Vinalhaven Sightings: October 2021

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report – October 20 2021

Brought to you, with the support of VLT and MCHT! – Thanks to both! And to you!

‘I’m not nature bummin’ man, I got sh*t to do’ – a dear friend

young Cedar Waxwing on Armbrust Hill

Highlights – Osprey, Mushrooms, Sapsucker, Owl Pellet, and so much more

ghost plant/ghost pipe

Business – contact us – send in your photos, sightings, poems and whatever inspires you about the nature of Vinalhaven and the Fox Islands and we’ll plug them into the next report (or the one after that ). vinalhavensightings@gmail.com is the email address to send to. You won’t regret it, or you’ll only regret it once? Send in your stuff – operators are standing by now.

Seal Bay great horned owl pellet

Tiit Trick – click on the photos to make them jumbo sized. Fill your screen up with photos of mushrooms, birds, pellets and otter spraint. The way life should be, as they say…

Zion Canyon
photo by Linnell Mather

First up through is a photo or two sent in by Linnell Mather of a recent trip she took to Zion National Park. California condor and sweet geological features – looks like it was a beautiful trip! Make sure you corner Linnell for more info on her time out west.

california condor
photo by Linnell Mather

osprey
photo by Pam Alley

Sightings! - Pam Alley was kind enough to send in these photos of the Boy Scout Point Osprey and nest on Lane’s Island. Young have fledged probably not because the parents opted to insulate the nest with plastic

plastic insulation
photo by Pam Alley

Janet Ghores sent in this report from Calderwood Neck Rd. A palm(er) warbler and a bay breasted warbler came with a great mixed flock that stayed all day. Also at Arey's Neck were red-necked grebes, common loons and red-breasted merganser.

sapsuckah!

Tweeters around island – Seal Bay – lots of Bonaparte’s Gulls seen from Huber…

Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are around, this one from Perry Creek …

yellow rumped

Yellow-rumped Warblers are numerous….here are a few of the gazillions we’ve (the royal ‘we’ve’) crossed paths with recently.

aka butter butt

And of course – who’s singing October style – Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets, and Brown Creeper males have all struck up their tunes recently in the woods…

Perry Creek Harbor Porpoise – While monitoring out in the Orchard Cove zone of Perry Creek I spotted some wave action in the calmness that reminded me of a mammal rather than sea bird. My first hope – which happens to always be my first hope in any and all ‘hopeful’ situations – was that it was an otter. I was pretty far away from the water, but the size of what looked to be the critter’s head and body movements recalled a seal rather than an otter, which was also fine since I couldn’t recall seeing a seal in that area before. But before I could even get my binos up and focused I heard the “pfffft” that was clearly made by a (which turned out to be two) Harbor Porpoise.

harbor porpoise exhale

I watched the pair for as long as I could, which was not long but it was fun seeing their backs breaking the green and brown reflections from the Perry Creek forests. Took me back to Hardwood Island ’88, where I participated in a nature program sponsored by the Academy of natural sciences in Philly (city of brotherly love). I remember during some ‘free time’ during the program – 3 weeks (or so) living in a barn, checking out MDI and Acadia, and studying milkweed – sitting on the dock in complete fog. What could better than being free and 17, chilling on a dock far from Bergen County, NJ in the fog? Hearing ‘pffft’ after ‘pffft’ from out in the mist, that’s what. I convinced myself they were Orcas, (I mean, at 17 and from Jersey what else could it be?).

A decade or so later when I was living on Cape Cod I put it together that it probably wasn’t orca, but more likely Harbor Porpoise and I was fine with that. What was more important was the memory of that sound, probably the highlight of the entire program and that includes hacky-sacking on the greens in Bar Harbor. I’m tempted to say it was a/the sound that got me into nature, or something cheesy like that. It was certainly the coolest thing I had heard up to that point in my life.

semi-palmated sandpiper -
rockland breakwater - on vinlahaven granite!

And I’ve heard it a bunch of times since, but I can’t remember the last time from shore (often heard from a kayak in my experience). Minimal research turned up this nugget on info from Norway….

lots of shorebirds coming through

‘In parts of Atlantic Canada it (Harbor Porpoise) is known colloquially as the puffing pig, and in Norway ‘nise’, derived from an Old Norse word for sneeze; both of which refer to the sound made when porpoises surface to breathe’ – Wikipedia

Maybe I was getting back to my Nordic roots, but the sound of a whale’s exhale is wonderful to hear (not so good to smell – SNARGE!). How we’d locate whales in the fog from the whale watch. That was from boats well off shore though, truly a pelagic experience. Fun to hear (and see!) the porpoise from shore once again. Good times….

