JOURNAL
Here you see the September sun setting on Amen Ridge. Dusk’s shadows are on the move over a field of fleabane and goldenrod. They're slowly reaching for the waters of Jericho and Blue Hill Bays and the western mountains on Mount Desert Island. As often happens, the mountains on MDI are creating crowns of cloud.
MDI is Maine’s largest island; it’s accessible by bridge and is where most of Acadia National Park is located. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 8, 2024.)
Here you see a few of the WoodenBoat School’s fleet of small teaching boats drying in the sun after being power-washed Wednesday.
Sailing school has ended there and the boats and their gear are being plucked from Great Cove and prepared for winter storage.
It’s poignant to watch this vital part of summer prepare for hibernation. But, boatbuilding and other dry land courses still are being taught at WBS through most of the month and football has returned. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 10, 2024.)
This image of a green darner dragonfly appears with my monthly column in the current Ellsworth American.
To read the column about the amazing migrations that some dragonflies undertake each year, click here: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column
Here you see one of our red squirrels eating a spruce cone. The image shows that he’s starting to get his grayer winter coat and to gain weight for the cold months.
I haven’t seen any of his kind storing food yet, but that will start to happen after a few frosts remind them to be frugal. As you probably know, red squirrels don’t hibernate. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 8, 2024.)
SAIL-IN
The Annual WoodenBoat Sail-In took place in Great Cove yesterday afternoon. This year, seven of Maine’s finest windjammers appeared here to honor WoodenBoat Publications and School. The School’s sailing classes ended last week, but the boatbuilding and other land-based classes will continue throughout September.
The weather for this Sail-In was good for the windjammers and their excited passengers, but it was the kind of day that could drive photographers crazy: peek-a-boo sun, which at times became intense shafts of light that illuminated the jammers and produced glare on the water, and periods of gray and shadow that swallowed color and turned the vessels into silhouettes. But the temperature was in the high 60s (F) and the winds often gusted up to 10 miles per hour or thereabouts.
Below, you’ll find a few images of, and a bit of information about, the visiting windjammers (all hailing ports are in Maine):
“American Eagle,” launched 1930, hails from Rockland, reported overall length 122’:
“Angelique,” launched 1980, hails from Camden, reported overall length 130’:
“Heritage,” launched 1983, hails from Rockland, reported overall length 145’:
“J.&E. Riggin,” launched 1927, hails from Rockland, reported overall length 120’:
“Ladona,” launched 1922, hails from Rockland, reported overall length 105’ — she came late, this image taken the next morning:
“Lewis R. French,” launched 1871, hails from Camden, reported overall length 101’:
“Stephen Taber,” launched 1871, hails from Rockland, reported overall length 110’:
At about 2:30 p.m. yesterday, the visiting vessels were anchored or about to anchor in Great Cove to allow their passengers to enjoy the rest of the day, fine dinners, and a star-lit night with a bright waxing moon.
SAIL-OUT
The next morning (today) at sunrise, we got a bird’s-eye view of “Angelique” and “American Eagle” and, a little later, we got a panorama of the windjammer visitors:
By 10:30 a.m., all of the windjammers except “J.&E. Riggin” had raised sails and departed Great Cove. The “Riggin” anchored off Babson Island, apparently to conduct island activities and have a beach lunch. Here they are sailing out (or anchoring off Babson):
“American Eagle”
“Angelique”
“Heritage”
“J.&E. Riggin”
“Ladona”
“Lewis R. French”
“Stephen Taber”
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 10 and 11, 2024.)
Here’s the sun setting on Naskeag Harbor Sunday evening at 6:16 p.m.:
I find myself attracted to, and even distracted by, the new docking float and its hockey stick design. I can’t seem to stop taking photographs of it in different lights and weather conditions. Here’s the float at 5 p.m. on a prior day:
Often, a right angle (90°) is not THE right angle to achieve an optimum design combination of functionality and appearance. Good angles can be surprisingly pleasing for the visually-oriented. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 2 and 8 (sunset), 2024.)
Here you see our resident great blue heron taking his usual early morning breakfast in the shallows of Great Cove. He often just stands in water up to his knees or thighs and waits for the fish schools to come to him, moving his head slightly in one direction and then another.
Watching him can be a Zen exercise in differentiating patience from boredom. He usually averages a small minnow-like fish about every 30 or 40 minutes – on a good day.
When he sees me, he pretends to leave by flying 100 feet or so into the sea grasses. (See the image in the first Comment space.) I pretend to leave by walking 100 feet or so back from the shore. In 10 or 20 minutes, he walks back into the water and I walk back to where I can see him stand still or move very slowly. (Or, I don’t walk back out of boredom.)
