like a jug (a blackberry – think “blocked berries”):

Leighton Archive Image

(First image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 13, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Politically Correct, Finally

Long-tailed ducks are rare on the Down East coast in summer, the experts say. Yet, here you see what appear to be two adults and an immature member of that species resting near the shore of Patten Bay Tuesday:

Here is that apparent juvenile in the water before it flew onto that rock:

This species of sea diving duck is perhaps most famous for being at the center of a socially-sensitive birder controversy in the 19th Century.  For hundreds of years, these birds were called “old-squaw ducks” in the United States. This was expressly because the ducks can be extremely loud and garrulous in a group, making their original name-givers think of old Native American women when they got together. Thereafter, as Forbush points out, some birders (whose gender may be inferred) also called them “old wife ducks.”

Finally, in 2000, the American Ornithologists Union, our official bird name-designators, submitted to the pressure and changed the name to what Europeans called the birds: “long-tailed ducks” (Clangula hyemalis).

Here, you see the long-tails’ rest being disturbed by a pair of loquacious immature common mergansers:

Thankfully, long-tails don’t care what mergansers or humans say about them. They go on apparently spending more time under water than any of our other diving duck species, and they are among the deepest divers – they’ve been reported to forage about 200 feet below the water’s surface. (Images taken in Surry, Maine, on August 16, 2022.)

In the Right Place: After-Lives

Here you see the high-sterned schooner American Eagle leaving Great Cove last week, flaunting her out-sized mainsail. The Eagle reportedly was the last fishing vessel built in Gloucester, Massachusetts, when she was originally launched in 1930 as the Andrew & Rosalie.

In 1941 after World War II had started in Europe, her name was changed to American Eagle. She stopped fishing in 1983 and underwent thorough reconstructive restoration into a coastal cruiser during 1984-1986.

As she left Great Cove last week, the Eagle passed near the visiting Grayling, which originally was launched in 1915. That older boat spent most of her life as a sardine carrier before being restored and reconstructed into a luxury yacht. I was lucky enough to get the two historic vessels in the same frame:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 13, 2022.)

In the Right Place: A Good Day

 Here’s a good moment on a high-summer day in Down East Maine:

The temperature is 76 degrees and there’s a slight breeze rippling a fallow field; the wildflowers there – mostly Queen Anne’s lace, goldenrod, tansy, and milk weed – are feeling fall before I do. Stratocumulus clouds are creating animated biblical images overhead. There are no man-made sounds except for my boots on the worn gravel lane, taking me where I want to be. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 12, 2022.

In the Right Place: Serenity and Reality

Serenity often comes to Naskeag Harbor on windless afternoons just after the turning of low tide, when the light is fading on the slack tide. That’s what you see here:

That’s when fishing vessels seem like pastured work horses that are fenced in by high-water lines on granite. It’s when the boats can point any way they want without being harassed into uniformity by a tide, current, and/or wind.

However, there apparently also is a less pleasing reality now at Naskeag Harbor and other working harbors in Down East Maine. I’m told that the prices that fishermen have been getting for lobsters this season are not keeping up with the increasing costs of fishing for the tasty crustaceans. Those costs include, among others, the cost of fuel, bait, sternmen’s wages, and set-asides for replacement of worn-out equipment.

Let’s hope that the market becomes more realistic before fishermen decide that lobstering this year is not worth the significant effort. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 11, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Osprey Nest Report

All is well with Ozzie and Harriet and their three offspring, which you may remember we named  David, Ricky, and (last born and least in size) June. Here you see Harriet yesterday on her windy perch, sternly guarding her nest from the top of a huge spruce that overlooks the family home:

The three fledglings are all flying well and learning to fish. They use their nest as a home base and as a fly-in restaurant. Ozzie continues to deliver fish there for them. Below, you’ll see June and Ozzie in the nest after he brought lunch:

Note that June’s eyes (and those of her siblings) are still red-amber; they won’t turn yellow-golden until sexual maturity in about two to three years:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 13, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Historic Delay

Here you see “Narwhal,” another classic vessel that visited Great Cove this week. This racing schooner with a low-silhouette comes to us after a historic delay.

