Vinalhaven Sightings: November 2020

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report

November 12 2020

Thanks to the Vinalhaven Land Trust and Maine Coast Heritage Trust

Let sleeping purple sandpipers sleep

Highlights – Ducks, Loons, Grebes, Eagles, Crossbills, Grosbeaks, Siskins, Shrooms, otter spraint

Lanesy day

PSAs – COVID Alert - So as of this typing North Haven has 13 confirmed COVID cases, and Knox County (as well as the rest of Maine) has seen an increase in cases as ‘community transmission’ has been acknowledged/determined/popping up all over the state. What more, forecasts/predictions for COVID spread thru the winter months are not painting a pleasant picture. Yikes. I still love winter though.

life is like a seaweed factory....

One nice thing is that you can do your part in stopping/controlling/limiting the spread simply by wearing a mask, practicing social distancing, and washing your hands. Have you heard about these three things? It’s been the same freakin’ broken record of a message since March.

got my Zappa mask - I know I am
wearing it wrong in the photo,
but it doesn't make sense without
a nose above.
I put it back on correctly
after photo

Some doofuses (doofusii?) say wearing a mask is just being ‘politically correct’. Are you nuts? All too often actions are labeled ‘PC’ when they are just being respectful. Show that you care and are respectful of others by wearing your mask. ‘Don’t be a mask-hole’, ‘Just wear the damn thing’ – I love that commercial.

Keep up with the changes and alerts by following/checking in with the Town of Vinalhaven website - https://www.townofvinalhaven.org/home/covid-19-1

And the chamber of commerce site as well - https://www.vinalhaven.org/

two too many selfies in this post
wear orange!

Survival - Hey Buddy – Get some orange on! We can’t emphasize it enough. November is deer hunting season with usage of firearms and the trails are for everyone to use. If you venture out for some piece of mind, do yourself a favor and put on an orange hat, shirt, coat, gloves, socks, skivvies, whatever – heck even an orange mask would be helpful! November is full of beautiful days to not get shot. No hunting on Sundays and any time, any day on Lane’s! Enjoy the month safely!

Business – as usual - Contact us – vinalhavensightings@gmail.com. We will respond! And if we don’t you can always write back again! Anyway – send us your sightings, email addresses, photos and nature whatnots. VSR is all about sharing.

Crockett Cove

Tiit Trick – click on the photos to jumbo size them – have the photos take up your world! Click ‘em – I dare yah!

scales in spraint

Sightings – Long Cove - A little more on the River Otter scene in Long Cove that Jim Conlan videoed, sent in and was then included in the previous VSR. It took days before it – ‘it’ being my brain – clicked and remembered an email I had gotten from Alan Farago earlier in the fall where he described seeing pretty much the same action in Long Cove. Otters actively hunting during the day? What might bring them out? My guess is food, and lots of it. Or hunger….same thing?

Here’s what the ‘Louisiana Sportsman’ has to say about the bait fish the otters are most likely to be pursuing in these reports.

otter pile

‘In the sea, it seems like every fish eats another fish — they are all carnivores. Or almost all. At the bottom of the fish food chain sits the menhaden, commonly called the pogie.’

Word for much of the summer/fall has been the impressive numbers of Pogies swimming their little fins off. Calmness in coves and along shorelines around islands and the mainland (even at the Rockland breakwater) have been interrupted with ripples and wake action as Pogies rise to surface, most likely chased from below by a hungry critter. Anyway – so cool to hear about people having observing predator/pogie sessions, and the Long Cove otters seem to have taken a fancy to these tasty fishies. Always awesome to watch a predator in action, much less a bunch of predators!

common loon

Ferry Ride (11/10) - November is the best for ferry rides. Black-legged Kittiwake, Bonaparte's Gulls, Common and Red-throated Loon, Oldtails, Red-breasted Merganser, Surf and Black Scoters...and much more...too much fun...here's a bunch of photos from that day...

Black-legged Kittiwake

common eider

old tail duck

crappy Red-throated Loon photo
photo crappy, not the loon

spraint

A couple of quick stories…

(11/6) – Hunters in the mist, otters on my mind….monitoring easement properties is a serious, yet fun part of my MCHT gig. You get to visit cool lands and never know what you might find there. I keep posts about these visits vague as to location as often it is with somewhat ‘special permission’ that I go to these areas. So it goes….

