Vinalhaven Sightings

gray catbird

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report - June 15, 2020

Brought to you – in part – by the nice folks over at the Vinalhaven Land Trust and Maine Coast Heritage Trust. ‘Two great tastes that taste great together’

A few days tardy as far as the date goes, but right on time in dog years….

Hairy Woodpecker adult female at nest

Highlights – Cool Flowers (I know – can you believe it!), caterpillars, birdies – including nests and cuckoos, Crab Spider, Snakes,

Business : Contact us - feel free to contact us with “questions, queries, queasts” about anything nature or naturally feeling. Good way to share, and an even better way to make friends. At least 10 people have become friends directly related to the VSR . vinalhavensightings@gmail.com .

Bronze Copper - Calderwood Island

Tiit Trick – click on the photos and they magically will fill your screen. Great way to avoid reading whatever is being typed here!

Photo request – never done this before, but we (the royal ‘we’) are looking for any and all photos of Tiger Swallowtail butterflies. It’s been a huge year for the species in mid-coast Maine, but they are a species for whatever reason I find hard to photo document. In fact – we are looking for butterfly pictures. Think of it as homework as you are distancing outside. Or inside! The flowers in your yard might be the best place to look! Anyway – have at it!

Crab Spider - Misumena vatia
photo by Banner Moffat

Bear note – story has it that the bear has left the island, was fun to hike with the hope of crossing paths. We’ll see! Thanks to Linnell Mather for sharing the video and info with the VSR last time. So cool. Both the bear and Linnell!.

Sightings – Lots of little critters out there these days, and fortunately at this point – knock on wood – mosquitoes have been largely absent from areas where I have been working. Banner Moffat sent in this photo of a Crab Spider waiting for prey on a red clover.

best photo of a compost bin ever sent in
photo by Merry Boone

Pumpkin Ridge area – A compost bin in the pumpkin ridge area turns out to be a preferred sunning bed for garter snakes. Merry Boone sent in a few photos – one of the bin and one of a garter snake – of the scene.

garter snake
photo by Merry Boon

Ends up it was a temporary destination for the snakes, and after a few days the snakes moved off. Probably not far, maybe in a nearby rock wall or woodpile– snakes are great neighbors, even if they make me jump at first glance for some reason. Thanks for sharing Merry!

garter snake
photo by Dylan Harp

Speaking of snakes – Young Dylan Harp took this cool photo of a Garter snake. Been a good spring for snakes -thanks for sharing Dylan!

parula bringing in nesting material

Greens Island – When we last left John Drury was keeping tabs on some interesting Warbler coupling on his property. John got some great shots of Northern parulas and American redstarts collecting nesting materials – including what looks to be spider webs but is actually Birch Bark fibers.

parula head pokin' out of lichen nest
photo by John Drury

American Redstart on eggs as well. So Cool! Thanks for sending in John!

redstart on nest
Photo by John Drury

Also from John - Yellow-billed cuckoo, singing, and lots of tent caterpillars. The connection here, of course, is that both flavors of Cuckoos in North America love to eat tent Caterpillars. Good year for both maybe?

parula pulling off strands of birch bark
photo by John Drury

redstart gathering nesting materials
photo by John Drury

Also - Minke whale in western Penobscot Bay last week. Keep yer eyes open for that!

spotted sandpiper
photo by John Drury

On the water - John reports first storm petrels of the season. Both John and Jamus Drury report sooty shearwaters in numbers. Petrels and shearwaters....dreamy!

american copper butterflly

Calderwood Island – Always great to get out to Calderwood Island Preserve off the little throrofare. Both American and Bronze Copper butterflies in the fields – bronze in the wetter zones. Love the Swainson’s Trushes singing. Black-throated Green, Yellow-rumped, Yellow Warblers. Northern Parula, Hairy Woodpecker….

bold orange line on underside of hind wing
confirms Bronze Copper status

PSA - One thing especially notable about Calderwood Island is the Brown-tailed Moth caterpillar population in two adjacent Oakes just above the main beach landing. Not sure when they got there, but their current status is most notable. One Oak is completely defoliated – top to bottom, while the oak across the path is just starting to be worked on.

