Vinalhaven Sightings

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.