Same day, different cove

bait ball

– productive day by the way, and I mean productive beyond how easy it was to observe wildlife – this time in Seal Bay. A juvenile Double-crested Cormorant was working a nice bait ball of fish trapped in a cove. The dark amorphous blob below the surface “undulated so much” and avoided the predator at all costs. The Cormorant disappeared within the murky waters, only could tell its position by the shape of the bait ball darkness. Pogies? The fish looked larger than super small when they banked and flashed, and I will be the first to admit I don’t know my salt water fish very well. So sure, yeah, it was pogies.

Anyway, it was fun to see and connect it with the porpoise in Perry creek earlier. Undoubtedly bait fish in that circumstance as well. Couldn’t see from the angle, but something was keeping those porpoise focused. Food seems like a likely reason.

looks like lobster was on this otters menu

Otter spraint for you!

Plus an otter video from Clark Island in St George – can’t resist but include this….

Mushrooms – a few highlights from this impressive mushroom season, Amanita muscaria was a favorite this fall….

Red-gilled Cort has had a season to remember, as many corts seem to have had.

unassuming ventral view

Here’s a photo gallery of some Red-gilleds I crossed paths with in the Basin recently. They were, and still are (fungus is year round) everywhere this year. Fun to imagine what’s going on underground hyphae wise.

And speaking of Corts – this unidentified Cortinarius species I crossed paths with in the basin had an unusual growth pattern, referred to as ‘Rosecomb’, where gills or what look to be gills growns on the top of the cap.

Seen this before with other species of mushroom, always an interesting look. See what you think….

young honey

Honey Mushrooms have shown up, but not in numbers that we’ve (the royal ‘we’ve’ again) seen in years past. So interesting to see what mushrooms have responded to this year’s wet patches, and which have not.

Anyway and always good to see, Honey Mushrooms are one of the coolest mushroom ‘species’, and I use that term lightly. A conglomerate of extremely closely related species, this group (or gang as I like to call them), they possess the titles of the ‘largest known (to humans) living being on earth’ as well as being edible (but not always agreeable). The honey groups consists of saprophytes that can turn parasitic when times are lean, and create ‘foxfire’ glowing in logs. So much going on with that species/group, with so much still to learn.

I love em, and I hardly eat wild mushrooms anymore. More of a pasta guy always have been.

Yellow-fairly cups teamed up with Purple jelly cups…these photos are cute and sweet, showing the more sensitive and shallow side of mushroom photography.

Anyway, both species are out and about.

Irregular earth tongues are a crowd favorite, and this year they have responded to the rains – unlike honeys! –and have turned up many patches….

irregular earth tongues

king bolete (and Corts) photobomb
irregular earth tongue photo shoot

Including this one that was honored by a visit from a King Bolete. We’re not worthy for sure.

Limited editions are out in numbers these days...

thank you hostess

Keep an eye peeled for them, even though eye peeling is gross

with his buddy Oliver

And photos of the boy, heading up mountains

And running races. He’s cut time off of each of his runs over the season , 3 minutes total so far (from 19:something to 16:something) in the 2.1 miles. anyway - he's having fun running.

Last race Thursday (today?) – we’ll report on that later.

But hey – we’ll see you out there! Fall is a beautiful time; let us hear what you are seeing!

that's what we've got for now....winter ducks coming up!

Rock on!

Friday, October 1, 2021

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report

October 1 2021

Yep. Another one just like that…

smooth green snake

Highlights – yellow billed cuckoo, mushrooms, snakes, woodland gnome, and other stuff….

Business - Contact us – hey – send yer photos, stories and all things nature to vinalhavensightings@gmail.com ! It’s fun to share, or at least I am told. So here is your chance!

Gnome wearing orange

Tiit trick – click on photos to magically have them grow and fill your screen! Try it with the woodland gnome shots – you won’t be disappointed!

PSA –it’s about that time of the year again, and maybe it’s technically that time already, but deer hunting on island, specifically white-tailed deer hunting, is happening and is going to be happening for the next few months. Hunting is allowed on most preserves on Vinalhaven, with Lane’s Island (and Armbrust Hill) being the notable exceptions.

