Vinalhaven Sightings: July 2018

what are you looking at

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report – July 15th, 2018

Brought to you, in part, thru the kindness and support of MCHT and VLT and You!

Highlights : Mushrooms including Hideous Gomphideous, Boletes and more; Slime Molds, Red Crossbill, King Eider, Harlequin Duck, Trip to Calderwood

PSA - For those of you who wish that the VSR was just the photos without the babbling commentary this is the VSR for you! At this point, the VSR staff is simply too far behind and we don’t really like to live/think in the past – the future is like less than a second away. So we are throwing in the towel and doing a mass dump of photos. There was a little written almost two weeks ago, and that is what immediately follows this PSA. We’ll let you know when the old stuff is done. Here we go.

Business: contact us – vinalhavensightings@gmail.com - feel free to send us all the nature stuff and photos

Sightings – On the water, with John Drury on the Skua – recent sightings include : Red-billed Tropicbird, Harlequin Ducks (regularly seen on trips this summer) and just this last week a King Eider! What a trifecta that would be! Over-summering (at least up to this point) Harlequin Ducks is a cool happening – hope they stick around for folks to see! The potential for these sightings plus the “regular” observables – Atlantic Puffin, Razorbill, Arctic and Common Terns, etc. – make Seal island the place to visit this summer! Contact John through his blog – sightingsfromskua.blogspot.com .

official MCHT Vinalhaven bike.

Calderwood Island – (6/30-7/1) – Swainson’s Thrush,

Calderwood is the most reliable place that I visit yearly to see American Copper butterflies – the cover butterfly from the old “Butterflies thru Binoculars” field guides and my personal favorite “fly of butter” from way back when started getting into Lepids. In other words, I see them every year there when working on the trails and this year was no different!

Calderwood island grandma oak

weird angle on American Copper

decent American Copper photo - they are too aware!

rockland ferry terminal, sunrise

…..ok…we are going to take a slight detour from the way the VSR normally works and that is because we (the royal “We”) have gotten so far behind with the sightings – in only a matter of a few weeks – and we are overloaded with photos that separating them by date and location, with a story or two is not possible. (Well, at least not happening by this bald dude). So we’ll give the Insects, birds, mushrooms, slime molds, views, Leif, etc. the minimal space they deserve, leaving comments and discussion to the captions…let’s see what this looks like

same sun, setting from Calderwood island

same sun, not setting or rising - glaring

eastern forktail

So let’s start with insects…. With the Odonanta - Some of our favorite damselflies are around….

Eastern forktail (Ischumra verticalis) – male

eastern forktail immature female

And immature female in the orange ensemble

Familiar Bluet (Enallagma civile) male in blue,

Female in not blue

ebony jewelwing

And our all time favorite – the Ebony Jewelwing

male bluish - green body, solid black wings

And female with the white stigmas

green darner

dragonflies round out the odonatan

Green Darners (Anax junius) mating at Armbrust Hill was a highlight to photograph. Porndonata

connected while laying eggs

this will always be "Johnny Whiteface" to me

The classic “Johnny Whiteface”, now commonly recognized as Dot-tailed Whiteface (Leucorrhinia intacta)

Crimson –ringed Whiteface (Leucorrhinia glacialis) –

phantom crane fly

while talking insects let's not forget our favorite Diptera (flies), the Phantom Crane Fly (Bittacomorpha clavipes).

For more on Phantom Crane Flies check out the nature bummin’ with Kirk Gentalen column “ditch full of distractions” in the Dragon – St George community journal online –

http://stgeorgedragon.com/ditch-full-of-distractions/

long dash

other insects we trust.....Lepidopteras (or "lepids" in you are cool in an entomology kind of way). some of our favorite butterflies are the tiny ones...the skippers...

here are a couple of Long dash (Polites mystic)

Peck's Skipper

and Peck's Skippers (Polites peckius) -

Bird stuff as well

the bird walks are going well, lots of tweeters, and bird lists that have gone through the wash. here's some photos from the past few weeks. much more seen than presented here....