Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report

September 15 -October 1, 2025

Thank you - Vinalhaven Land Trust & Maine Coast Heritage Trust

‘Hugs and Twirls for Old Times and New!’

 

'Torso'

Highlights – Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Snowy Egret, Carolina Wren, Harbor Porpoise, Mushrooms – featuring King Bolete!, Sea Pickle, Bayberry, Northern Blue Iris, Monarchs, Snakes, Trip to Calderwood! and so much more!

 

Down to Business – vinalhavensightings@gmail.com

 

'dorsal'

Get on the list! – send emails (yours or other’s) to the above address to receive an email announcement every time a new VSR is posted. It’s about that time and it costs nothing! And you’ll feel better about yourself if you do. Maybe.

 

Send us your stuff! – Hey! Got something ‘nature-ee like’ about the Fox Islands and/or the larger Penobscot Bay area that you are just itching to share with others?  Send ‘em in – photos, sightings, deep thoughts, old stuff, new stuff – to vinalhavensightings@gmail.com .

 You'll most likely not regret it! Guaranteed!

 

'numbskull'

PSA – Wear Orange in the woods

Trix is for kids - Tiit Trick!  - click on photo to make 'em bigger!

Randall trick - turn yer phone to the horizontal when looking at the VSR on the phone.  

juvenile Yellow Crowned Night Heron
photo by Valerie McQuillan

Sightings! – Funky Tweeters - Valerie McQuillan was kind enough to send in these photos of a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-heron that spent some time recently in down town Vinalhaven!

 

yellow crowned night heron
photo by Valerie McQuillan

Valerie – as honest as honest can be – admitted that her ‘better-half’, Don (McQuillan) spotted the night-heron while she was visiting the New Era Gallery (New Era Gallery plug! Everybody go buy some art stuff and mention the ‘VSR’ for a 0% discount! You’ll most likely feel better about yourself (guaranteed!).

 

YCNH
Photo by Valerie McQuillan

Anyway – the most current Yellow-crowned Night Heron breeding range maps (that a minimal search could turn up) show their breeding range to include much of the southern and central US and along the Atlantic coast up through Connecticut. This is a species that is known to wander, and southern/mid-coast Maine is considered part of their ‘passage migrant’ range (remember, this was a minimal search). I think, in other words, they (YC Night Herons) make appearances in Mid-Coast Maine on a somewhat regular (yearly?) basis, and apparently the fall is when juveniles are likely to visit. Either way welcome to Maine newbie! The way life should be…   

 

couple o' snakes

Thank you to Valerie and Don for the sighting and photos! Keep ‘em coming!

 

Rich Holschuh reported 2 Snowy Egrets spotted at Low Tide from Armbrust Hill. Always a treat to see Egrets on Vinalhaven! 

 

Carolina Wren – heard singing up the hill across from the ferry terminal and again across from the co-op.

 red-breasted Nuthatch – very few in the summer of 2024, can’t get away from them in the summer of 2025!

 

Frogs – Spring Peepers can be heard peeping just about everywhere. They won’t be quiet!

 

sea pickle

That Red Stuff in the Marshes / What’s new with Sea Pickle –

 

It’s about that time for (Salicornia depressa) – a/k/a Virginia Glasswort and/or Sea Pickle (that’s how I learned it!) -  to add that special red glow to salt marshes around the island (and beyond!).

 

sea pickle in the ballground

From the Ballground to the Basin, and all/most salt marshes in between, Sea Pickles can be found year round. For much of the year local Glassworts are green (and a lovely green at that), for much of winter they are old and crispy (sound like anyone you know?), but its in the late summer/fall when they change colors/show their true colors and add what can be quite the dramatic splash of red to marshes that are seemingly ‘fading’. It is that time of the year.

 

Ask Javier Penalosa –

Q: What’s your favorite thing about Salicornia depressa?

Javier’s answer – ‘Fall color. Sphagnum color very fine now too. Those tree colors are just for the tourists.’

 

Didn’t ask about Sphagnum, but this is Javier in a nutshell! Thanks Javier!

