THE BACK STORY -

Quill Pigs and Blue Jay Kabobs- A Five Course Meal

2011-12-22T02:47:00.013-05:00

     This is a re-posting of a blog from 2009. Sometimes, I like to look back at old work. I hope you do, too. ' Tis the season for nostalgia!

    I love cooking shows. One of my favorites is the cooking competition “Iron Chef,” in which a challenger competes against a previously chosen champion. The chefs must create a five-course meal in one hour using a ‘secret ingredient.’ At the last minute, the show’s creator, with a dramatic, theatrical flourish, reveals the secret ingredient. The competition points are based on flavor, presentation and creativity in the use of said secret ingredient. Each course, including desert, must contain the secret ingredient, which can be something obscure like Sea Squirts. Often, the secret ingredient sounds incompatible with all of the necessary courses.
     I just watched an episode where asparagus was served as an ice cream. Asparagus used as an appetizer, deep-fried and adorned with a chip of fried pancetta made me drool, but they lost me on the green ice cream. So now, ladies and gentlemen, I reveal to you the secret ingredient - PORCUPINE!
   One of my favorite dishes made by my mother was “Porcupines.” There wasn’t any porcupine in it, only meat balls made with rice in them. The ends of the rice stuck out of the meat resembling the quills of the porcupine. As a kid, I loved the adventurous idea of eating a porcupine, though to date, I have not.
     Endemic to the Old and New Worlds, porcupines are the third largest rodents on the planet, coming in behind Capybaras and beavers, which are all edible (I’ve eaten Capybara and it’s delicious). Porcupine is generally only eaten in desperation as it’s fatty and mineraly tasting. The wood pulp, bark and leaves they consume are astoundingly high in potassium imparting that flavor to the meat. One of the reasons they are so destructive is that they constantly seek sodium to offset the potassium they consume. In addition to trees, they eat ax handles, gloves, or anything else that has absorbed salt from sweat.
     The word porcupine comes from the French porc d’epine or “thorny pork.” Consistent with the reputation of the pig, the ‘Quill Pig” has a voracious appetite. Because tree parts have less than 2% crude protien, less than most breakfast cereals, porkies have to eat a lot! The greatest wild predator of the porcupine is the Fisher. To avoid the quills, they circle the porcupine repeatedly biting its vulnerable face until it succumbs. A Quill Pig can have 30,000 spines, each with a viciously sharp point and barbed end.
     The quills of North American porkies are two to four inches long, but the African Crested Porcupine’s spines are eight to sixteen inches long!    Long ago, the shafts of birds’ feathers were used as pens called ‘quills’ for their resemblance to hollow porcupine quills. The African porky quill could surely be used as a pen. Porcupines do not throw quills, contrary to popular belief. When threatened, they raise the spines up to make themselves look bigger and will run backwards towards an attacker. Easily loosened from the porky the quills quickly lodge into the attacker’s flesh. Working their way inward at the rate of an inch a day, the quills can be fatal.
    There are reports of Great Horned Owls, Ruffed Grouse, deer, bears, pigs, even a trout, and of course, dogs with embedded quills. I have not found reports of any Blue jays with quills, so this one that appeared at my feeders, may be for the record books.
   Omnivorous Blue jays are also hogs of a kind. I have had an enormous flock of 30-45 of them at my feeders this past week. I’ve had to put food out twice a day to keep up with them and they have driven off most of the other feeder birds. To slow them down a little and to amuse myself, I took a whole peanut in the shell and tied dental floss around the middle, securing the end to the feeder. The Jays try repeatedly to take the peanut only to be hauled backward. It doesn’t hurt them, only humiliates them. I wouldn’t hurt them, no matter how much they ate. I wouldn’t hurt a porcupine, either, though they have chewed on my house in the past. However, I do wonder how they would all taste in a savory pie.

A Blue jay kabob with quill skewer - yum!

With thanks to Wikipedia and Marty Stouffer's Wild America

Woods, Charles (1984). Macdonald, D.. ed. The Encyclopedia of Mammals. New York: Facts on File. pp. 686–689. ISBN 0-87196-871-1.
Macdonald (Ed), Professor David W. (2006). The Encyclopedia of Mammals. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-920608-2.