Anyway, I was walking a property boundary (somewhere on island) on this day when I found a sweet new otter latrine. Right on the line! So many otter latrines, so little time.

hunters

Anyway, as I was clicking my camera – so important to document these things – I heard voices. Not the ones in my head, these were fella-like voices from behind me. Sure enough, 4 hunters were chatting it up maybe 75 feet from me (maybe). I was almost on the top of a small hill, and even though there were young spruce and fir saplings between myself and the group, I could clearly see them in their camouflage, with their firearms and all. The fact they were talking clued me in that their hunting session was probably ending. It was late morning, but the fact that I could see them and they apparently didn’t see me in all my glorious orange was a little off setting. Should I announce my presence with a loud ‘Hi guys! How’s the hunting?’? That seemed like the most likely way to get shot, so instead I backtracked along the boundary line and got the heck out of there.

otters have been busy knocking
down the cattails

With that I started to work my way to sections of the property that were well away from where the hunters were, when…..I came across them again! How can that be? Well, they must have called it quits not too long after I had spotted them and then were cutting across a field back to their truck. I happened to be walking along that field trying to get away from them. So now, again, there I was, decked out in orange with no shrubs or saplings to block views, and these hunters never saw me. This made me a little nervous. Maybe my shirt wasn’t orange at all. Maybe not all hunters are as aware as I think they are. Or maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t really be there.

otter trail through the cattails

I didn’t have that last thought until about 10 minutes later, after the group had left without ever seeing me and after I had gone deeper into the woods. It was then that I took the ‘selfie in orange’, just to leave evidence of my wearing such colors in case things went down a horrible road. It was also then that I decided my monitoring visit was just about over. And so I switched gears and proceeded to walk along the fields as I made my way off property.

It was then that I came upon a cattail pond. My mind immediately went to otters, which in full honesty are never too far from my thoughts in the first place. I checked for sign, and it took about 2 seconds before I noticed an area of cattail (maybe 10x5ft) that was leveled. Completely mowed down, and with binoculars I could see piles spraint scattered throughout the zone. The otters have been busy.

little otter trail
trail is little, not the otters

It was awesome and exciting and a nice change of pace from seeing the hunters – who I am sure are nice fellas. It was so exciting to see, and located so close to the edge of the pond that I couldn’t wait to get out and take a closer look. My excitement got ahead of me though as I immediately started to march out to inspect. What I hadn’t inspected was how wet and mucky the zone was right along the shore where I was. I was sure the cattail area would probably hold me, but I forgot I wasn’t an otter, and that I weighed more than an otter, and that I would have to get to the latrine first.

raccoon scat as well.
is this a symbol for something?

To make a long story short (too late!) I quickly sunk into the muck, almost up to my waist. I had to make a hasty retreat with pants soaked and extra-tuffs full of some of the stankiest muck you can imagine. The whole scene was comical. The day was warm and I had clothes and boots in my truck, so I wasn’t cold or anything. Just wet and stinky, which I never too far from to begin with.

It was an odd visit, with final tallies of 7 otter latrines, 4 hunters, and 2 extremely wet boots. That reminds me, I still haven’t dried those out. Ewwww!

orachrd cove area

(11/5) Had a great walk at North Perry Creek with Linnell Mather- the Linnell Mather, Executive Director of the Vinalhaven Land Trust. I get the privilege of hiking with Linnell 6 times (or so) a year, spread out over a handful of days, over a handful of weeks. I realize that I spend more in the Vinalhaven woods with Linnell than with anyone else. I am down with that, she is fun to hike with and we always go to beautiful places!

Great Horned Owlette
circa 2006

A few days before this outing, Willie Drury, the Willie Drury of Maine Magic Mud fame, reached out to me with a tale of an owl sighting along the trails of North Perry Creek. You may not know this, but Willie and I have a history with the owls of North Perry Creek. Back in May of 2006, when Willie was in 7^th grade, he joined me on an outing to see how things were going with a potential Great Horned Owl nest I found. Adults had been seen, pellets were everywhere, and snowshoe hare legs piled up, but it was impossible to get a look into the snag top where I assumed the owlettes were. On this particular day in May ’06 Willie and I spotted two great horned owlettes that had ‘left the snag’ and were roosting in one of the big White Pines at the beginning of the saltonstall section of the trail system. I took this picture of one of the owlettes that day, and Willie got photos of his own (I think). I was asked later if it was hard to find them and get the photos. And I answered no.

north perry creek spraint

Anyway, the walk with Linnell was highlighted by otter spraint on the trail, snow on the ground, and a Great Horned sighting along the ‘round the rocks’ trail on the way back. I give Willie full credit for my seeing the owl, got my owl-dar working. Once he told me what he’d seen it felt like destiny. So thanks Willie! Look forward to more owl connections….

state beach

(11/6) –State Beach – somehow I had about 20 minutes of ‘free’ time on island and so I headed to state beach, which felt dreamy and full of great memories from over the years. 25 Red-necked Grebes were a highlight, plus about a dozen purple sandpipers on the ledges off shore. More to come and I hope more time at state beach!

jim macks pond, up and down

(11/10) – Basin, Jim Mack’s Pond – White-winged crossbills were numerous, loud and active throughout much of this 4 hour outing to the Basin platform trail system. Pine Grosbeaks were seen/heard by the trail head, and a few times groups of Pine Siskins noisily flew over the trail, buzzin’ there way to the next feeding area. Red-breasted Nuthatches, Black-capped Chickadees, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and Dark-eyed Juncos were everywhere.