Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report

January 30, 2022

Happy Birthday Grandma!

 

 Thanks to MCHT and VLT

Highlights – Northern Harrier, Ice, tracking including otter stuff, belted kingfisher, golden-crowned kinglets, other stuff…

 

Business – contact us! – vinalhavensightings@gmail.com – easy-peasy! Send in your photos, stories, questions and queries. Sharing is good, even if your heart tells you otherwise.

 

Tiit Trick – click those photos to jumbo-size them! Fill up your screen with otter slides! Go ahead! We’ll wait for you!

 

mink tracks

Tracking walk Update – well, in case you couldn’t figure it out, yesterday morning’s tracking walk was postponed until next Saturday – Feb 5! My dad’s birthday no less (miss you Dad). This is the second postponement due to weather, and the 5^th is the ‘last chance’ type of thing. SOOOOOO – we’ll you see next Saturday!

 

Sightings – Cay Kendrick spotted a Northern Harrier at the ball ground recently. Seems like a good winter for raptors and predators around. Lots of vole activity around. These are the best of times.

 

Belted Kingfisher(s) – a least one male Belted Kingfisher is hanging around so far this winter. I have seen on each trip in January at the basin bridge, old harbor bridge and the ferry terminal. Seems like it could be one, but it also could be more than one. Like two or three even! What a world, I know…..

 

Not the first winter one/some Kingfishers have hung on as long as he/they could. Is it a case of ‘first one back is first one to breed’? If life were only so organized. Anyway, we’ll keep watching to see if it sticks.

 

otter tracks
photo by Miles Ditzler

Otter stuff – Miles Ditzler was kind enough to send in these photos of otter sign he, Oakley Jackson and Sam Rosen came across on Greens Island last Wednesday. Belly slides and trails that led to a ‘new’ den (new for human knowledge as far as I know).

 

otter den
photo by Miles Ditzler

From the amount of tracks and activity it looks like multiple otters in this group. Thanks to Miles for sending in the photos.

 

otter belly slides
photo by Miles Ditzler

Excellent work gentlemen! Snow is a fantastic medium to find otter dens and latrines.

 

Look for the slides! Follow those trails, take those photos, and share those photos!

 

Lairey's Island Otter Activity

And Speaking of otters - I was on the 7am ferry out of Rockland Thursday (1/27) and was able to track some otter activity along the ferry route. The otter latrine on Lairey’s Island showed sign of lots of activity with belly slides and what looked like spraint – could not get the captain to pull up for a closer view. No trails led to the historic den in the vicinity.

 

Norton's Point Otter Activity

Greens island – two sections of shoreline of otter slides (both new to me) could be seen from the ferry this day. Photos of neither spot turned out good, which doesn’t matter at all. More important – two new places to look as the ferry passes through great otter habitat! Not where Ditzler took his photos.

 

Norton's Point Otter Activity 
notice belly slides on the right

The otter spots on greens that I could see from the ferry did not show sign of multiple otters, but rather one. Could it be the legendary Rex from years past? Fair chance.

Norton Point – the classic otter latrine below the ol’ ‘Worst Ever’ foundation (now with a lovely dwelling on top!) was showing lots of sign otter activity. Look at all that sliding!

 

Can you see the 'C'

Once again, this scene looked to have been visited by multiple otters with a couple of slides leading to the latrine and a wide activity zone that bottlenecked to a slide back into the ocean.

 

Strawberry Island – this trail was a peculiar one in that a single (not relationship status) otter came up to the beach, slid in a large arc and headed back out to sea! A view from above would have shown a big ‘C’. Here’s the best shot I could get from the ferry.

 

Black-legged Kittiwake

Too much fun otter tracking from the ferry! Winter ferry rides are the best.

 

Also from the ferry – Ye Olde-taled Ducks, Common Loons, Black-legged Kittiwakes, Common Eider, Black Guillemots, Red-breasted Merganser, Harbor Seal, Surf Scoter, Bufflehead.

 

Common Loon

Around island – Ravens acting up, but when aren’t they?