FLYday- American Black Ducks

2011-12-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

American Black ducks take flight in snow, Phippsburg Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Ruby-throated Hummingbird

2011-12-02T01:03:00.004-05:00

Ruby Throated hummingbird, female feeding at Impatiens

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

SCENIC SUNDAY- Phippsburg, Maine

2011-11-27T01:49:00.000-05:00

The Branch, Small Point Harbor, Phippsburg Maine

November 2011

SCENIC SUNDAY - Tip Toe Mountian, Vinalhaven Maine

2011-11-20T03:54:00.001-05:00

View from atop Tip Toe Mountain, looking down on Crockett Cove, Vinalhaven Island, Maine

November 2011

Fire In The Fall - Inaba Shidare, Family And Friends

2011-11-19T11:48:00.002-05:00

Inaba Shidare in my garden

This Japanese maple is by our kitchen door. It rewards us with this fire every November. We rescued Inaba Shidare from a big box store at the end of the season several years ago. Languishing in a gallon pot and all but dead, it had suffered a season of being under watered and over watered. Many of its branches had been snapped and torn, so it was also badly miss-shaped. It was a homely wreck of a struggling tree. 'Shidare' means cascade in Japanese, but there was no cascading going on there. Had we not spent the five dollars, it was headed to the dumpster that night. This variety of Japanese maple has been cultivated in Yokohama since the early 1800s. Inaba Shidare won the prestigious Award Of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society. A dumpster would have been an unceremonious end.

Inaba Shidare is unique amongst the Japanese maples as it is an upright grower. They reach between five and seven feet in height. Ours is about six feet now.

My husband gave this fountain to me for my fiftieth birthday. My daughter dubbed it "The Puking Fish."

The Puking Fish and Inaba Shidare greet visitors at our front door. I see them from the kitchen, too.

These Japanese maple leaves are from a different tree in our yard. Unlike Inaba Shidare, it has a horizontal form. It was also a rescue from the brink of death and destruction. One August, we dug it up from a property where it was hours from being bulldozed. I don't know what variety it is, nor do I care. It thanks us every fall with this outrageous crimson. Ferns grow at its feet and this Pulmonaria volunteered amongst them. Who could blame the Lung Wort for wanting to be with them?

The iron pagoda was given to my husband by a dear, elderly friend, Louise. Louise died. She was ninety five and had lived a rich, bawdy life. We loved her and she loved us. Louise would have loved being in the middle of this riot of fall color. The Japanese Painted ferns by the pagoda, the dwarf, false cypress and the hostas were also end-of-season, big box cast offs.

Japanese maples do well here in agricultural zone five. They like humidity, of which we have plenty on the coast. These trees thrive in the conditions that make your hair frizz. They do not do well in wind, nor too much sun. The leaves dry out very easily, so they must be protected. We have seven of them on our postage stamp sized property, each tucked into a protective nook with afternoon shade. Every one of them is a rescue, nursed from the brink of death to the glory that was intended for them.

I am a gardener. It's a hobby to which I have been deeply devoted for decades. For money, I garden for other people in the summer. I call it "Weeding For Dollars." I am also, by license and education, a Registered Nurse. I don't work in health care anymore, though I still have a license. I'll probably always have it. It was a hard won token and nurses don't give it up easily. For more than half of my life, it was part of what defined me.

You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out that I am a nurturing, caring person. I have such a bad case of helping hands that I spent three years in the Peace Corps! I was twenty-two and thought I could save the world! And, I did save a couple of people. But in the end, most of my energy was spent on trying to save myself. I was profoundly depressed and physically, seriously ill more than once. It took a lot of work simply to survive that experience.

I've always felt guilty about that, too. Somewhere in my dark, little heart I've believed that I should have been able to do more, to save everybody. That didn't go away with the Peace Corp, either. All my life I have been driven by a fix it force from deep within. It would lead me to marry a physically and emotionally abusive man, a destructive force with whom I stayed for eighteen years. I clung to the belief that I could repair his life.

It has inclined me to collect friends who are wounded, crippled people. The weak light coming from their little planets gets sucked right into my orbit. Then, we are stuck with each other forever, spinning around in anguished, late night phone conversations. We huddle on each other's sofas, deep into bottles of wine and tales of despair. We clutch cups of coffee in each other's kitchens, the crying kitchens.

I love my friends as deeply as I have loved my sisters, most of whom have had horrific problems in their lives. I've been drawn into their pain as if it were my own. But while listening to their stories, I have been strategizing solutions. Though I've listened to them, in the back of my mind a play has been going on. On the stage, I am the heroine who saves them all.

When I was young, I believed the screen play ending. But as I've gotten older, I've learned that there's damned little I can fix and less that I can save. The most that I've got for anybody is listening to them with a lid kept on the advice - a windless nook with shade. I wish for us all it was as easy as the little broken trees.

FLYday - Spotted Sandpiper

2011-11-18T00:11:00.003-05:00

Spotted Sandpiper in flight, Phippsburg Maine October

These birds are very fast fliers and are difficult to photograph in flight.