From the fishes’ perspective, I suppose his skinny legs look like reeds or sea grass and his above-water body looks cloud-like. But that cloud contains lightning in the form of a long, thin beak that can pierce the water with remarkable velocity. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 6 and 8, 2024; sex assumed.)
“Angelique” sailed into Great Cove at mid-morning Thursday, right in the middle of sailing lessons at the WoodenBoat School there and before I could catch her coming in. The red-sheeted windjammer was on a six-night “unscripted” cruise, according to her schedule. As usual, she drew a lot of attention from the WBS sailors and others in the Cove.
“Angelique” anchored off Babson Island beach and her passengers were rowed ashore for exploration. The crew soon had a fire going on the beach for lunch. The seemingly elaborate meal may have been a lobster bake with corn on the cob. (That’s on the advertised menu for at least once on each of her cruises.) She slipped out of the Cove, again undetected by me, sometime in the afternoon.
As you may know or see, “Angelique” is a ketch, not a schooner. That is, “Angelique’s” foremast is her main (taller) mast, although that is not always clear at a distance when she’s got a topsail up on only her aft mast. She’s listed as being 130 feet long overall, was launched in 1980, and now hails from Camden, Maine. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 5, 2024.)
Here you see the outrageously orange berries of the American mountain ash tree:
These berries have been appearing here for at least a week now, but there seems to be fewer of them than last year. And some seem to be turning black sooner:
That may be good if the Ojibwa tribe’s legend is correct in proclaiming that the more of the robust berries that appear, the harsher the winter. However, there’s a lot of misconception about these trees (Sorbus aucuparia).
For one thing, mountain ash trees aren’t especially fond of mountains and they’re not really ash trees; they’re members of the rose family. (Their name reportedly derives from the Old English word “aesc,” meaning “spear”; the wood of the similar rowan trees in England was used for spear and arrow shafts.)
Speaking of those English trees, the American trees also still are sometimes called rowan trees because our settlers from the British Isles did so under the mistaken impression that they were the same as their European cousins. The Celts (and some of America’s colonists) thought rowan trees warded off witches and had other magical properties. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any witches near our trees.
Canada gets the prize for the most interesting alternative name for their mountain ashes, which are the same as ours. They’re called “dogberry trees” by our northern neighbors. (The reported Old English etymology here dates to the 1550s, when the bitter rowan tree fruit reportedly was considered inferior – “only fit for a dog” to eat off the tree.) But they do make good jellies and jams, I hear.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 6, 2024.)
The “Heritage” eased into Great Cove Wednesday afternoon and left earlier than usual yesterday morning. It was too early for a good wind and she had to be pushed out by her yawl boat, despite raising a good amount of canvas:
Two of the smaller Cove residents seemed to look on in sleepy adoration:
The “Heritage” is a big-boned lady with a nice shear to her. She’s listed at 145 feet overall and wears her distinctive topsail like a cocked beret. She was launched in 1983 and now hails from Rockland, Maine.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 5, 2024.)
Above, you see Naskeag Harbor at low tide on Monday. This picturesque Maine working waterfront often illustrates those special qualities of varying Maine light and weather along the state’s rugged coasts that attract many artists here. Here’s one of them trying to capture the spruce trees and rocks along the Harbor shore:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 2, 2024.)
Yesterday was as close to perfect as it gets in Great Cove: pure-smelling breezes that got worked up to double-digit gusts; a bright sun in a blue sky, temperatures hovering around 70 degrees, and sails up everywhere, greedily grabbing the air and running with it.
It gets better. About midday, the classic schooner “Stephen Taber” was sighted cutting down Eggemoggin Reach and really moving before a following wind. She usually passes several miles outside of the Cove. But, yesterday she decided to short-cut through the Cove at a nice clip, constantly adjusting her big sails to catch as much air as possible:
Watching that fly-by was like peering back into the best of the 19th Century. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 3, 2024.)
We had some hard rain and significant winds over the weekend, and I was worried about the wild apple tree branches and the fruit in the unpruned trees. So, I went over to my favorite abandoned orchid yesterday to check things out.
I found that there was not only no damage, but that the trees were choking with fruit from top to bottom. Moreover, the apples seemed prematurely advanced in ripeness. They were very hard and spit-out tart, though.
They could be picked and pressed into passable cider, I suppose; but that won’t happen. They’ll just fall and be eaten by the wildlife or rot. Nonetheless, the black bears will have plenty to gorge themselves on before their winter’s sleep this year. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 2, 2024.)