 

Here’s some Glasswort stuff I lifted from Sue Pikes’ article ‘Sea pickles are the most common salt marsh plant’

 

Glassworts are ‘‘halophytes’ (plants adapted to salty conditions). They are also considered a pioneer species; meaning they are usually the first plants to settle in a mudflat and begin its evolution into a salt marsh. These pioneers help stabilize the mud and deliver oxygen down into the mud through their roots allowing other species to settle - sea lavender, sedges and grasses and the like’.

 

Thanks Sue! Check your favorite salt marsh for that flash of red. It’s wonderful.

 

Berries – Bayberries are always a favorite to watch change over the summer, and even the quickest of trips to Lanes Island these days turn up excellent views of the seductively textured, greying berries as they complete their development on the shrubs and get ready for the next stage.

 

What’s the next stage for these ‘berries of bay’ you ask? Well, for one they may eventually fall to the ground and a new bayberry shrub will grow. And lets face it – the world needs more bayberry shrubs.

 

The second thing (2 out of 2 as far as this post is concerned) that may happen is they get eaten. Jays and Crows (probably Ravens too!) will mack on them, as will Yellow-rumped Warblers. And it is the healthy and hefty amount of Bayberry berries on Lane’s that allows Yellow-rumped Warblers to overwinter many, if not most years on Lane’s island itself. Warblers in Maine in the winter. Regularly/ What a world.

 

Yellow-rumpeds, sometimes lovingly referred to as ‘butter butts’,  are the only warbler that can digest wax, which covers the bayberry fruits, and thus are the only warbler that can handle/process/feast on this bountiful fruit.

 

We are big fans for how adaptable Yellow-rumped Warblers are!

 

Trip to Calderwood – and speaking of Bayberries….

 

Recently hit up Calderwood Island (off the little Thorofare, North Haven) for a day/work trip.

 

Beauty of a day with minimal time to explore (so it goes) but lots of Monarch butterflies visiting Goldenrod, and some American Coppers and Pink-edged Sulphurs as well.

 

The Goldenrod was in full-on, fluffy force (we like that time of year) and very distracting, but my friend and co-worker Kat (totally cool) stayed focused enough to spot a Smooth Green Snake slither across the trail.

 

It was a great day and lot of work got done and many a laugh were had. Ha ha!

 

northern blue flag iris seeds

Back to the seeds -  Northern Blue Flag Iris

 

We all love to see Northern Blue Flag Iris in the spring , in full bloom with ‘their crazy looking blue flowers, sprinkled with subtleties of yellow and white’ (I said that just now, as recent as a quote can be quoted!). And knowing that eating them could be very, very bad for you makes them even more attractive in spring.

 

But did you know Irises (Irisi?) still live after the flowers have faded? Well, they do, and it turns out the seed pods and seeds are very photogenic.

 

Take a look.

 

your majesty

Mushrooms – Couple precipitation events over late September turned up some fun trailside shrooms. Here’s a couple of fun species I crossed paths with in the Basin Preserve recently.

 

Jelly Tooth (Pseudohydnum gelatinosum) – Classic trailside fungus that blooms shrooms on logs and stumps, helping to decompose the habitat and turn those plant parts back into soil.

 

As far as ‘top-side’ goes , the Jelly Tooth you find can be seen at a distance when pure white. However, coloration can vary across ‘the grey spectrum’, and at times Jelly Tooth (Teeth?) can be easily missed when they blend in with the log at hand.

 

The caps of the Jelly Tooth group I saw had that subtle look to them on top, but ‘once you take a peak underneath you’ll never go back’ as they say! What a world under there!

 

Now, I am on record as being a major advocate for people looking at ‘mushroom undercarriages’ – it’s like another world under there! Like many mushroom species, Jelly Teeth (I’m going with that one) use gravity and wind to disperse spores and thusly drop (gravity) them (spores) from their undercarriage to be blown away (wind).

 

Undercarriages can sometimes be smooth, holey (porey?), gilly (full of gills), or teethy. Teeth are a good way to increase the surface area of your spore dispersing surfacem thus increasing your spore dispersing potential. We here at the VSR are huge advocates of a nice ‘toothy undercarriage’. Take a look.

 

hand lenses are handy

And of course here is Javier Penalosa getting close enough to use a hand lens to get a closer look at the undercarriage of  the Jelly Toothies (I may go with this one).

