Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report – January…..2019!

Brought to you with the support of VLT and MCHT

“things got a little out of hand”

 

 

 

 

 

First off – Happy New Years and all that stuff! Hope you all are well and have had a nice transition into 2019. So far so good from my house!

 

Welcome! – a big welcome goes out to Saylor Quinn Conlan! Beautiful child, wonderful parents and grandparents  - lots of love goes out to this kind family of good folks. So happy for all of you! What a world!

 

 

And so things got backed up (not literally!) and then things got “a little out of hand” with the VSR since about November. Classic phrases like “work caught up with me” or “life happened” have been tossed around in my mind and on paper (emails are on a type of paper aren’t they?). The reality is that “other things got in the way” and so the VSR was put on “pause” so to speak.

 

So now we are “playing catch up” with the information reported from the last two months of 2018. Everything seems to have “steamrollered” and “grew exponentially” (not literally) – even the “limited edition” section – grew consistently to almost deserve a VSR all to its own! 

 

And with that in mind, as we (the royal “we”) “play catch up” (the royal “ketchup”) we will posting a series of VSR posts over the next few days plus. Some will be a story or two, others will be mostly photos, and others will be….whatever makes sense.

 

Alright? Here we go!

 

 

Surprise tracking in the Basin (12/16)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

raccoon

 

 

There was a surprise (to me at least) snow on an overnight on island I did a few weeks ago and thusly, the whole island woke up to a few inches of un-predicted snow with a dusting’s worth still making its way to ground. A few inches of snow doesn’t sound like much, and in the grand scope of things it isn’t. But when you have two wheel drive, a (mostly) empty, and thusly light-weighted, truck bed and the plan for the day called for biking down mostly dirt roads – ones with icy patches – your “plan” becomes an amorphic flow that is constantly and consistently being revised. That’s the way it goes. I would be walking for the most part rather than biking in other words. Twist my arm and I’ll go slow. Better pace anyway…

 

meadow vole bounding track and tail

 

The overlying thought was that with the snow ending after day break the likely result would be “zero” tracks to be observed as animals would have been active during the night. If there were tracks they most likely would have been laid during “middle of the night” excursions that would be partially to completely covered with a fine layer of snow. Attitudes and anticipations were low, which also happens to be when we (the royal “we”) are at our best!

deer slip

 

 

 

It didn’t take long to come across fresh, sharp looking track while walking down Wharf Quarry Road. White-tailed deer and Raccoons crisscrossed the road, and the amount of snowshoe hare tracks and trailers on the road and the surrounding woods reflected a significant presence – “seemed like they were everywhere” type of thing.  Apparently I had thought way too much about timing – it ends up animals can be active whenever they want to be! Or if they are hungry enough… it was as if they rode the storm out overnight and then got their show on the road – literally at times – once the sun came up.

 

 

mink slip

 

 

 

red squirrel slip

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was also evidence of these species sliding on ice patches hidden under the snow. This always makes me feel good – not that the animals are slipping per se, but that I’m not the only one. Just like a group of kids seem to like it when the leader falls on a trail, seeing the evidence of slip and slides makes me think “it’s not only me!”

 

kirk gentalen slip

To make matters even better, a mink had been active early as well and made its way along the shoreline as it hunted or returned from the hunt. Its little bounding trail (little when compared to otter of course!) went under rocks and crossed creeks and eventually led me to these cool icicle formations – doily ice, or doicy. These were good times….

mink trail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

closer look at the mink trail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

doily-icle

snowshoe hare - heading in to and fro

A tale of ten otters – later that day… I found myself needing to get (knee deep in the need of getting?) down Mills Farm Road for work purposes. The actual “getting down” the road wouldn’t have been an issue since gravity is prevalent here on earth, even along Mills Farm Road, and my truck would certainly have “gone with the flow” to the bottom. The return trip up the snow covered road, however – and the pause at the top to check for traffic – was a concern with the style of truck I drive. Once again, the plan was to have biked the mile or so from Wharf Quarry Road and continue with the bike day theme. Darn you snow! (not really)

vole crossing

 

After about a zero (any division of time) internal deliberation, I found myself parking the truck at the turbines – not blocking the gate! – and then walking down Mills Farm Road. I was not disappointed in the conditions once again.