Below, you’ll see the pocket cruiser “Martha” in Great Cove yesterday afternoon during a small Down East weather event. The fog was receding but not totally gone, sunlight was beginning to reach the water, south-southeast gusts of maybe 10 miles per hour were rolling the water intermittently, and a late-summer haze was filtering out color.
We live on a ridge above the Cove and we look down on “Martha’s” mooring. She has become one of our weather descriptors. For example, when I’m not near a southwestern-facing window and the fog is moving in or going out or its raining hard, I might ask Barbara: “Can you still see ‘Martha’?” The answer can tell you a lot.
As many of you know, “Martha” was built for the author E.B. White by his naval architect son, Joel, the founder of the famous Brooklin Boat Yard. She’s not quite 20 feet long and reportedly a joy to sail. “Martha” is now owned by Rich Hilsinger, the former Director of the WoodenBoat School and a Brooklin resident who has a fascinating music show on WERU. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 1, 2024.)
[NOTE: August here in the nation’s self-designated “Vacationland” is THE BIG MONTH. Be prepared for many images in our comprehensive visual review of our August scenes and activity.]
As usual, we start with images of the local vistas that we record monthly through the year. Here are the August views of Mount Desert Island , as was seen from Brooklin’s Amen Ridge; the old red boathouse in Blue Hill’s Conary Cove; the summer house on Brooklin’s Harbor Island, and Blue Hill at the end of Blue Hill Bay:
We’ll move now from some of the well-travelled areas to examples of Down East’s hidden trails and byways that were especially inviting to knowledgeable hikers, cyclists, and (in some cases) motorists during August:
The state of stream flows and ground water levels always is a concern in August, when there can be dry or even drought conditions here. But not this year. This year, there was ample rain and the streams and ponds generally stayed at acceptable levels:
The essence of high-summer is in the green fields turning dusky and becoming crowded with white, yellow, and purple flowers that attract the last of the butterflies. This year, the August fields contained an abundance of white Queen Anne’s lace and daisy fleabane; yellow goldenrod, black-eyed Susans, and tansy, and purple meadowsweet, bull thistle, and loosestrife, among other last-of-the-summer blooms. But, along the field edges, the wild blackberries were ripening.:
August is when you can tell how good the fall apple crop will be, and all signs pointed to a bumper crop. The same was true for the rose hip crop that was maturing on beach rose bushes as the flowers were disappearing:
We had a relatively cool and wet August, which meant that some of the stranger flora appeared, including Indian pipes (a colorless wildflower) and various fungi including large red-belted polypores acting like shelves on trees, small scarlet waxy cap mushrooms, and yellow and white coral fungi.
Among the cultivated flora, the many August standouts included sunflowers, tiger lilies, and viburnum bushes:
On the fauna front, August is when the young wildlife come of age and start to learn the ways of their worlds. We had a good birthing of white-tailed deer fawns this year; they blend well into the white-speckled August fields. Other young mammals exploring their new worlds included newly-born eastern cottontail rabbits.
The fields of August always are good classrooms for young wild turkeys who learn from their moms and aunts how to find seeds and pounce on insects. In the nests above them, there still was at least one fledgling osprey who hadn’t learned to fish yet. She returned regularly to the family nest and begged until Dad brought her a fish (after he had eaten the nutritious head).
Other fishing birds that were very active in August included great blue herons, snowy egrets and herring gulls. But we must never forget our seed-eating black-capped chickadees, the Maine State Bird. They’re very active in August, even though they wear their winter clothes all summer.
Finally, as to fauna, we turn to the insects. Among the two most important are the monarch butterflies and dragonflies. The August monarchs, whose recent ancestors migrated here in the spring, produced the caterpillars that will pupate into the last Maine generation of the year — the generation that will migrate to Mexico and reproduce there to begin a new cycle. The dragonflies consume millions of mosquitos and other annoying pests and some migrate in August and September, but not blue dashers such as the one shown below.
On the waterfront, August is a busy month here for classic windjammer visits, lobster fishing, and recreational boating. As for windjammers, five of them overnighted in Great Cove during the month in varying weather. Usually, their passengers come ashore and explore the renowned WoodenBoat School and Publications campus there. Here are the August visitors:
American Eagle
Angelique
Mary Day
J.&E. Riggin
Stephen Taber
As for the working harbor, you’ll see below the August portraits of six of our resident fishing vessels at rest after hauling lobster traps:
Blue Sky and Judith Ann
Dear Abbie:
Dream On
Meghan Dee
Tarrfish
I should mention that this year the Town of Brooklin added a new boat landing and docking float at Naskeag Harbor to assist fishermen and the public at large. Here’s Tarrfish using it:
As for the recreational waterfront, the first Saturday of August is the day for the Annual Eggemoggin Reach Regatta for wooden boats, which ends in Great Cove. This year, the race was socked-in by fog, but that show went on as it virtually always does:
Nonetheless, there were very spectacular days — sunny and foggy — in Great Cove during Augusr. That’s where the WoodenBoat School sailing classes take place, exotic vessels visit, and well-balanced individuals glide.
