Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report

October 1 - 15, 2025

With the kind support of VLT and MCHT and U!

 

‘Don’t forget to dance’

 

Grasshopper!
Photo by Claudia Dengler

Highlights – Birdies – featuring sparrows and sapsuckers, the many Faces of Red-belted Conk -including ‘start of the long kiss goodnight to ‘Mick’? ‘, the many faces of Scat – including ‘Sprainters be spraintin’ ‘, and so much more!   

 

Business – this is the email -  vinalhavensightings@gmail.com

 

Hey VSR-heads! The list is growing!

 

Hey – ‘we’ have an email list that ‘we’ send an announcement email to (Blind carbon copy – totally anonymous – trust me) every time one of these here VSRs is posted.

we like the wolfs milk slime!

 

‘We’ had an old list but could not find the old list (a lot of bad addresses in that ol’ bad boy anyway) so have started a new one and the response to the call has been wonderful. So – if you have an email to add – be it yours, your friend’s, or the weird nature person from down the street’s – send it on in. there’s no downside really. Get on the list!

 

the latest in Red-belted Conks!

Call for sightings – hey – send them in! Photos, concerns, stories, critiques, questions – whatever! We’ll take em and run with em. This is all about sharing so stop being so selfish!

 

Orange is the new orange – hey – its hunting season. Wear orange

Tricks are for kids - and the VSR - Tiit Trick - click on photos to enlarge

Thissel trick - turn phone sideways to view! (when using a phone to view!)

 

Smooth Green Snake
Photo by Claudia Dengler

Sightings – Mack’s Pond – Claudia Dengler sent in some photos from a recent visit to Macks Pond and from the looks of ‘em it was a visit worth wild!

 

Some highlights – Smooth Green Snake – For of those on island who see Green Snakes every year, if not multiple times a year – they are not as common on the mainland! Trust me! An island specialty one might say – at least in numbers.

 

photo by Claudia Dengler

Lichen and moss patch on a rock showing that British Soldiers red.  More on lichens in an upcoming VSR – as the procrastinator says, ‘just you wait’!

 

Bog cotton
photo by Claudia Dengler

Bog Cotton and ….

 

pitcher plant
photo by Claudia Dengler

Pitcher Plants

 

pitcher plants
photo by Claudia Dengler

There is so much on every preserve! You probably have your phone with you while walking – maybe take a photo or two? And send ‘em in! You probably wont regret it! Thanks for sharing, Claudia!

 

 

peepers still be peepin'

Patience Chamberlin was kind enough to send in some recent sightings. Here we go….

 

(10/11)   Huber Preserve - RB Nuthatches everywhere!  what a change from last couple of years.  couple of Red crossbills, too.

 

common yellowthroat (6/2014)

                   Reach Rd - yellow-bellied sapsucker.  And a Peregrine Falcon at dusk flying over the Reach coming from Green’s.

 

(10/12) Reach Rd.  Common yellowthroat, swamp sparrow.

      

         

red-breasted nuthatch (4/2023)

 

                Norton’s PT Road…five Flickers foraging (sounds like a song) on the ground. Mixed flock of Blue-headed vireo, two Hermit thrushes, one White-crowned sparrow (they get the elegant prize) and Lincoln’s sparrow. 

 

Thanks for the report, Patience! Swamp, White-crowned and Lincolns makes for an awesome sparrow trifecta! Keep ‘em coming!

 

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (4/2005)

Stickin’ with Tweeters - So yeah Red-breasted Nuthatches may have now surpassed Cedar Waxwings as the most numerous songbird on island (in my limited experience). They are pretty much everywhere … everywhere you go and everywhere where you want to be! So, if you don’t see/hear them you are not where you went and not where you want to be. It’s just that simple!

 

sapsucker holes

As are (to a lesser extent) Yellow bellied Sapsuckers!

 

Some people call them the honorary ‘Flicker of the woodpecker family’, because Sapsuckers are just different from other woodpeckers. When it comes down to it though - Flickers are, of course, the actual ‘Flickers of the woodpecker family’ – and I make that timeless (and let’s be honest - completely hilarious) statement about Flickers and Sapsuckers out of respect to the diversity they bring to the woodpecker world.  

 

more sapsucker holes

Bottomline – woodpeckers are supposed to smack their bills/heads against trees searching for food and send wood chunks flying. These peckers go against the grain (so to speak), and those are peckers we all can appreciate. ‘Anti-grain peckers’ or ‘Peckers against the grain’ – either way we love em!

 

Flickers eat more ants than any other bird in North America (while also being the state bird of Alabama – double threat!) and spend a lot of time on the ground eating said ants. Different for a ‘woodpecker’ in the traditional sense.  Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers also go about things a little differently and are the state birds of no state but can be so numerous that they become a state of mind. Don’t think too hard here – you’ve already thought too much!

 

super fresh sapscuker holes

Instead, Sapsuckers are famous for making/peckin’ lines of little holes in bark. These aren’t deep excavations into the heart(wood) of a tree in search of tasty grubs and whatnot. No – these holes are just big enough to get some sap flowing. Now- the name ‘sapsucker’ is a little misleading. No – they are suckers for sure, but they don’t really suck that much sap (aphids are the master sap suckers but that is not what we are talking about here). Instead, these predators (Sapsuckers) wait until other critters – buggy things mostly – to be attracted to the newly flowing sap and will nab said critters for food. And take some sap in the process.

