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| we love these mudflats by state beach |
Welcome to
the Vinalhaven Sightings Report
September
20th, 2014
Thanks to
MCHT and VLT for years of support
“Maybe enough is
*******uff and
they won't take you
walking on their dens anymore”- classic BAJ
Highlights
– Warblers featuring Cape May and Orange –crowned (hello California!),
shorebirds, hawks, Monarchs, Dragonflies, Otter stuff, Red-throated Loon, Surf
Scoter, Green Winged Teal
Upcoming Event – “Off island” – we are taking our fungus
show “Fungus Thru Binoculars” on the
road (or at least on the ferry) – all
the way to Camden! The kind folks at Coastal
Mountains Land Trust (CMLT) are having us over first for a mushroom slide
show at their office Friday October 3rd (7:00 – 8:30pm). The next morning, Saturday October 4th, we’ll
head to CMLT’s Fernald’s Neck Preserve
(sticking out in beautiful Lake Megunticook!) for a mushroom walk and some fungal tracking (9am- Noon). If you are on the mainland that weekend and can come
to one or both please do! (that goes for mainlanders who might be reading this
too!) For more info/directions go to the
Coastal Mountains Land Trust website - www.coastalmountains.org – and
click on the events tab. Should be a blast, really looking forward to it!  |
| we took the 5th and 6th graders tidepooling they were really good at it |
Asa
comment – Amy shared a recent photo of super cute, eyes wide open Asa
Casey Jones. Looking forward to meeting the little man! Congrats all around to
the parents!
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| monarch - photo by Colleen Conlan |
Monarch
update – Colleen Conlan sent in these great shots of a Monarch in “her” Joe-pye
Weed, apparently she is/was up to 3 monarchs this year…(9/7) had an 8 monarch
day (yippee!) and have followed with 2 more bringing my yearly total to 26 (I
think). Getting so high (the number of monarchs that is) it’s hard to count..
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| monarch in flight photo by Colleen Conlan |
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| jaeger - photo by John Drury |
Sightings – Warblers and other birds -While few warblers have been seen at
Armbrust Hill and Lane’s (what’s up with that?) John Drury has had his hands full of them (not literally) out on Greens Island! Here are a couple of
reports he’s sent over –
From Greens Island – (9/6)
Palm, Cape May, Prairie, Black and White, Magnolia, and Chestnut-sided Warblers,
Red eyed and Philadelphia Vireos
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| pomarine jaeger - photo by John Drury |
(9/13) Sharp-shinned Hawk, Kestrel, Scarlet
Tanager, Warblers - Cape May, Chestnut-sided, Bay breasted, Yellow, Wilsons, Yellowthroat,
Magnolia, Yellow-rumped, Black-throated Green, Northern Parula, Black and
White. Also Blue-headed, Red-eyed and Philadelphia Vireos, alder flycatcher,
goldfinch, waxwing, hummer, olive-sided Flycatcher, whippoorwill singing in the
morning
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| great cormorants waiting to get eaten by bald eagles photo by John Drury |
Also from John - merlins, red tail, Owls daily roosting near my
house
Thanks John – great report, glad to hear your
yard is rockin’….
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| least sandpiper - "on the wood and weed" |
31 Reach Road –
(9/6) - Philadelphia Vireo, Magnolia, Yellow-rumped, Black and White,
Black-throated Green and Parula Warblers….(9/20) Nashville’s Warbler (seen more
in my yard than at Armbrust!)
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| Solitary Sandpiper at Mack's Pond |
What’s
around in numbers – loads of
Flickers, Great Blue Herons,
Kingfishers, Sharp-shinned Hawks, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (seen like a
gagillion hummers over the last few weeks – We heart hummers!), Loons,
Goldfinch and (of course) Waxwings!
