June 30: Youngsters

The other day a very motley-looking titmouse alit on my feeder. Instead of the smooth, plain gray that most titmice sport, this bird was patchy, with brown streaking on its belly and odd feathers sticking out here and there. It took me a few seconds to realize this was a fledgling, recently out of the nest. Already it has learned what a bird feeder is and how to make good use of it. Young-looking chickadees have been appearing at my feeder, as well.

This morning a catbird fledgling was perched on a post at the end of the driveway, whining to another bird waiting in a nearby tree. While the size of a mature bird, it too was a bit ragged around the edges, its sleek adult plumage not yet fully grown in. I've been hearing a catbird singing fragments of song outside my window the past week or so, and now wonder if that bird was a youngster--this one or a nest-mate--practicing its new singing voice.

Meanwhile, at river's edge, a young crow caws with an insistent, whiny pitch that any parent around the world would recognize as begging. On the river, a flotilla of geese, a few smaller and less distinctly patterned than the rest, heads upstream in a tight bunch.

And earlier this week, my two nieces, age three and six, returned to Maine with my sister and brother-in-law to spend the summer at their camp on a nearby lake.

Encouraged by warmth,
young birds try out new feathers,
children learn to swim. 

June 29: Scolding

My co-worker has been occasionally bringing her dog Chester to work. This afternoon Chester was tied up outside the office door, where he spent most of his time lying on the porch facing a big bush. A few minutes ago, I heard a loud, repeated chip note from this bush, an unusual sound for this part of the yard. On closer scrutiny, I spied the noisemaker, a male Common Yellowthroat. This tiny bird, smaller than the palm of my hand, was perched on a high branch of the bush and looking right at Chester, scolding the dog with a repeated "alarm" chip. He carried on like that for over five minutes, his fervor diminishing over time, until eventually he gave up trying to warn Chester away from the bush and flew off.

This wasn't a territorial thing, because the bird doesn't live in that bush, which is so close to my office window that I would have heard him singing loudly and often. At least one yellowthroat lives in the shrubs along the edge of the lawn, however. My guess is that the bird noticed the dog and chose to bravely fly up to confront it, or at least to make enough noise that others in the area would be alerted to the dog's presence. 

Chester didn't budge during any of this. I'm not sure he even registered that an assertive little warbler was making a lot of noise right over his head, let alone that he himself was the cause. 

Even I can tell 

the bird's sounding an alarm,

chipping, "Watch out! Dog!"  

June 28: First Monarch

In a calm between storms, we observed the first Monarch butterfly of the season flitting around the milkweed patch we let grow wild in the office yard. Monarchs depend on milkweed for much of their life cycle. They lay their eggs on the plants, their caterpillars feed almost entirely on milkweed leaves, and their butterflies sip nectar (though not exclusively) from milkweed flowers. 

Because milkweed contains toxic cardenolides in its sap, this diet renders both the caterpillar and the adult insect poisonous. A bird that eats one will throw up. I've seen a merlin catch a Monarch and then immediately spit it out in mid-air, so the bug must have a bitter taste. It's believed that the distinctive orange and black coloring of the adult Monarch, as well as the jaunty black-and-yellow stripes of the caterpillar, are meant to indicate that this creature shouldn't be messed with--along the same lines as the vivid colors of the poison arrow frogs of the Amazon.

The colors also make the Monarch easily recognizable to those of us who might be quickly scanning a yard to see what's blooming and buzzing. We noted a lack of Monarchs at this time last year, when they'd have been laying eggs, and in early fall, when they migrate. The milkweed stands ready. Hopefully it will host a healthy flock (what is a group of butterflies called?) this summer.

Oozing with toxins,
the milkweed awaits visits
from bright butterflies.

June 27: Purple finch

I'm wearing an elaborate purple finch barrette in my hair today, an accessory that I bought over 20 years ago when I was still in college in Vermont, dressing in tie-dyes and Guatemalan prints like a hippie wannabe. The barrette suited the person I was then, though it's a little much for everyday wear now that I'm older and, sadly, more conservative in my tastes. But as I was putting up my hair this morning, I remembered it was stashed in the bottom of my closet. Yesterday a female purple finch visited my feeders at the office for the first time--usually I get the more urban house finches--so I decided to wear my funky work-of-art barrette in homage of her special visit. 

My creative hair piece seems to have worked some sort of magic of attraction--this morning the male purple finch showed up at my feeder in all his glory. Unlike the plainer, brown-striped female, the male is bright raspberry, as if he were held by his brown tail and dipped headfirst into the berry's pink juice. Very striking and colorful, just like my barrette:

This barrette is probably bigger than an actual purple finch. And yes, the photo's crooked, but do you know how hard it is to photograph the back of your own head?

If my barrette can
summon finches, what shall I
wear in my hair next?

June 26: The heavens opened

I know I've been mentioning the weather a lot lately, but, well, this is Maine, and we really focus on the weather here--in part, because so many of us like to be outside, in part because the natural landscape and what's happening in it are important to us.

Also, it's sometimes unavoidable. A minute ago it suddenly started raining so loudly and so hard that it sounded like thunder drumming on the roof. A curtain of water gushes off the eaves, and a poor goldfinch perches in the feeder looking out, trying to decide if he wants to fly through that deluge or not. So far, not. Now, real thunder adds to the clamor. Meanwhile, the calm drone of voices continues in the conference room. Even when the heavens open, dumping buckets of rain, life goes on.