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Red-winged Blackbirds and European Starlings In Flight

2011-11-11T09:31:00.001-05:00

Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds and European Starlings on flight take off, Maine

Flyday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

The Hoarding Heart - DeKay's Northern Brown Snake

2011-11-07T11:34:00.002-05:00

DeKay's Northern Brown snake, Phippsburg, Maine October, 2011

The brown blotch on the side of the face is an identification mark.

To give you an idea of how tiny this poor thing is, here it lies against a measure. Four to five inches sounds like a lot. But, in my hand it barely had presense at all. By the way, it was not made in Japan.

The rows of little spots running parallel along the body are identification marks, too.

The underbelly of the DeKay's Brown Snake.

This bitty, DeKay’s Brown snake was brought to me by a neighbor just two days ago. She found it while she was raking her yard.

My neighbor, Belinda is obsessed about the leaves; autumn drives her crazy! She can't stand it when there are leaves around. At night, she lies awake listening for the leaves to fall; before they hit the ground, she whisks them up. Here, the oak leaves are the last to release, so are often bound in snow and ice by the time they flutter from the canopy. Because the oaks' abscission is delayed, leaf clean up goes on for weeks driving Belinda to the brink of distraction.

A fastidious person, she needs everything in its place and a place for everything. To her, leaves that aren't on trees are in florid disarray. It's as maddening as if someone had taken a dresser full of clothing and dumped the drawers’ contents onto the floor. She can't abide a mess of any kind. Belinda does have a dog, but amazingly, there is not a stray dog hair to be found in her house. There are no piles of newspapers, no crumbs on the counters, no dishes in the sink. She becomes so agitated it makes me wonder what she is really trying to clean up. Is this near-mania to put her external environment in order driven by the some internal filth that she can’t quite reach?

I'm not an ardent housekeeper. Dog hair blows around my floors like tumbleweeds on the high sierras. Cob webs festoon my curtain less windows and drape from every corner. My kitchen counters are strewn with unimaginable clutter - coupons I think I'll get around to using, newspaper clippings I plan to read, notes with phone numbers, empty jars, wine bottles, you name it.

Additionally, there are assorted containers housing caterpillars, pupae, frogs and sometimes snakes. Everybody is being tended until hatch day or photo shoot day. Eventually, I release them. But some of them are there through the winter waiting for warm weather to come around again. The jumbled muddle does get on my nerves sometimes. But, generally I have a high tolerance for ambient disorganization.

It's not that I object to house cleaning. But, there’s so much other interesting stuff to be doing, like reading about snakes. I embrace mind over clutter, because there is only so much time in the day. And mine isn’t going to be spent in the pursuit of nasty neatness. Besides, bad as my housekeeping is, I probably won't find anything as interesting as a snake. I may have a messy home, but I’ve got a clean heart. At least, that's my current rationalization for my state of affairs that some would call frank hoarding.

The concept of hoarding in a diagnosable way has gotten a lot of attention lately. There are a couple of television programs devoted to it. The workings of the minds of people who wind up living on top of trash heaps in their own homes fascinates me. Neuro chemical disorders such as anxiety, depression, and obsessive compulsive disorder are at the root of it for many people. But, that's only where it starts. The swirling chemistry internally becomes insurmountable chaos externally. Every one of us has this chemistry in our brains. It’s just a question of quantity and what degree of control we may have over it in any given moment. It can start with something as small as a spider in a jar.

If given the opportunity to survey my kitchen counters, Belinda would declare "Disgusting! Get rid of it!" She doesn't fathom the anxiety it provokes in me to toss things. Because, I might not get that one great photograph or a morphing caterpillar, or web spinning spider. Nor do I understand the turmoil that falling leaves cause her.

She does get some things about me, though; she brought me the snake. Had her guts not been in a knot over the leaves on her lawn, she would not have found it. Before knowing me, she would have killed it, too. There are probably plenty of these snakes in my yard. But, I've missed them all because they are hiding under undisturbed mountains of leaves. Now that bothers me! Deep inside, Belinda's heart and mine aren't so far apart.

Pythons are being studied because of the astonishing capacity of their hearts to grow large, quickly. Pythons can go as long as a year without a meal. Their metabolism becomes very slow and their organs small while they endure periods of starvation. When they do eat, their metabolism jump starts, putting huge demands on their organs. Their hearts may grow as much as forty percent in a matter of hours, much as an athlete’s heart grows large over time, to meet the human body’s metabolic demands. Scientists are studying the enzymes in pythons’ hearts. The enzymes may have applications for the human body in treating heart disease. Could a drop of snake’s blood mixed with your own save your life one day? Perhaps so!

