Vinalhaven Sightings: November 2022

porpoise and hill

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report

November 12, 2022

VLT/MCHT team effort!

‘A spraint earned,

is a spraint more delicious’

– old New Jersey saying.

Highlights – Common Murre, Bonaparte’s Gulls, Black-legged Kittiwake, Hawks and migration, songbirds – including chickadees, sparrows, nuthatches, red crossbills, Mushrooms, Cuckoos, spraint, lungwort, slime molds,

Business - Hunting season – wear orange – good habit to get into even if you are just walking around your house. Every (hunting) season it’s good to meet hunters half way for safety sake by putting on an orange hat, shirt or whatever. Orange shoelaces probably aren’t good enough, and neither are orange boxers! Even if you wear them on the outside of your dungarees.

Sharing season - Contact us – Why not? Things get buried at times, so it can take two tries, but still – it’s worth it! Send in your sightings, photos, reports, and everything nature on the Fox Islands to vinalhavensightings@gmail.com – and share! As in ‘Sunny and share’! Brighten your own day, and others probably to. Heck – we’ll even take poems!

Tiit trick season – click on the photos to jumbo size them. Lord only knows there are enough photos in this one!

Welcome Season – Want to extend a huge welcome to the new Executive Director of the Vinalhaven Land Trust – Andrea Hogan! Looking forward to getting to know Andrea and getting out on the land with her!

Upcoming events this week – Built for Comfort (radio program) Sundays 3-5pm, wrfr.org or (if you are lucky) 93.3 on the fm dial. We are on just about every week, but this week (Sunday Nov 13) are happy to say we will be joined by Phoebe Jekielek – lead scientist for the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership – for the first hour of the show. We’ll talk all things Hurricane Island – programs, updates, and things cooking for down the line – as well as maybe get to know Phoebe a little better. I mean, she seems cool, but can she handle ‘Built for Comfort’? We’ll find out Sunday. Costumes encouraged.

Zappa guarantee - (most of) Side 1 of Burnt Weeny Sandwich.

‘Fishers are King’ – Rockland Library, Thursday Nov 17, 6:30-8pm. I’ll be giving my updated and (seemingly) ‘totally fresh’ presentation on that ‘King of Maine Mustelids’ – the Fishers. This talk will have absolutely nothing to do with Vinalhaven, but will be full of stories, videos and lessons learned from the mainland mid-coast Maine fisher scene, and may be of interest to Mustelid lovers everywhere. Educational and entertaining, or your money back. Costumes encouraged.

The talk is ‘in person’, but will also have a Zoom option too (what a world, huh?). Check out the mcht website - https://www.mcht.org/event/fishers-are-king-talk/ - for more information. Zoom address for the show - https://networkmaine.zoom.us/j/84034049112?pwd=VFVLRHBnano5K0pCTy9XdnVuQW5NQT09

horned grebe

Sightings – Horned Grebe – Seal Bay

North Haven raptors – Had day of it biking around North Haven sporting my Hunter Pence/SF Giants away jersey (bright orange) and trying to blend in. It was exciting.

merlin flying away

Anyway, the pulpit harbor area turned up some nice raptors, two of which I got photos of flying away. One was a Merlin (what a year for Merlins!!!!!), that had just been dive bombing another Merlin in a battle of turfs? Falcons frittin’ wit each other? I don’t know. Looked like it was doing what Merlins do.

male northern harrier flying away

15 minutes later this male Northern Harrier flew over the same field, but didn’t dive bomb anything, just booked it. I was almost back on my bike when this dude cruised through, had to chase after it , resulting in this ‘Harrier flying away’ photo.

Young Bald Eagle on Pulpit Rock was nice…

juvenile Northern Harrier flying away

Then on the ferry ride back to Rockland, a juvenile Northern Harrier flew by the ferry, resulting in this ‘Harrier flying away’ photo. 2^nd of the day, twas fun.

Also on North Haven….Red-bellied Woodpecker, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Red Crossbill, Turkey Vulture, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Dark-eyed Junco, Pileated Woodpecker,

tiny seed, loud noise

Birch seed dropping – one thing about this breezy day on North Haven was the sound of White Birch seeds hitting crisp leaves after falling to the earth. Added a nice little audio to much of my time out there! its the video above!

first winter white-crowned sparrow

Migration – We’ve mentioned (ad nauseum) the impressive wave(s) of Red-breasted Nuthatch that landed in (on?) mid-coast Maine around mid-August. Well, they continue to be. Or maybe their replacements are continuing to be. But there ‘be’ a lot of them around.

another angle

Armbrust Hill (10/28) - Couple weeks back Janet Ghores and I went up (all the way to the top even!) Armbrust Hill and crossed paths with a sizable group of White-throated Sparrows. Mixed in was a Fox Sparrow, which we both remarked was the first one either of us had seen in years. I realized later that it was actually the first Fox Sparrow I’d seen in Maine that wasn’t at a bird feeder. ‘Fox Sparrow in the wild’, if you will. Tons of Juncos, as well as Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Brown Creeper, Greater Yellowlegs, Song Sparrows.