 

King Bolete – Boletus edulis (complex)

 

Two shrooms that really got my attention trailside in the Basin – demanded my attention actually – were two King Boletes. There is so much to say about this particular species , and these two shrooms themselves, but we’ll cut right to the chase – these are the best.

 

Some people call them Porcini, others might know them as The Cep, most everybody calls them yummy! I call them cool. I seldom pick mushrooms along trails – want to leave them for others to enjoy – but fresh Kings? They are coming with me!

 

There was an inch of rain on September 7^th, and legend has that you look for Kings ‘two weeks after the first significant rains’ , and in Maine that translates to two weeks after the first rain of September. Doesn’t always come true, but when it does its fun. And this was fun.

 

King Boletes are mycorrhizal – the fungus in the ground (the actual being/thing that ‘is’) is attached to the roots of trees and in classic symbiotic style the fungus and shroom help each other and exchange beneficial nutrients (and stuff) with each other. We can learn a lot from fungus.

 

I added the word ‘complex’ after the species name above because when it comes down to it, it’s just hard to trust Latin when it comes to fungus. And what I mean by that is that it’s hard to trust ‘our’ (humans) knowledge of fungal relationships and speciation enough to slap latin names on fungi and have them stick for forever. And what I mean by that is that in my 30 years of ‘mushroom tracking and watching’ a lot of latin that I have learn has turned out to not be correct. With some species the latin has changed multiple times, and much of what is called ‘Boletus edulis’ might/surely/has turned out to be multiple closely related species with subtle differences that may be impossible to tell apart in the field. A complex of species if you will, all of which essentially behave (and taste) like Boletus edulis. We have so much to learn about fungus, its  exciting.

 

And so I took these two shrooms, dry sauteed them, ate most of it straight up and put the rest on pizza. King Boletes remind me of my time in Haines Alaska (that’s where I got turned onto them), and those are always good memories.   

 

Anyway – I’m calling that this post is long enough, so to the blog it goes!

 

We’ll be back in a shortly with more VSR stuff!

 

In the meantime – we’ll see you out there!

 

 

 

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report

September 15, 2025

Brought to you by the kind support supplied by VLT and MCHT

‘All I Had To Do Was Look Up’

Highlights – Birds – featuring American Golden Plover & Red-necked Grebe, Berries and Fruits, Cladonia pleurota, Pitcher Plants, Sundews, historical stuff and so much more!

(lot of plant stuff).

 

Business: PSA – Deer Hunting Season is Here!

 

Alright – I am familiar with the perspective that hunting season is something to be aware of in November as that is when the rifles come out and a lot of deer killing/culling/harvesting takes place. The woods thanks all hunters who participate in this undertaking.

 

But hey – did you know that deer hunters hunt in September and October (and into December as well!), with bows and loaded muzzles?

 

Do yourself (and the hunters) a favor – and get some orange on! Get in the survival spirit with an orange hat, shirt, coat, gloves (underwear and socks optional)!

 

Chances are (maybe) no one wants to shoot you, and if they do why would you want to give them an ‘out’ by not where orange. Orange it is – slap some on!

 

Share and share alike – hey – vinalhavensightings@gmail.com – is the/a place to send photos/reports/sightings of the natural history like -  if you are someone who likes to share with other nature appreciators.

 

Lots o' Peepers out there these days

And while we are at it, vinalhavensightings@gmail.com is also the/a place to send email addresses of folks – be it for you or a gift (that keeps on giving) to some nature appreciator you know. We are making a list – starting from scratch unfortunately– of addresses that will receive an email announcement whenever one of these VSRs gets posted. Get on the list – its exclusive and inclusive at the same time! Everybody wins with the VSR.

 

Murre with youngster. Good fatherly role model.
Photo by John Drury

Bird walks – Vinalhaven Land Trust sanctioned Thursday morning bird walks continue this week and throughout what remains of September. Check out the VLT website for more details - https://vinalhavenlandtrust.org/calendar .

