Vinalhaven Sightings

Welcome to the Vinalhaven Sightings Report

July 2 2022

Highlights – Spider babies, Red Crossbills, Boat Trips, Butterflies, Firefly Fornication, Slime Molds, etc....

Business- Eyes wide open – please keep ‘em open for sightings of seabirds/ducks acting weird. Jamus Drury sent in this video of a Common Eider duck acting strangely – head turned and spinning in curcles. Ends up there is Avian Flu just down the road, down tide? – Casco Bay way – and it looks as if it may have spread to Penobscot Bay as well. We’ll keep you posted as this story develops, but please send in reports/sightings that may show signs of disease in gulls or eiders. Doesn’t have to be a selfie at all. As if the Eiders need something else to deal with.

video by Jamus Drury

quite a few baby Black Ducks around

Contact us! – hey – it’s great to share, and it’s even greater to share if you share here! Whether that statement is right or wrong, here we are asking with open arms for your photos, your sightings, your stories – be them correct or way out there – and make a legacy for yourself. That’s all we have to offer – your eternal legacy as the person who took a selfie next to spraint! vinalhavensightings@gmail.com is your one stop sharing ….. stop!

a lighthouse, an island,
and a star

Tiit trick – click on the photos and make them jumbo – sized. Make the slime molds what nightmares are made of! Click again to make less scary.

Skua

Quick plug - This is a photo of the vessel ‘Skua’. Captain John Drury is ready to drive this vessel to Seal Island, Matinicus Rock and wherever else birds and sea life can be found. Always an adventure and always loads to see!

So check out John’s blog – sightingsfromskua.blogspot.com – and Reserve your spot on a trip today!

lanes island catbird
just a splash view of that red vent!

Upcoming/ongoing events – VLT’s Thursday morning Bird walks are, well, every Thursday from here through September. 8am at Skoog Park/VLT Headquarters. Here’s the list from last week’s walk - American crow, American Goldfinch, American kestrel, American redstart, American robin, Bald eagle, Belted kingfisher, Black-capped chickadee, Black-throated green warbler (heard), Cedar waxwing, Common eider, Common tern, Common yellowthroat, Double-crested cormorant, Great black-backed gull, Great blue heron, Herring gull, Mourning dove, Northern parula, Osprey, Red-breasted nuthatch, Red-breasted merganser, Ring-necked pheasant (heard), Song sparrow, Turkey vulture, White-throated sparrow, Yellow warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler

baby spiders
photo by Banner Moffatt

Sightings – Banner Moffatt was kind enough to send in this photo of recently hatched spider babies (spider babes?). Here’s the quote from Banner on this ….

‘They skitter around within their webbing seemingly exploring the edges of where the web extends and at the slightest disturbance all huddle together in a ball at the center. After a day or so over a very short space of time (a couple hours?), they all disappear – I assume they all go off on their own to make their way in the world.’

Very cool Banner! Thanks for sharing!

ovenbird

Tweeters with young – Golden-crowned Kinglets around island – or at least at the preserves I’ve been visiting – have been feeding fledglings like crazy! Lots of chatter as the youngster constantly remind the parents that they are alive and hungry. Song sparrows and Red-breasted Nuthatches have also been chatty with youngsters. Black ducks are around island with youngsters as well!

yellow warbler

Tweeters Singing – singing has slowed down a bit with nests full of youngsters to attend to, but still hearing a lot in the woods – here’s a list – Golden-crowned Kinglet, Brown Creeper, Song and White-crowned Sparrow, Ovenbird, Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Black and white, Yellow rumped, Yellow, Magnolia, and Blackburnian warblers, Northern Parula, Common Yellowthroat, American Redstart, Winter Wren, Hermit Thrush, American Robin, Red-eyed Vireo, Catbird, American Goldfinch.

red crossbill silhouette

Heads up for Crossbills! – The last week has been good for Red Crossbills, both on island and off. In fact, I am now at 10 out of the last 11 days for seeing/hearing Red Crossbills! Not a lot, not overwhelming like in 2008, groups of 5 or 6 maybe, but enough to get excited about (any is enough to get excited about!). Haven’t heard singing, but listen for their bubbly, popping finch calls and then check the tops of spruce/conifer trees around. Also worth a look!

wolfs milk slime

Slime molds – with some sporadically, thinly scattered rains the woods have dry, but there has been a flush of slime molds. More in the next VSR but have to mention the Wolf’s milk slime….