My footprints where the first human ones for the day, and no vehicular traffic traversed the treasured trail (lots of Ts!) that is Mills Farm Road. On the walk down, however, snowshoe hare, red squirrel, and white-tailed deer all turned up for the “track laying” party, and after a while you (the royal “you”) kind of got the feeling you were being watched. So it goes.

 

count 'em! 8 trails in all - a few overlap at times

From a distance it was clear the bridge had been a center for activity even if only for a third of a minute or less, or about 500 micro-moments if you follow the metric system of time. Snow covered the slanted rock just south east of the bridge and across the water crossing structure (bridge) itself. Multiple trails came out of the icehole (hole in the ice) kept open by the water moving “under the bridge”, and crossed that slanted, ledgey section. And with a few belly slides and a quick visit to a snow dusted latrine at the summit of said ledge, the trails made their way north across the road and into the salt water to the north. They were river otter trails for sure. That was clear, even from a distance.

latrine on top!

 

All in all 8 different otter trails came out of the icehole, giving the impression that the same group of 4 may have gone over the road twice since the snow stopped. A count on top of the bridge showed that actually only 7 trails led across the bridge from brackish to salty (how brackish is up for discussion). A quick scan from the summit/latrine area showed where one otter had looped around to the open water and scaled the slanty ledgy rock a second time. 7 in all. The similarity in trail freshness gave the appearance that they had all been laid at about the same time.

 

trails on ice to the south - coming over from Mosquito Cove

On the ice to the south, across the sizable icehole south of the bridge, several otters had made their way from up/down Mosquito Cove (nice welcoming name). Wasn’t too hard to see that there was at least 6 separate otter trails weaving their way to the opening. The tracks and trails appeared to have all been laid at the same time. (see where we are going here?).

 

left footed otter track






















crossing the road

That the 7 trails were somewhat spread out heading up the incline and then bottlenecked (kind of) to a two or three foot stretch on the opposite side of the bridge area-  where access to open water was smooth- painted a picture of the otters gathering, waiting their turn and problem jumping on each other’s backs a bit – to complete the crossing. The crossing probably took less than 5 seconds, but the trails left behind were hours old and still beautiful.

 

I have only seen that large of a river otters group oncebefore, with Amy on our first anniversary at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge in “northernish”, and have never tracked a group like this before. Lots of questions rose up - Is this a “permanent” group? How big is their territory? How many fish does a group like that have to eat to maintain? The thought of this group still gets my heads buzzin’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

three otters coming at yah!

And upon leaving the bridge area I was treated to more belly slides and otter trails – completely separate from the group by the bridge – as these trails came from the east and crossed the Mill Farm peninsula from the Mill River area. A bonus of three trails came sliding and bounding down the “road less traveled and maintained”. A quick search showed there was no other crossing from east to west, and from the condition of the trailsit looked as if these three came through before the “Mosquito Cove 7”. They slid to the bridge and then entered the salty water to the north – the same direction the “7” would go – but about 15 feet away from the bottleneck mentioned before. There was no sign of any otter heading back into Mosquito Cove from the north. This was getting cool.

 

two bounding trails and a belly slide

 

latrine on top of rock

Further along I would find a latrine along “the banks of Mill River” that the three otters visited on their way to the bridge. These three had come a long way. Long may they run.

separate approach to Mill River latrine

 

 

 

 

 

 

right footed otter tracks

 

 

mink tracks in opposite direfctions

To wrap up the day I walked a trail that a solo mink had also worked over since the snow had stopped. This mink had “gone both ways” so to speak, as it had run a half mile or more to a small creek and then turned around and ran back down the trail. Made for some funny looking trails. Good fun!

 

confusing mink tracks

mink tear up and rub spot

both directional mink

And so there you have it. This is phase one of “catching up”, more to come.

 

Here’s Leif with crazy hair. I told him the other day that he has the hair I dreamed of, only to have it fall out before I got there. Lesson here – grow your hair now! Never know when it will start falling out! “Grow it before you lose it!”

 

love that kid

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See you out there!