 

Short-billed Dowitcher
photo by John Drury

Sightings - And speaking of bird walks – the bird walk on 9/4 turned up some great looks at wonderful birds. Jay Manning reports an American Golden Plover  (Pluvialis dominica) from State Beach from that bird walk (State Beach is for Plovers!)  as a highlight from the trip.  Close relative of the Black-bellied Plovers (and slightly distant relatives of Semi-palmated Plovers and Killdeer) which can be a species that is seen yearly during migration, Golden Plovers are a much rarer visitor to Vinalhaven (and Maine in general) and just another example of one of the  of the spectrum of bird species one might find on a VLT bird walk, or a personal walk of ones own!

 

More on American Golden Plovers –

‘

Razorbill with youngster, good father role model
photo by John Drury

The American Golden-Plover breeds on the Arctic tundra of northern Canada and Alaska, then migrates to wintering grounds in southern South America, primarily the grasslands of Argentina and Uruguay. During migration, the species follows an elliptical path, traveling through central North America in the spring and taking a long, over-ocean flight across the western Atlantic in the fall.’

 

whimbrel
photo by John drury

Vinalhaven is just one stop for some individuals of this species, and it’s great that they find food and shelter on island. Migration is mind-blowing.

Lots of shorebirds passing through as you can see! Thanks for sharing the photos John Drury!

 

red-necked grebe
photo digiscoped by Rick Morgan

State Beach - Rick Morgan sent in these photos of ‘digiscoped’ Red-necked Grebes from the (9/4) bird walk as well.  Red-necked Grebes breed as close as the great lakes/Minnesota region – with regular breeding western Ontario, Manitoba and Canada up through Alaska (breeder in Beluga Lake, downtown Homer, AK).

 

red-necked grebes
photo digiscoped by Rick Morgan

State Beach happens to be a Red-necked Grebe hotspot, and these are the first of many that will/may use the waters around State Beach/Geary’s Beach to ride out the winter. More to come as the fall progresses, with November counts of over 100 not unheard of.

 Great spot and digiscoping!

Historical, non-Fiction

great egret, minding its business
photo by Rick Morgan

– Hey – the VSR was ‘gone’ for a few years, and some folks have asked about photos/sightings/reports from the ‘hiatus’ (thank you for that terminology Rick Morgan!).  So the answer is – yes! – send in what you want to share from the last couple of years – in fact – send in stuff from even before the hiatus. In other words – we here at the VSR are inter. ed in sharing the stories – both timely and reminiscently. Just let us know when the photos were taken, sightings were sighted! Thanks!

 

face to face
photo by Rick Morgan

And speaking of Rick! Here are a series of photos Rick took of a local Great Blue Heron that was not welcoming to a Great Egret that entered its turf.

 

crouching
Photo by Rick Morgan

And turf being the Indian Creek area between Lane’s Island and Vinalhaven proper.

 

flying
photo by Rick Morgan

Nature is everywhere out on Vinalhaven – 

keep yer eyes peeled,

it's on
photo by Rick Morgan

Yer camera handy,

And share with us!

 Thanks for sharing Rick!

Feel free to send in photos from the hiatus or beyond!

pitcher plant

Plant stuff – hey – lots of fruits out there, that’s what grabbed my attention the last stretch I was on island.

 And pitcher plants

Can almost be read with an apology tone, but I am told by like 3 people that there is nothing to be ashamed of about being a plant person. Sometimes they/those people sound like they are trying to convince themselves.

 

Jack in the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)–

 

jack in the pulpit

hey – it’s been a dry august and September. Any fruits are good fruits , and seeing Jack in the Pulpit (Daddy in the pulpit) in its fruiting stage gives a little hope the dryness was tolerable.

 

jack in the pulpit

Some fruits were green…

 

Some fruits were red…

 

We like em both, but there is something about that red…

 

 

Skunk Cabbage fruit nugget

 Skunk Cabbage – so beautiful at all stages of development

 

winterberry

Winterberry ( Ilex verticillata) – just getting going with the fruits turning from green (not shown! Ha! Made you look!)

 

winterberry

… to red. Winterberry is a year round plant! 

And we love it!

 

Large Cranberry – Vaccinium macrocarpon – hey – they call them craneberry bogs for a reason.

eld
erberry

 

Common Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) – Fruits are purplish. And fun.

 

Mountain Ash – hey – looking for thrushes and waxwings in the next few weeks to a month or so?

 Why not try your local Mountain Ash? birds can't resist their clumps of red berries.