She was designed by L. Francis Herreshoff, the famous son of the even-more-famous American naval architect Nathanael Green Herreshoff.

Francis designed this schooner and her sister ship, the renowned schooner “Mistral,” in 1937. Mistral was launched that year, but the schooner that you see here was not built to its 1937 design (No. 73) until 1999. And, in 2021, Narwhal was restored completely, so what you see here is virtually “new.”  

Narwhal now hails from Jamestown, Rhode Island, and reportedly is managed under a private family program. She is 63 ½ feet in overall length and, per her original design, is built with gaff main and top masts to allow her to fly main-top, fore-top, and jib-top sails for extra speed.

As for her name, you probably know that a narwhal (also known as a “narwhale” or “sea unicorn”) is a strange-looking, medium-sized whale. It sports a spiraled canine tooth tusk of five or more feet that projects from the whale’s face like a knight’s lance. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 8 and 10, 2022.)

In the Right Place: One of Our Toughest Beings

This image of a monarch butterfly appeared yesterday in my monthly column in the Ellsworth American.

To read the column about the troubled state of our monarchs and their August migration south, click this: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Tough Old Girl Department

Here, looking straight at you, is Grayling, a yacht with a serious past. She has been moored in Great Cove this week.  

Grayling was built in 1915 in East Boothbay, Maine, as a double-ended fishing vessel with a distinctive cypress pilothouse. She trawled for mackerel and herring at first, and then became a sardine carrier in 1920. She trucked sardines to and from canneries for 70 years and then, when her useful life was thought to be at an end, she was left to rot.

However, Grayling is a tough old girl. In the 1990s, she was rediscovered and restored into an eye-catching, ketch-rigged yacht that sleeps 11. And so she has remained. She’s long (almost 65 feet overall) and thin (12.5-foot beam), which means she must carry significant ballast (10 tons) to avoid rolling.

By the way, as you may know, a grayling is a freshwater fish in the salmon family that prefers very cold water. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 9, 2022 [cloudy] and August 14, 2018 [sunny].)

In the Right Place: No-Shows

This year, our bee balm (Monarda) hasn’t attracted a single ruby-throated hummingbird, as far as I’ve seen. The female hummers usually swarm our bee balm blossoms at this time of year, since the males have abandoned them.

Perhaps it’s because we recently divided the plants or maybe because we’ve been experiencing drought conditions and haven’t watered enough. Anyone else having the same problem? (Archive mages of females taken in Brooklin, Maine.)

In the Right Place: Lobster or Yoga?

Here’s a scene in Great Cove yesterday morning during some ambiguous weather:

The schooner J&E Riggin has just weighed anchor and is sailing into a stiff southwestern wind. She’s running behind Angelique, a gaff topsail ketch. In the foreground, a dory-load of Angelique’s passengers are rowing themselves back to their windjammer after a tour of the WoodenBoat School campus.

According to their schedules, the Riggin was on a multi-day cruise featuring old lighthouse sights and fresh lobster bakes, while Angelique was on a multi-day yoga and wellness cruise, which apparently included rowing as a bonus. Once her passengers were aboard, Angelique raised her unique red sails and also headed southwest:

The Riggin was launched in 1927 and is 120 feet in overall length (counting bowsprit); Angelique was launched in1980 and is 130 feet in overall length. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 8, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Maine Main Masts

Here you see Angelique and the J&E Riggin as this morning’s first light reached them today in Great Cove. The differences between these picturesque coastal cruising vessels is more apparent when they’re moored like this.

The Angelique, launched in 1980, is a ketch, which usually is defined as a two-masted sailboat with the main (taller) mast being forward (closer to the bow):

The Riggin, launched in 1927, is a schooner. A schooner usually is defined as a sailboat that has at least two masts, with the aft-most mast (the one closer/closest to the vessel’s stern/end) being the main (taller/tallest) mast.

The differences in length between the main and other masts can be so small that a “main” mast is basically a figure of speech. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 8, 2022.)