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| lots of Bonaparte's Gulls in the thorofare |
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| ruddy turnstones from the thorofare |
Lists – State Beach – (9/3) Greater Yellowlegs, 6
Lesser Yellowlegs, 8 Semi-palmated Sandpiper, 6 Least Sandpiper, 6
Semi-palmated Plover, 6 Black-bellied Plover, 2 Turkey Vultures, 2 Loons, and
lots of Black Guillemots….(9/5) 3 Red-necked Grebe, Surf Scoter, Red-throated
Loon…Mack’s Pond (9/2) – Solitary Sandpiper….(9/10) – Green-winged
Teal….Pleasant River –(9/9) Marbled Godwit (again!)…(9/11) 30 Lesser
Yellowlegs, 6 Greater Yellowlegs, 27 Black-bellied Plovers, 2 Dowticher sp, 2
Least Sandpipers, 7 Semi-palmated Plover..(9/15) 20 Black-bellied Plover, 1
Greater Yellowlegs, 11 Semi-palmated Plover, 15 Lesser Yellowlegs, 1 Dowitcher
sp. …. Lane’s – (9/12) Swamp Sparrow, Gannets…paddle to Calderwood – 40 + Bonaparte’s
gulls, 2 Ruddy Turnstones, Surf Scoter, lots of Black Guillemots and Common
Eider….Ferry - Gannets
Folly Pond
– (9/17) Wood ducks, Black Ducks, Mallard Ducks, Great Blue Heron….and Meadowhawks
– a few VSRs back we mentioned how tricky it is to ID meadowhawk dragonflies (those cute little red
buggers!) to species. But it’s not hard to see what they are up to and on this
day it was laying eggs! This egg laying
frenzy (post orgy consequences) was distinctly different than other
dragonfly mating schemes we have watched this summer. 
First off the males (bright red) held onto the females (the ones laying eggs) as they are laying
eggs – as to not allow another male to come in and grab hold and mate with “his”
female (well, he is holding onto her). But with everyone laying eggs in mass – there were dozens along the shore I was
standing by – there was no sign of
competition, no chasing, no lone males barging in to plant their own seed in
the female’s eggs. Just a bunch (a whole bunch) of paired up meadowhawks,
slapping their abdomens (female’s that is) into the mud. Yes mud! They were
laying eggs in the mud! I feel like I learned a lot that day, mostly about how
peaceful communal egg laying in mud can be. Not a lesson that I will act on
personally, but still kind of cool.
Ghost
Spider – Linnell Mather sent
in this photo of a female Goldenrod Crab
Spider that she found in her kitchen. Here’s what we found out about them –
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| goldenrod crab spider - photo by Linnell Mather |
“Although this species bites, its primary means of defense is camouflage.
Individuals are capable of changing color over several days to blend in with
their surroundings. Like all crab spiders (family Thomisidae). Goldenrod crab
spiders do not rely on silk to capture
prey. Instead they rest on or under flowers and ambush visiting bees and flies,
overpowering prey with their powerful legs. By delivering a bite that injects
fast-acting venom, these crab spiders are capable of capturing insects much
larger than themselves”. – Evans – NWF guide to insects and spiders.
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| the otter foot |
Very cool! Thanks for sending in!
Otters and
tweeters - White Islands – (9/18) – Spotted Sandpipers, Sharpies, Kingfishers,
Loons, Guillemots, Great and non-great Cormorants. Otter, mink, deer, raccoon
and red squirrel sign.
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| this was some stinky spratint |
The real
story – for me - no trip to the whites is complete without a visit to
the Otter den on Bald/Spectacle Island. I’ve seen maps call it both names, but
really – the otters don’t care. From here on out I will refer to the island as “BS”. Right in the heart of the old,
overgrown quarry, this is an easy den to find otter sign around - spraint is “like” all around the perimeter
of the island. But it also is one of the hardest dens to actually get to even
when you are on the island already (why are we going to dens again?). The trees
growing over the den have impressively thick limbs that are layered in a total
“pain in the arse” kind of way for walking over (no chance for “around”), not
to mention (but I will anyway) that you (me) are walking on sketchily arranged shrapnel
and leftovers from the old quarrying days. Multiple ankles could break with
every step (most likely no more than 2 ankles, but you never know). Just about
every year I still manage to traverse the scene to get a feel for the otter
activity out there – why? It’s what we do, we can’t help ourselves.