And as if that weren’t enough, Brown Tailed Moth caterpillars have been in the news a lot lately. The hairs of the caterpillars can cause a rash that is similar to poison ivy , invoking pain and discomfort on a spectrum all the way from light to severe. As a species, it’s been in Maine since the late 1800s at least, but currently is going through an ‘outbreak’ phase in coastal Maine - information easily gathered from a quick search online.

defoliate oak

Anyway – removing webs (and caterpillars) is the main strategy with dealing with BTM at this point. On Calderwood I will be removing any and all branches, shrubs and trees that have caterpillars on them along the small section – 30 feet or so – of trail near the oaks. Winter time will most likely be the time to address the larger issue of BTMs on the larger trees. The goal now is to cut back the trail to lessen the chance of interaction with free floating hairs.

That all said – on Vinalhaven there has been some talk and concern about Brown tailed Moth caterpillars on the Lane’s Island preserve. Word of the caterpillar’s presence was shared with me via two fronts – and feel free to email at vinalhavensightings@gmail.com with brown tailed moth questions or sightings. The more people sharing info the better.

just starting on this oak. top down

Anyway, in the last few weeks I have removed about 80 brown tailed moth webs from the preserve. While there still are webs remaining, I removed any webs I saw within 15-20 feet of trails. I started with loppers and then returned yesterday with a chainsaw to remove the last few. The chances of my interacting with the hairs while I was completely messing with them and habitat seemed great, but even with a branch of webs hitting me in the head, I developed no rash or sensation during the removal process. Maybe it was the Jersey water I grew up drinking. So, so flavorful and chock full of lord only knows.

BTM caterpillars have two orange spots on them

Anyway, the largest population I came across was on the eastern most section of outer loop trail – along ‘Indian creek’ – especially the 75 feet just past the ‘big rock’ when heading on the trail from the beach. Last week the caterpillars were more than numerous along this stretch and at that time I probably removed 50-60 total from this area, as well as many shrubs to widen the trail. On my return yesterday – with chainsaw – I saw very few caterpillars along the trail. I will keep tabs on this and all the trails out there and remove any webs or shrubs that are found close to the trails.

eastern tent caterpillars look like this.

I have not heard of anyone reacting from hikes on the preserve. If you are concerned maybe avoiding the eastern most stretch of the outer loop trail – heads south from the beach – and detour on the inner island trails to access the views of Seal, Matinicus and beyond. The caterpillars – at this point – don’t seem to be a hazard.

Once again – we’ll try to keep on this, and with your help it will be easier. Feel free to send photos and sightings and whatever to the VSR. Appreciate it!

one-flowered cancer root
photo by Beth Guilford

Back to sightings – Also on Lane’s – Yellow Warblers, American Redstart, Alder Flycatcher, Catbirds, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Black-throated Green….Fly over of Crossbills..

Flowers - Beth Guilford was kind enough to send in some photos of a neat plant – Cancer Root (Ororbanche unifora). Not a common plant reported by any means – Beth mentioned it was the second time she had seen the flowers on Vinalhaven. I’d never seen them on island before at all, but it must be a good year since I found two patches not but a few days after Beth reported them.

bunchberry bloom

I would babble on about them, but I realize I already have about Cancer root and a few other plants. Here’s a copy of the most recent “nature bumming with Kirk Gentalen’ column where I go into more plant survival strategies. See what you think. For more ‘nature bumming’ go to…. mcht.org/nature-bummin !

Nature Bummin with Kirk Gentalen June 12 2020

Strategies for survival

These days, it’s good to have a strategy. Heading to town for the grocery store, the ferry terminal, or Bert’s Machine Shop? I go with a plan that leaves little to no room for browsing. It’s a plan to keep social distances, a plan to minimalize exposure – and when you get down to ‘brass tacks’- it’s a plan for survival.

Of course, June is also a time for plants. Take some sunshine, mix in a little rain and warmth and blam-mo – your plant is a growing! June, am I right? To make things seem even ‘more better’ (and ‘more prettier’?), many plants come with flowers. Strictly speaking, flowers are tools that plants use to attract critters in hopes they will assist in the plant’s reproductive success. The name of the flower game is ‘pollination’ and the goal is to pass genes onto the next generation. While flowers are all about the continued survival of a species, this column is about a few strategies that help individual plants survive. “Wildflowers without the wildflowers” in a way.

lady slipper. turn to the left!
starboard view

Take the plant Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) for instance. Bunchberries are in the Dogwood family (Cornaceae) and in appearance are essentially miniature versions of a Dogwood trees. Often abundant and ubiquitous in the mid-coast Maine woods, it is not uncommon to come across blankets of their small, whorls of leaves covering a forest floor. In June, Bunchberries are in bloom and while many plants will have 4 large white bracts that look like a flower, the actual bunchberry flowers are found in a tiny cluster at the center of these bracts. Later in the season – after pollination – the flowers are replaced with clusters, or ‘bunch’es of red berries. A bunchberry stand may leave an observer with the impression of a robust population of an annual flowering plant. This is not the case, of course.