 

backswimmer

Mack’s Pond – Always nice to go on a stroll with Javier Penalosa, and Mack’s Pond visits are cool enough to begin with , so a combination of the two is a ‘cool stroll’ I would say.

 

We didn’t look too close at polypores (a little more moisture would go a long way , fungally speaking of course), but luckily wherever Javier goes there are plants and lichens to entertain for sure. Quick visit to Mack’s Pond turned up

 

Pitcher plants galore! 

 

Always fun to see the ‘pitchers’ of the Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea), one of the local carnivorous plants found on Vinalhaven.

 

Here’s what Steven Clemants and Carol Gracie have to say about this species…

 

‘The pitcher-leaves capture insects that fall in, eventually decomposing; the plant absorbs their nutrients. …… Populations from southwestern Pennsylvania to West Virginia are introduced’ –

                                                            Page 130, ‘Wildflowers in the field and forest’

 

More on Pitcher Plants from John Eastman – (we like John Eastman)

 

‘Pitcher-plant, along  with sundews and bladderworts, ranks among the most common insect-trapping plants of North America. Its passive method is unique. The modified leaf that forms the pitcher has several easily seen interior zones.

 

‘The topmost zone is a flared-out lip – a sort of landing platform – with nectar glands and conspicuous reddish veins.

 

On the inside rim, a coating of fine, downward-pointing hairs and a numbing secretion make an insect’s escape from the container almost impossible.

 

pitcher with floaties

Just below this zone is a slippery, smooth-walled, sticky constriction, a further impediment to escape.

 

Then comes the actual water container, where the prey dies by drowning.

 

pitcher plant flower

The liquid hosts bacteria (often anerobic Rhodopseudomonas palustris)  and possibly plant enzymes, a ‘digestive fluid’ that helps decompose trapped insects and converts their tissues into nitrogen and other nutrients absorbed by the plant. This absorption occurs by means of special cells at the bottom of the pitcher’.

 

In other words – there is a lot going on out there!

 

 

 

spatulate-leaved sundew

Spatulate-leaved Sundews (Drosera intermedia)

 

Nice to see the plant,

 

sundew fruit things

Nice to see the fruits/seeds

 

Can’t say I have seen them before…the fruits/seeds that is!

Carex lasiocarpa

Sedges are the spraint! or so Javier says. check out this Carex lasiocarpa.

Carex lasiocarpa's most common names are Slender Sedge, Woolly-fruited Sedge, Narrow-leaved Woolly Sedge, and Wiregrass Sedge. These names refer to its characteristic thin leaves and the fuzzy appearance of its fruit. 

 Check out these fuzzy fruits! Thanks for showing me Javier! 

Cladonia pleurota

Red-fruited Pixie-cup – (Cladonia pleurota) – Hey – fun to see this lichen.

 

I mean, as far as lichen looking goes, we’re cladonia that we got to see it! Ha!

 

Decorated Mop

Fungal speaking of course – there was a rain, on the 5^th or so. A few mushrooms have been seen popping up as a result of this rain.

 

Another rain would be good. Decorated Mop (Tricholomopsis decora) is a species that happens to be fruiting/blooming at the moment.

 

Decorated Mop

These photos were from the Basin Preserve, but look for the decorate mop on stumps and logs on just about any preserve these days.

 

Birch Polypore

Birch polypores
multi-generational,
but essentially the same

– (Piptoporus betulinus) – a classic of the woods – some fresh fruiting bodies blending in with last years bloom have been seen lately.

 

Birch Polypore, of course, is one of the 2 mushrooms that Otzi (the glacier mummy from Italy, roughly 5300 years old) had on him when he died. Wish I had an umlaut button right about now.

 

Birch polypore is known for its medicinal uses, especially aiding with digestive issues. And autopsy of Otzi showed that he ‘suffered’ from intestinal worms. There you have it and so it goes…

 

And in conclusion –

 

Hey – hope you enjoyed the VSR and hope you feel comfortable sending in photos and sightings and whatever.

 

Aunt Linda with Puffin!
Photo by Tom Gentalen

All photos and sightings are welcome here.

 

first day of school

Some judgment at times , but nothing life threatening !

 

See you next time and out there!