This does mean you can’t visit the preserves during this time? No. In fact, it’s highly recommended that you do visit the trails as the next few months are some of the most beautiful times to be outside. But do yourself a favor and wear some orange – a hat, a scarf, a Hunter Pence SF Giants bright orange visitor jersey, whatever – so you can be seen at a distance. Nobody wants to shoot anyone (well, I shouldn’t speak for everyone) – or at least probably no one wants to shoot you, and no one wants to get shot (shouldn’t speak for everyone again) – but the bottom line is it’s an easy way to have one’s day ruined. So slap on some orange and take in the sights! And then share them! This northern woodland gnome is wearing orange, are you?

cool formations
photo by Banner Moffat

Sightings – Banner Moffat sent in this photo of some cool geology (‘that rocks!’) from Saddle Island off Isleboro (close enough!). He called it ‘columnar basalt’ and I say…sure. Sounds good and looks even better.

Here’s something I pulled up off the web about Columnar Basalt. Mixed in with a series of a Common Loon photos organizing things so this lobster can go down the hatch.

‘You are looking at a type of formation called columnar jointing. These columns of rock are most likely a volcanic rock called basalt. (Basalt makes up about 90% of all the lava rock on Earth.)…. It’s due to a physical process that can happen in melted lava rock as it cools.

Imagine a huge flow of hot, liquid magma that is settling. The outer layer is starting to cool and darken in color from orange to black. As it cools, it needs to shrink a bit, as hot materials usually take up more space than cooler ones. Because of this shrinking, the surface of the lava starts to crack. But this cracking isn’t always random.

clearly a lobster in the bill

In this case, the lava starts to crack into regular shapes. Those shapes are forming because of how the lava cools. It starts at different spots called “centers.” If those centers are evenly spaced, the forces that pull inward toward the centers end up creating different chunks of cooling lava that are hexagonal (6-sided), or close to it. The more uniform the material of the lava is (or basically how smooth and well mixed it is), the more evenly those centers pull. That means it is more likely it will cool into hexagonal chunks. Scientists also think that faster cooling, like when lava is exposed to water, may also help with the formation of these columns.

These chunks begin to form at the top layer of the lava, which is cooling the fastest. As lower levels of the lava start to cool, they are also pulled into the shape under each center. In this way, you get lava cooling and contracting down into these cylinders. It usually begins to shape from the top down into the middle or even bottom of the lava flow. This is how really tall cylinders can form. And even when the material is a bit irregular, these cylinders can still form. They just might not be hexagons… instead of 6, they might have 5 or 7 sides, or a more irregular shape.’ Arizona State University ‘Ask a Scientist’ section of their website.

And so I am no geologist at all, but if there is a geologist in the house – is this what’s going on/gone on in this photo? Either way – cool shot!

Beth Gilford spotted her first Yellow-billed Cuckoo on Vinalhaven (VVNM) which is awesome. Cuckoos are one of those birds (ok – two of those birds (species!)) where timing, patience and a bit of luck come together for a sighting. Cuckoos can be ‘somewhat slothy’ (full on exaggeration) at times in behavior - moving slow, sitting on a branch for what seems like an eternity watching as observers and people from all walks of life walk by. Some years you see them – I saw 4 last year, all because I was searching for things completely different – and most years (in my opinion) you don’t – like the 5 or 6 years prior. So many more tent and web caterpillar formations in the trees these days may not look the best to some, but to Cuckoos the webs are strategic location snack bars, like all snack bars should be. More webs = more cuckoo sightings? Can only hope so! Cool sighting either way!

Quick update from John Drury – Greens Island - yellow-billed cuckoo, blackpoll warbler, blue-headed vireo, black and white warbler, yellow bellied sapsucker, ruby crowned kinglet, Phoebe, parula, Myrtles, Palmer warblers

Mammals – White tailed deer in the harbor. Spotted from the back of an afternoon ferry.

These two chilled and feasted while the ferry warmed up

Cat on the roof – this is ‘moonshadow’ and he had to be physically removed from the roof of my car one morning on island. This was to avoid injury to him.

This headless harbor seal was seen floating around Lane’s Island at some point not too long ago. And still may be.

Kinda gross, huh?

Perry Creek - Legendary hike with legendary executive director Linnell Mather (9/21) turned up three Smooth Green Snakes on the tree, all on the return trip from Orchard Cove and the loop there.

I snagged a few shots of this particular one – the third one we crossed paths with and the only one that hung out for any while. North Perry Creek – best spot I know on island for Smooth Green Snake!

random goldenrod video

salmon unicorn entoloma. 'SUE'

And of course…there were mushrooms to be observed along the way.

This is the year of Salmon Unicorn Entoloma! – these old friends (relationship status may or may not be reciprocated by fungi) have had quite a summer/fall stretch. Month 3 of seeing these guys! What a year!