this years and last years

Beneath a carpet of Bunchberry are a series of woody rhizomes. A rhizome - the actual bunchberry plant in a sense – is a continuously growing underground stem that pumps out dozens (to hundreds) of bunchberry plants each year. The plants growing off a rhizome are genetically identical – clones if you will - all photosynthesizing and sending energy to back to the mother rhizome. This growth strategy can result in plants from an individual rhizome covering yards of forest floor - what looks to be hundreds of ‘different’ plants actual rises from just a handful of individual rhizomes! The rhizomes survive for years and in the right conditions can thrive quite handily. It’s all on the plant’s survival strategy terms.

cancer root - broom rape family.
possibly the worst combination of common names
in the plant world

Another June flowering plant that is ‘stop-worthy’ is the Pink Lady Slipper (Cypripedium acaule). In general, Orchid flowers are stunningly striking and come with their own cool and specific symbiotic relationships with pollinators – and the Pink Lady Slipper does not disappoint. But it’s immediately after the flowers have dried and gone (Pink no more!) that the plant’s survival strategies start.

cancer root - turn to the left
starboard view

An individual Lady Slipper plant starts, as many good plants do, as a seed. Lady Slipper fruit capsules split open and release thousands of wind dispersed seeds. These seeds are among the lightest in the plant kingdom and carry no ‘meat’ or fruit to help with germination and initial growth. Instead, the seed produces a mass of cells known as a ‘protocorm’, which must connect with a symbiotic, mycorrhizal fungus (Rhizoctonia) before growth can occur. This connection may take time, and a Lady Slipper seed can remain viable for up to 8 years (in the ‘right’ microenvironment conditions). Then the relationship begins …. The fungus aids in nutrient absorption for the plant, and in return the lady slipper (eventually) shares sugars it produces from photosynthesis with the fungus. It can be years between plant/fungus connection, pre-growth and initial growth before a lady slipper even thinks about producing a flower. By the time you see a lady slipper flower in the woods the plant has spent years invoking a classic survival strategy, based on chance and a symbiotic relationship with fungus. Mostly appreciated one month out of the year, a flowering Lady Slipper represents years of work, effort and growth, which only adds to their mystique.

rock wall

The final, and dare I say, ‘most aggressive’ (judgment) survival strategy for this column – Parasitism - has been represented by One-flowered Cancer root (Orobanche uniflora), a member of the ‘Broom-rape’ family (Orobancheae). This has been a ‘Caner root June’ as two observers, one on Vinalhaven and one in Tenants Harbor, have sent me reports and photos of Cancer root flowers on their respective properties. Both observers mentioned the rarity of their plant in their personal experiences – one hadn’t seen it before and the other had seen it once in 40 years of observing! Needless to say, I kept my eyes open to this Orobanche since the reports came in.

dead deer

Sure enough, on June 9th I came across two large clusters (30+ flowers) of One-flowered Cancer root while walking a property boundary on Vinalhaven (very cool activity). The flowers themselves were quite attractive, as flowers often are. The plants themselves – the stem, the bracts, etc. - were white from a complete lack of chlorophyll, and complemented the cancer root’s single, white flower nicely. No chlorophyll means no making your own food (eat local!), but there is more going on with the cancer-root below what can be seen.

virginia ctenuca moth caterpillar
ventral view

As a parasite, the roots of our favorite Orobranche tap into a variety of plant species for nourishment. This includes members of the genus Sedum as well as representatives of the Saxifragaceae and Asteraceae plant families. Being a parasitic generalist, the one flowered Cancer root is able to maintain an extensive range that covers the entire lower 48 and much of Canada. Now that is surviving.

Recognizing adaptions and survival strategies of plants can raise a species status to ‘pretty cool’ in an instant. For a Bunchberry rhizome the survival action is year-round, where Pink Lady Slippers are all about a symbiotic relationship with fungus that is years-long in development. A Cancer root’s parasitic strategy is more ‘on the edge’ than the other two – completely depending on another species for food. But it’s a strategy that has resulted in the most widely dispersed plant of the three, survival strategy indeed. Parasitic, symbiosis, and rhizomes – three strategies that work! The proof is in the survival!