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| here's some of that white goo we love to find comes from anal glands - smelled like it too |
Anyway, from “surveying the spraint” and the hefty amounts of it
on BS over the last 8 years we (it’s really just me!) have concluded that a
female otter lives out there, and that she is “active” (wink,wink) and often
has some little otterettes (not a real word) on island with her. Little otter
spraints are so cute!
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| I do wonder if spraint is good fertilizer |
Anyway, this year the amount of spraint was significant even for
BS. And what’s more it was super fresh and really stunk! Like really bad, and strong
like never before (in my limited spraintly olfactory history). When I got close
to the den and caught that whiff – man what a whiff! – I thought to myself “this is when people get attacked by otters”.
And it does happen – a simple “something” search of “River Otters attack humans” gave us a recent
one from August this year “Otter attacks boy, grandmother in Washington state river” - http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/01/otter-attacks-boy-grandmother-in-washington-state-river/
or from last year –“Teens savagely attacked by wild river otter describe it as a scene out
of 'Jaws'”
check out that
girl’s leg full of chew marks!
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| this is raccoon scat - full of snail operculums |
Also found this quote - “They have been known to
attack humans, and females with young are unpredictable.”
Anyway, this is the second time this year where I felt like I had
put myself in a spot where I had significantly
increased the likeliness of my being attacked by an otter. The other time
was back in May when I was standing on the “hobbit” den upstream from Mack’s
Pond (Bilbo the otter lives there). Whatever, I had to keep going and I had
walked all over this den many times (at least 4) before so what the h*ll,
right!
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| I was on top of the tallest rock pile when I heard the otter the den is under the trees to the left there are many trees over the den that you can't see |
Well, I went all over the den and everything was fine and then I
climbed away from the den onto a pile of big ol’ boulders left long ago by the
quarry-dudes. I got to the top of the pile and immediately heard a big splash
directly below me. (Didn’t even realize there was water under there!). Needless
to say it scared the spraint out of me and I dashed/hopped from rock to rock,
breaking zero ankles along the way, to a “safer” zone maybe 20 feet away. While
I was hopping I heard a couple of hisses from rock pile and finally a growl.
The growl was cool, kind of a mix between the noise Perry the Platypus makes on Phineas and Ferb and the groan Tina makes on Bob’s Burgers (two
awesome shows by the way). So I was “that close” to an otter and had to go back
(because I don’t believe I will be killed by an otter and I am a fool). So I got
out the camera and headed back to the pile thinking I might get a photo or two
before the otter could get to me. Let’s face it a photo of a pissed otter would be awesome (right?). When I was
about 5 feet away from the pile I heard the growl again, and but I had to growl
back (I couldn’t help myself)! Well, that shut the otter up and got me thinking
“what the …. are you doing?”. I somewhat
booked it out of there, and while scramblin’ over another pile of rocks heard
another big splash underneath – two otters!
Needless to say I felt that I had had enough impact on these guys so I
scrambled my way out past the stinky spraint and continued on my survey.
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| here's how the chicken wire gets on bridges he's good for about two bridges then its time to roll |
Now, I have stood on many otter dens out here – these aren’t
beaver lodges or anything that will collapse – they are usually under tree roots
or piles of rocks or both. Many of you have probably stood on otter dens as
well, and maybe didn’t know it. Many times in the winter I have stood on them
when I knew for a fact that the otters were inside snoozing. I have never had
problems or felt like I was impacting them, even though that is hard to judge
impact when they are asleep underground. The problem here was that the otters
were not in their den, but relaxing under rocks (don’t we all) outside their
den. And even though this was certainly more impact than I wish to ever have on
otters – I do love them you know– I have to believe that I am the only one who
ever takes the route I take out there on BS island, and the 4 minutes I was
impacting those otters is minimal in the grand scope of things. The only thing
I feel (somewhat) bad about was making the otters jump into what was probably
pretty nasty water. But from the smell coming from (and around) the den I don’t
think they mind the stench at all. It
was an experience I will never forget. And I didn’t get to see them at all! I’ll
let you all know if/when I get attacked, kind of a dream (not a goal) right
now! Anyway…good times.
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| early September was good for swimming and yes, he has shorts on |
alrighty - see you out there!
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| "let's build!" - common call heard in our house |