 

Golden-crowned Kinglets seem to be everywhere in the woods.

 

mink bounding trail

Visit to Huber. Lots of Mink trails, between the limited data seen at Huber and in the Basin it looks to be a ‘good’ winter for mink on island. This is nice (for me) because I rarely see sign of them on the mainland. And it’s good for the mink!

 

mink tracks and seal bay

snowshoe hare tracks

Not surprising that Snowshoe Hare tracks and trails seemed to be in big numbers too. Got to have that prey if you are going to have predators. Not a good nor evil thing – unless they are getting into your chicken coop maybe – but more of a food web kind of thing.

 

deer trail

Basin – Mink, Snowshoe Hare, Deer, Golden-crowned Kinglets.

Great to be on Old Harbor Pond again. Old stompin’ grounds.

 

Before snow – fire cracklin’ the last of ‘cabin #2 wood’.

 

Can’t get enough of Shaq!

 

Cat puzzle. Understanding and respecting diversity through cat puzzles. I don’t see the Estonian cat though

 

Limited edition – ultimate chocolate. Bold statement, many shades of brown in that cookie. ‘probably looks better on the way out’ – Ace Ventura

 

Leif looking all sharp on game day. Having a great time with middle school basketball.

 

 

Hey - see you out there!

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report – January 13 2022

 

A quick update…..’and after all that’….

 

Rescheduling the tracking walk - Looks pretty cold for Saturday morning, and windy too. Forecasted temperature for 9am (aka ‘showtime’) is 3 degrees with 20+ mph winds. While we (the royal ‘we’) will likely be outside at that time, it doesn’t sound like an even moderately comfortable time to be on Lane’s. Sooooooooooooooo

 

We are moving the tracking walk to January 29^th – two weeks down the road when undoubtedly the weather will be ‘better’!?! Well, its likely to be more comfortable. We have Feb 5 (dad’s b-day) as a final, last resort/chance back up.

 

Okay – a photo and a couple of videos of predacious diving beetle larvae I took through the ice today (yesterday) on the marsh out back behind where I live in St George. the bottom one is of a larvae eating a caddisfly larvae - larvae eating larvae!

 

They call it the marsh. Hope the videos work!

 

been chilly. from Clark Island 
on the mainland

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report – January 12 2022

Happy New Year!

 

Highlights – Snowy Owl, Animal tracking, Razorbill, Ducks and a little bit more

 

gannet working the rough seas
photo by John Drury

Business - Tracking outing – Hey – this Saturday, Jan 15, at 9am – VLT in ca-hoots with MCHT is/are offering an animal tracking outing. Folks will be meeting at Skoog Park at 9am, but the walk will be starting at Lanes, so feel free to meet over there if that’s more convenient for you. Don’t think they’ll be much carpooling. Anyway – We’re going to see what we can find for animal sign out there in ‘the paradise that is known as Lane’s Island’. If it’s not too cold they’ll be a bunch of stories about stuff I’ve seen over the years out there as well. Alright – there you have it & see you there!!!

guillemots
photo by John Drury

 

Contact us – this edition of the VSR literally would not have been possible without observers sending in and sharing their reports and photos. See something you think is cool? Send it in to vinalhavensightings@gmail.com and we’ll let you know it its cool! Just kidding, if you think its cool its cool! Anyway, sharing is nice

 

a rather pale Great Cormorant
photo by John Drury

Tiit trick – hey – click on the photos and they become jumbo sized. It honors my dad every time you do! Just saying…

A request - Inspired by a photo sent in this round - and trust me, we never get inspired as a rule - we are making a request for photos of people (of all things!). For photos to be accepted the person or peoples must share the glory of the photo with a sign of an animal. Details below! Somewhere..

 

betula bird

The photos you see in this VSR post….some are throw backs to a great summer(ish)  from John Drury,  (sightingsfromskua.blogspot.com). Others by me have actually been taken ‘off island’ (yeah, that place), from mid-coast Maine to be exact. There is much overlap between here and there, things that could just as well be seen/photographed on island. Anyway – enjoy!