Finally, we come to the month’s full moon. It’s called The Sturgeon Moon, the name Native Americans gave it because those fish run in August. Like the fish, this year’s August full moon was difficult to see. We had fog and haze during the three nights and dawns that it was supposed to be full to the human eye, but there was one short period when the sky cleared.
(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during August of 2024.)
We caught two handsome schooners trying to sneak out of Great Cove earlier than usual Thursday morning. They passed the almost-20-foot “Martha” (previously E.B. White’s cruiser), which was a good indicator of their size, although perspective makes estimations tricky.
Above, you see the120-foot “J.&E. Riggin,” launched in 1927 and now out of Rockland, Maine. Her quick-identification points are her spoon bow and low-slung black hull that has a continuous sheer to the stern without any fancy taffrail around the afterdeck. Below, you’ll see the 110-foot “Stephen Taber,” launched in 1871 and now also is out of Rockland.
The “Taber” has more quick-identification points. They include her very dark green hull that often looks black at a distance; a decorated bow top with separated white bowsprit above; a high, often-unused main topmast, and her fancy white taffrail around the afterdeck.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 29, 2024; overall lengths used.)
It was dark and misting with a very low tide in Patten Bay when I got to the mouth of Patten Stream. In a word, it was gloomy; I immediately decided to leave if a scan turned up nothing interesting. Then, a great blue heron moved from behind the rockweed-draped rocks to stalk a school of small fish. A great blue’s slow, gangling grace on the hunt is fascinating.
The heron stalked into an area where the light was mostly behind him. He immediately was transformed into a double silhouette, he and his shadow slowly but steadily approaching his prey. Reptilian in a way.
Before the great blue could strike in this dark drama, a snowy egret suddenly swooped into the area on soundless wings, apparently seeing the same school of small fish. This disrupted everything. The surprise contrast simply was jolting. It was like an angel – pure, startlingly bright white – suddenly appearing with a message atop dark waters on a dreary day. This message was confusion.
I forgot it was raining and watched the two hunters use their different styles looking for the small fish that got away.
(Images taken in Surry, Maine, on August 28, 2024; sexes assumed for better narration.)
This sail catamaran gets the prize for the most interesting vessel to moor in Great Cove this week. It’s not so much how she looks; it’s where she apparently comes from. Her transom says that she’s “Three Score” from Newport Beach, California. If she does hail from southern California, how did she get here? Panama Canal? Cross-country truck/trailer?
I’m not great with estimating sizes, but she appears to be about 40 feet long overall and maybe 20 feet wide. That mast is substantial (70 feet?). She was flying a U.S. flag. She stayed several days here, mostly just moored to a WoodenBoat School mooring.
Anyone know more about her? (Images taken August 26, 2024.) See also the image in the first Comment space.
I was in the woods Monday, softly “pishing.” (Don’t jump to any nasty conclusions; see below.) A common yellowthroat warbler had just flitted into a dense area and I was hoping that I would provoke its curiosity enough so that it would show itself again.
~~ EXPLANATION BREAK FOR NON-BIRDERS: “Pishing” is a way to attract small birds by making soft, repetitive sounds that might provoke their curiosity, such as “pish, pish, pish,” or “siss, siss, siss,” or even “fish, fish, fish.” ~~
As I was saying, I was “pishing” in the woods. All of a sudden, this grumpy black-capped chickadee – the Maine state bird – popped up out of a cluster of spruce needles as if I had just awakened him while he was sleeping on the couch with the TV on. He cursed me as only an angry chickadee can, then disappeared into the dark interior.
Our chickadees are not as flashy as yellowthroats. But the yellowthroats soon will take off and head south where flashiness is common all year. The chickadee was wearing his plain winter outfit already. (Of course, chickadees always wear their plain winter outfits, but that’s another story.) Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 26, 2024.
The Town’s new float at Naskeag Harbor not only looks good, it seems to be working well. Many fishermen are now tying up their dinghies there when they come ashore after hauling lobster traps. They also can tie up their fishing vessels there for short periods when there is a need, as you see happened Sunday:
The float also a public float for locals and visitors and part of a much-improved boat-landing area. In addition, it has become a picturesque fishing spot, which may not have been in the original plan:
I hear that good-sized striped bass (aka rock fish in some southern waters) sometimes run in the Harbor. Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, at noon and sunset August 25, 2024.)