Parts of Penobscot County had flood warnings this morning, according to the emergency weather alert that came over public radio this morning. Seems like several mornings' classical music programs have been interrupted by weather alerts lately, thanks to a series of storms moving through. Ah, summer in Maine...

The world's a green room
with water as its ceiling,
water for its floor.

June 25: Before the rainfall

Was just poised in that moment right before you know rain is imminent, feeling the wind pick up a little and the air pressure shift, when someone called the office from southern Maine and asked if it was raining here yet. Right as he asked that, as if he invoked them, the first drops began to fall and thunder rumbled overhead. And now it's pouring. 


Before the rain falls
four crows fly into the trees,
sheltered now by green.

June 24: Pairs

Our drive down the coast from Camden to South Portland was punctuated by the sight of quite a few pairs of ospreys. Every time we approached a body of water--the St. George River, Sherman Lake, Great Salt Bay in Damariscotta, Back Bay in Portland--we'd see the brown and white fish hawks circling overhead. In Bath, we saw one on the nest in the Route One median strip. We even watched a couple of ospreys flying together over Portland harbor from our outside table at El Rayo, a Mexican restaurant in Portland. (We also noted, roadside, one bald eagle, two red-tails, and two broad-winged hawks.)

The year's young are hatched out and growing fast in the nests, so parent birds are fishing for more than themselves now. The sacrifices of parenthood take on a different perspective when they involve spending all your waking hours flying over the water and catching fish.

Blue sky, blue water--
ospreys best enjoy both realms
fishing together.

June 23: Breaching the dam

I watched footage taken this morning of excavators breaching the Great Works Dam, sited on the Penobscot River just south of Indian Island, home of the Penobscot tribe. This is the largest ever river restoration project in North America. Veazie Dam will also be demolished starting next year, clearing the last obstacle between young salmon and the sea along the ancient path of the river. I found myself staring at the screen for long minutes, fascinated as any child by the dinosaur-like efforts of the big yellow excavators as they picked their way over to the dam and began shredding it apart--as well as by the widening stream of water pouring through cracks and openings in the old walls. This dam removal is a truly historic occasion, one that will help restore balance to one of Maine's great rivers.

The Penobscot River feeds Penobscot Bay, the western shores of which include my town. If you look at a map of Maine, Penobscot Bay is the big v-shaped divot in the middle of the coastline. This amazing project lengthens our ties by water to interior Maine--soon, you will be able to get there from here once more. And more importantly, fish will, too, without having to be trucked there from the base of these dams. There's something about a free-running river flowing unfettered to the sea that stirs the soul--the freedom of the water and what lives in it, yes, but also the relinquishment of control, the removal of obstructions--the wild nature of water.

We free the water
and remember all that flows
through those wide blue veins.

June 22: Morning thunder

Morning thunder: sounds like the name of an herbal tea. I woke a bit disoriented to the rumblings of thunder this morning. It took me a few minutes to figure out what I was hearing behind the higher-pitched whining of juvenile (delinquent) crows--was it something in the house? Was it a truck outside? And why wouldn't it let me just sleep a few minutes more?

By the time I was done with breakfast, the storm had opened its rain gates, wet the streets, and moved on eastward over the mountains.

Morning thunderstorm
washes streets clean, freshens air
to start the day right.

June 21: Leeches

Some days I really love my job. This afternoon I got to join my director and some volunteers on a site visit by canoe to a property along a pond in Waldo County. We paddled across the pond and up a narrowing, winding inlet, enjoying the birds and other wildlife along the way.

Dragonflies and butterflies dipped in the reeds and cattails. Marsh wrens chattered from shrubs, while swamp sparrows trilled unseen and blackbirds flashed their red epaulettes. A great blue heron flew in and perched on a nearby tree as we paddled past. Along the pond's edges, bullhead lilies and water arum bloomed.

Water Arum

Green frogs croaked like banjos from within the reeds, and in the shallower water, we could see foot-long small-mouth bass lurking in the shadows. Along the inlet, we startled a deer getting a drink, a buck in velvet, and where he'd been, we noticed a beaver trail over which beavers had been dragging trees to enhance their lodge. 

At one point we had to make a short portage over a pile of rocks augmented by beavers--not the hop over sticks pictured above--and it was there I noticed the leeches. They were several inches long, with red bellies, and moved through the water like pieces of ribbon unfurling. I'm not normally a fan of leeches, but today I found them worth watching. Perhaps it was the influence of the landscape around me on this beautiful afternoon. On another day, in another setting, they'd have undoubtedly been creepy--or if one had attached to my foot while I was standing in the shallow water, hauling on the canoe. But today, I found them fascinating. 

See the leech, above the white thing in the lower left?

Even a leech has
its good points: grace in water,
a rouge-red belly.

June 20: Solstice snow

Tonight at 7:09 EDT we officially celebrate Summer Solstice, the longest day, the first day of summer. As if on cue, a heat wave has rolled in, bringing some of the first hot weather we've experienced in months. The air is positively sultry, and you won't hear me complaining. We get too little of this in Maine to whine about it.

Which is why it's ironic that this morning I experienced a snow shower. Maybe "snow" is not quite accurate, but the locust tree's flower petals scattering down upon my parents and me as we stood in their driveway sure looked like snow. The hypnotizing swirl of white "flakes" tossed over our heads by the breeze certainly looked like a snow shower, too, but the blue sky and the 80-degree air caressing our bare arms contradicted what our eyes were telling us. Not snow, flowers raining down on our heads, petals sprinkling over the green grass of summer. Our Solstice blessing from the black locust.

Not lotus: locust.
But its white petals also
convey a blessing.