 

sapsucker holes ad nauseum

I was talking to my friend Kat about the things about birds that give them such a ‘hook’ that you just have to check them out. A big part for me is the easily observable diversity of bird adaptations – some might say the result of ‘Evolution’ (the ‘E’ word!).

 

We like the diversity between groups of birds and within bird families, and the fact that the Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are also easy to hear (they are silent for small stretches only! Ha ha!) and thus easy to find (when they are around) means they check off enough boxes to give them a solid ‘hook’. Diversity that demands to be seen, ‘quite the hooker’ as the old timey birders would have said.

 

Mountain Ash

Thrushes have arrived – (Were they ever gone?) – Lots of American Robins and Hermit Thrushes moving through, as well as Swainson’s and Eastern Bluebirds. Check out Mountain Ash and Winterberry zones for ‘em – berry amounts noticeably decreasing is sign they are about! Speaking of Mountain Ash…

 

 

Mountain Ash after being Raccooned

You seem a bit scat-turd lately! – It’s true and Yes! - the turds are in!

 

After focusing a bit on ‘berries on the limb’ in the previous couple of VSRs, we were figuring some (if not all) folks would like to see what the berries look like after ‘processing’, digestively speaking of course. And a trip to the White Islands was perfect to capture these moments in Scat. So here we go.

 

rosa rugosa - processed

Raccoons – Not too long ago (10 years ago maybe?) raccoon numbers dropped around Vinalhaven, and they all but disappeared from the White Islands. Well, that ain’t the case no more (hasn’t been for a few years) and we can tell that from the scat! Scat don’t lie!

 

Rosa Rogusa must be easy to digest because this is how it looks ‘afterwards’.

 

 

But man, ain’t some of those Mountain Ash berries ‘pretty-ful/pretty full’ when they come back out. What an adventure these berries have had!

 

The roller coaster ride of a Raccoon’s intestines mean nothing (absorption wise) if the berries aren’t chewed, and some of these ‘berry-beauties’ came out very clean. In some instances, maybe even cleaner than when they went in. What a world…

 

Mink latrine

Mink - a favorite of the local predators, island Mink are famous for mackin’ on big helpings of rodents (with fish and crab side dishes). Found a couple of hairy Mink scats – rodent inspired no doubt – but these scats must have been placed where the moisture and temps were ‘right’ because they had little tiny mushrooms/slime molds growing out of them!

 

mink scat with fruiting bodies

‘Shroom or slime mold? I don’t know – they were tiny and when it comes down to it – I really don’t get that close to scat. Anyway - wish there was a field guide to things growing off scat (book idea anyone?)! So could go either way (and really is one or the other), but that’s not the point. The point is fungus/molds growing off Mink scat is as cool as it gets. Or got at that moment.

 

otter mound, latrine and view

And of course … Otter Spraint….

 

No trip to the Whites is complete without ‘checking in’ with the River Otter scene. And when we say, checking in’ we mean ‘spraint looking’ and some serious spraint looking went down!

 

Fresh and log like – very seldom do I cross paths with Otter spraint still in ‘log formation’. Always nice to see.

 

swimmeret in spraing

Evidence – while much of the spraint was made up of fish bones/scales and crab exoskeleton pieces, there were other ‘parts’ that turned up at the latrine piles. Including lobster swimmerets.

 

amphipod exoskeleton

And amphipod exoskeletons.

 

Now that’s some good spraint!

 

Black Slugs – yep, introduced and ragin’ as always.

 

And very photogenic in their own way.

 

'Mick' -looking fresh this March

And finally, and possibly a tad premature – we say the long kiss goodbye to a Red-belted Conk lovingly nicknamed ‘Mick’.

 

Mick bac in 2021

Many of you may be familiar with this monster of a mushroom, trailside along the Platform trail in the Basin. For the last 4 years or so I’ve been checking in with the impressively large fruiting body of a Red-belted Conk. At first it was smaller (and redder) and no less impressive. First impression was Mick Jaggar – started out as a big red pucker, a ‘loving cup’, is starting to show signs of time and is now ‘torn and frayed’.

 

Mick in October 2025

Mick’s top is now green with algae, but also with envy. There was little to no green when I visited in April. Take a look – co-worker Adam Periera in frame for size. Adam is normal people size. Things have progressed quickly.

 

Mick with Adam for size

The teddy bear face on Mick’s undercarriage is still viewable and in good shape. And overall, the undercarriage is in good shape (Jagger is known for that too apparently) so there is life and hope!

 

mick with mountain ash 

One time I think I counted 11 individual trees growing off Mick’s cap – never really a good sign I don’t think. But cool – and mostly Balsam Fir and Red Spruce, but there is a Mountain Ash which it fun to see when it leafed out. And it has been fun.

 

Fir on Mick

So yeah – it will be a slow goodbye to Mick, but exciting to see what’s next. What becomes of the trees and this ‘nurse shroom!’! Huh – I can’t say that I remember seeing a ‘nurse shroom!’ before.

 

spruce on mick

So, pay your respects and let’s sit back and see what becomes.

 

Okay – that wraps up another round of the VSR –

 

so a few limited editions....

inspiration by Kristen Lindquist

and one that should be limited...

Hope you enjoyed

 

And hope to see you out there!

 

 

 

 

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!