Tapioca Slime

And Tapioca slimes in the woods these days.

Jane couldn't help herself!

So much and so hard to deny – here’s an action photo of Jane Arbuckle taking a photo of a Tapioca Slime on island last week or so ago.

this herring gull is going through a
symmetrical molt on its secondary feathers.
note the shorter feathers along the trailing edge
on both wings. molt is cool -
thats what bald people tell themselves

Ferry action – Harbor Porpoise and Seal, Black Guillemot, Razorbill, Common Eiders, Laughing and …

head first herring gull

Herring Gulls. – (6/25) 8:45 to Rockland - Dead calm, and I mean that like a ‘good dead’ kind of calm/thing - it was refreshing to finally be on one of the first two boats heading off Vinalhaven – the lighting is best for observing on those early boats heading off island. So even if June isn’t the time of highest critter diversity from the ferry it’s still great for ‘Observable nature stuff’ – ONS, if you will. November is best for diversity, but it is what it is. What a whiner, right?

body under water, wings active above

The scattered, large surface ovals of ripples were sure sign of bait fish – Pogies, American menhaden - gathering not too far below. And from the looks of it, there were plenty of fish schools along the ferry route – so many Pogie groups to see!. Many of these action areas had a Harbor Porpoise working the school, where others had a Gull filling in the top predatorship position.

hot pursuit

So here’s a photo series of one of these Herring Gulls doing their thing by diving over and over again. Saw different stuff in the photos than in the flesh. It was cool.

american copper

Calderwood Island – ‘just off the little thorofare’ – beautiful island that I am fortunate to steward. Couple shots of the many, many butterflies on island – American Copper

great spangled fritillary

and Great Spangled Fritillary.

And some views…. Always a great visit to Calderwood.

the shed

Quick story – Fire Fly Fornication Fun (FFFF) - So, the MCHT shed is often, at times, the ‘center of the universe’ for my weekly island work visits. It’s not necessarily centrally located on the island, but is easy to plan a visit around convenient check ins with the building to re-supply or drop off stuff as needed. Can’t thank Tom and Patience Chamberlin enough for their support of the MCHT barn. Thanks! (not enough, I know!).

the tired

Anyway, (6/22 7:48pm) when dropping off tools at the shed, but before getting the inflatable prepped for an early morning boat ride to Calderwood (see above), I noticed a pair of Fireflies/Lightening Bugs mating on the old tire I use to prop the shed door open. Classic habitat.

I caught some video – they didn’t seem to mind (is this what that person meant by respecting animals privacy?).

And then an ant tried to break them up and I figured I would leave them alone.

½ hour later (8:15pm) I was ready to close shop and head over to visit with Pat and I noticed that the fire flies were still at it – assuming it was the same pair. I was impressed.

Now, when taking videos like this it’s less about observing in the moment, and more about keeping the camera steady and trying not to breathe too hard so it sounds creepy in the background of the video. I literally hold my breath during these 10 second clips, which I think keeps me steadier. And sometimes I get a ‘freebie’ as a result. Win-win, so it goes….

Anyway – I ‘caught’ some more video and only looking at them later did I realize what I had ‘captured’. While there were extended moments where the male and the female were ‘connected’, were ‘as one’ in more than just the biblical sense, a lot of the time he is actually ‘missing’ with his ‘pokey thing’ (male part that inserts – insect penis?). And at one point he misses so bad that he drags his ‘pokey thing’ across her ‘lantern’ and she jumps a bit at this feeling.

I showed this video to a select few before posting here, while slightly guiding the observers as to what was going on. The majority took the female fire fly jump as an excited touch – almost like a sensual tickle. My take was her jumping in a way that said – ‘Nope, you missed’, ‘not even close’ or ‘that’s not right!’.

Anyway, a big thing with Fireflies is their courtship right? The whole blinky thing we see in the evenings in June as really horny Fire Flies blink around looking to mate. That’s pretty much the bottom line, correct? Firefly mating, such as what was ‘steaming up the tire scene’ is the result of the blinking light in the dark thing and probably at least a dash of pheromones.

that'll do fireflies, that'll do

But if mating such as this is dependent on the ceremonial ‘blinking of lights’, than that would mean these two had been ‘together’ for potentially the entire day , way beyond the limited 30 minutes span on the tire I had noticed. Needless to say, I was happy for them both. Not to anthropomorphize too much, but I was impressed. They are still at it as far as I know.