3rd angle

Lane’s (10/28) – later that day I made a quick jaunt to Lane’s to check on brown tailed moth, and found this first winter White-crowned Sparrow on the beach. Eating seeds. Typical.

orange jellies

Mushrooms! – Slow fall for shrooms in the mid-coast region, but always glad to find what we can. Got doused a few times with decent rain fall accumulation, and some fungal response.

shaggy manes
photo by Bannet Moffatt

Banner Moffatt was kind enough to send in this photo of a small gang of Shaggy Manes (Coprinus comatus). As I have mentioned before (ad nauseum?) Shaggy Manes get my vote for Maine State Mushroom.

St George Shaggy Mane
They know how to deliquesce!

As if the name weren’t enough (I mean come on ‘Shaggy Manes’ – ‘mane’ is in it and it describes most (if not all) year round male residents of the state as well as a fair chunk of the female population. Well, if that wasn’t enough shaggies are also yummy to eat – ‘Shags and Eggs’ was a seasonal staple when I lived at Pigeon Point Lighthouse with Shags harvested at ‘Costalotta’ tent resort. These days I see more on the grassy knoll at the st George transfer station. And in my neighbor’s yard. I do not covet anything though.

deliquesce (dorsal view)

Shaggy Manes are also an ‘inky cap’ (Genus Coprinus) which means to disperse spores their cap liquefies, or deliquesces (to become liquid, typically during decomposition), into a dark liquid full of spores. Most spores land right below the mushroom (probably a good place for Shags to grow) while some of the liquid will end up on insects and be dispersed as said insect moves around. And we like that Shags do this.

And that, your honor, is why I believe Shaggy Manes should be awarded the title of ‘State Mushroom of Maine’.

I rest my case.

Maze Polypore – Daelaeopsis confragosa – found some nice specimen in the Basin preserve showing some cool mazes underneath.

I often see on birch, but maple will do as well.

red-gilled cort

Also in the basin was the thickest patch of Red-gilled Cort (Cortinarius semianguineus).

red-gilled cort

Love dem red-gills, this species had a huge presence during the ‘Fungal Fall of ’21!’ – a trial title for last year’s nuttiness that was the mushroom scene September and October 2021.

Found this one patch of Honey Mushrooms and figured more were to come. This was about it for my time on Vinalhaven this fall!

false chanterelle

A few false Chanterelles as well

wolfs milk slime

Slime molds – Wolf’s Milk Slime was the slime of choice for mid-fall.

wolfs milk slime

Fun to see Wolfies of all ages and stages…

lungwort

Lichen – Tree Lungwort – here’s a few photos of some moist Lungwort.

this lungwort was on an apple tree and the rock next to it. felt weird, or unusual at least.

its a beautiful time to take pictures
of raccoon scat

And now for some pictures of poop…..

Raccoons around Seal Bay have been feasting on berries a lot lately. I was trying to turn these into Mountain Ash, but those are long gone at this point, so I’m back to the obvious (and getting more and more obvious with every leaf dropped) winter berry.

open to hearing what berry others figure it is. for whatever reason I am done thinking about raccoon scat.

bet it took a long time to eat all those
berries

I don’t know – I do a lot of things when I am learning in the woods – but one thing I don’t really mess with is Raccoon scat. ‘Love it from a distance’ kind of thing. We all have our things.

and a long to eat all these

spraint on wood

And of course Otter spraint (the eternal crowd pleaser) –

spraint on granite

I think that some of my favorite spraints are the ones on granite, or on faded bridging. Blending in – almost camouflaged.

Have to look a little closer at times to see. Nice to feel that a spraint sighting is earned.

‘A spraint earned, is a spraint more delicious’ – old New Jersey saying.

Just in from the Ferry –

November is one of the best months to watch for wildlife from the ferry (top 12 for sure) This Wednesday (11/9) I went over after a few days of intense winds. There were a 100+ Bonaparte’s Gulls scattered over maybe 10 minutes of the route, actively rising and landing in the water in pursuit of food.

bonapartes and herring

I rode the ferry last Friday and saw 2 Bonaparte’s gulls total. 100+ was fun. Plus a handful of Black-legged Kittiwakes, A common Murre, Buffleheads, Red-breasted Mergansers, Surf Scoters and several to more ye Olde-tailed Duck.