 

otter belly slide - going away
photo by Dylan Jackson

Sightings – Dylan Jackson was kind enough to send in these photos of an otter trail with slide up Zeke’s Point way. Snow makes tracking so much more enjoyable than spending hours around a drying puddle (much of California tracking in my jaded, biased experience), and Dylan spotted this trail on an evening walk.

 

bounding otter heading to 
belly slide
photo by Dylan Jackson

He mentioned that the trail really stood out as the sun went further out of view, which I thought was a cool observation. The tracks were obviously there during the day, but bright sun on the snow can make for a little snow blindness, where angles and shadows of a trail might be harder to see/notice.

 

Anyway, I (the royal ‘I’) was at Clark Island in St George at the same time tracking three otters there and was finding the same thing there.  The trails were catching shadows and were a downright pleasure to follow! Thanks for sharing Dylan!

 

Snowy Owl – Dylan also mentioned that he had crossed paths with a Snowy Owl up Zeke’s Point way a few weeks ago. He mentioned being impressed with the owl’s size, of which they are huge. Keep yes eyes out for ‘em, apparently this is a good winter for snowies…..we are big fans and advocates of big winters for snowies even though that usually means they are pretty hungry and in further search for food.

 

great 'capture' of classic raccoon
alternating feet trail pattern 
waddle thing
photo by Cay Kendrick

Raccoon at Perry Creek! – Cay Kendrick sent in a couple of shots of raccoon trails she followed up at North Perry Creek (our official favorite place on island). Cay’s photos captured the distinct trail pattern of the raccoon’s waddle. As ‘Big Al’ told me – ‘they move the legs on the same side of their body at the same time. So you end up with an alternating pattern of big hind foot and smaller front foot in the trail. Also, bald is beautiful, I wish my head would do that’. Well, dreams can come true! I think  I was more or less paraphrasing there, rather than quoting. But we leave the quotes up! 

 

classic raccoon trail
photo by Cay Kendrick 

Anyway, the waddle pattern is obvious from the photos. This is a good pattern to familiarize yourself with if you are interested in learning about the animal trails on island. There isn’t a diverse array of mammal species on island, so if you know deer, red squirrel, snowshoe hare and raccoon you are well on your way to recognizing the majority of animal trails you might find in the woods on island. Learn ‘em and become the master of your domain!

 

otter spraint in foreground
humans in background
photo by John Drury

John Drury also reports much otter spraint at historic latrines on Greens. 

And so ..... We love pictures of spraint and people! Officially asking for pictures of people and any sign of animals. Could be a smiley face next to woodpecker holes in a trees,  a pile of discarded partially eaten seeds, cones or fruit, or a big ol' pile of spraint! Heck, we'd even post a photo of a group of friends next to a (naturally) dead seal! Get your mugg in the VSR and educated others to what's been going on! its a win-win! I think this will be an ongoing request.

more from John Drury report – (1/6) Greens - Razorbill in Highflyer cove foraging, Black guillemot eating what looked to be a crab. Common Loon, Red-breasted Merganser, black scoter, and Black-legged Kittiwake, also Ring-Billed Gull,

 

 

golden crowned kinglet

The Reach - Crows, goldfinch, bufflehead, Ye Olde-tale Ducks

 

The Basin - Bufflehead, Red-breasted mergansers, olde tales, loons, seal, crows, black guillemot.

 

Thanks for the report John! Sounds like a great day!

 

boy breaking ice

And so here we are, posting the 2^nd VSR in history where I don’t have any sightings from the VSR editorial crew themselves (or more correctly, from myself). Car issues held me back last week, but I’ll be on island the next couple of days but I also wanted to get this report posted soon in case anyone is interested in the walk this Saturday and may not have heard about it.

So there you have it and…

 

 here's two videos of how we spent a quarantine christmas 

Anyway – I thank those who sent sightings for this report – keep ‘em coming! There’s always plenty to see out there, and we love to hear about what you are seeing!

 

And hey – see you out there!