This is a baby, DeKay's Brown Snake. It was probably born in September. DeKay's snakes only grow to about ten inches or so long. It was on the brink of hibernation, so barely moving. Almost frozen, it did jiggle the end of its tail when disturbed. Like a starving python, its metabolism had slowed to conserve energy. These secretive snakes spend most of their lives underground, but during heavy rains they will sometimes go out into the open. This usually happens in October and November and during late March and April when they are moving to hibernation or breeding spots.

DeKay's have adapted to areas inhabited by humans and favor living under trash piles. Widespread and common, they can be found across most of the United States. Because they are small and nocturnal, they are not often seen. They are non venomous. When they do feel threatened they’ll flatten their bodies out to appear larger, position their bodies in an aggressive posture and release a musky smelling fluid. “Snake juice” on your hands has a distinct smell. I know. Though not endangered, the Maine Department of Inland Fish And Wildlife lists their conservation status as of special concern.

They eat tiny mollusks, slug, small salamanders and worms. They have specialized teeth and jaws that enables them to pull snails out of their shells and eat them. Gardeners should regard them as beneficial for their slug and snail preferences. DeKay’s Brown Snakes are eaten by dogs, cats and hawks, crows, Jays, weasels, other snakes, frogs and toads. James Edward DeKay, for whom the snake was named, was an American naturalist in the 1800’s. He identified over 1,600 species. Mr. DeKay must have spent a lot of time raking leaves. So, maybe I’ll go out and rake some leaves after all, and maybe find a snake.

Thanks in part for some of the information:

http://wikipedia.com

Jonathan Mays, Herpetologist Maine Department of Inland Fish And Wildlife http://www.maine.gov/ifw/

Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2008. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed at http://animaldiversity.org.

Phil Roy, Adopter Maine Herpetological Society http://www.maineherp.org/

Seaholm, L. 2000. "Storeria dekayi" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed November 07, 2011 http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Storeria_dekayi.html.

FLYday - Great Blue Heron

2011-11-04T01:24:00.002-04:00

Great Blue Heron in flight Phippsburg, Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday- Red-Tailed Hawk

2011-11-01T01:30:00.001-04:00

Red-Tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicenis, Phippsburg, Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

Scenic Sunday - Dromore Bay

2011-10-30T02:46:00.000-04:00

Dromore Bay, Phippsburg, Maine October 2011

Dromore Bay is tidal. It is near the mouth of the Kennebec River on the west side. The salt marsh provides important habitat for birds and other wildlife. Waterfowl are abundant. Raptors which hunt other birds and small mammals cruise the marsh grasses looking for prey. Osprey fish here. Animals that eat mollusks and crustaceans frequent the marsh. White-tailed deer, raccoons, mink, fishers and foxes are abundant.

The Tiniest Kings - Ruby-Crowned and Gold-Crowned Kinglets

2011-10-26T11:27:00.002-04:00

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, Regulus calendula Phippsburg Maine October 21, 2011

The red smudge on the crown of this bird's head raises up to a nice, ruby crest when it's trying to attract chicks during breeding season. It does not fully display its crest often. It's not as flashy as its cousin that sports a golden crown no matter what it's up to. Maybe because it's smaller, the Golden-crowned feels the need be ostentatious.

Gold-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa Phippsburg, Maine October 24, 2011

(this bird was a window strike. It lived to rule the forest another day)

This tiny bird is sitting on the end of my index finger. I have small hands and often wear children's gloves when I garden. It's hard to find gloves that fit so that the finger tip doesn't fold over. That should give you an idea of just how diminutive this bird is. Next to Ruby-throated hummingbirds, these are our smallest birds The Golden-crowned Kinglet in the bottom two images is about four inches from bill tip to tail tip. The Ruby-crowned is a smidge longer at four and a quarter inches. Given how small they are, it must be hard for them to find crowns that fit.
I feel their pain. Not only are my fingers short, so are my legs. I'm wearing a "petite" bathrobe that is slightly too long. When the Golden-crowned Kinglet hit the window, I leaped to its rescue and almost fell on the floor, hobbled by the hem of the robe. My inseam is only twenty seven inches. To buy pants that don't drag on the ground, I have to shop in obscure places. I can't walk in to a store and buy off the rack and expect a positive outcome. Even when a garment says "short" or "petite" on the label, I can't assume that means short enough for me. Lately, I've been buying pants at Denim & Company, an online QVC store. Because I have found this source for pants that fit perfectly, I have anxieties that suddenly, the next time I need a new pair, Denim & Company will have vanished. It is a universal rule that when you find a product that you love and become dependent upon, it will cease to be available. I appreciate many of the challenges these precious birds face out there in the wild. I wonder if the Kinglets have problems while crown shopping. Is there a crown outlet somewhere amidst the vast malls of New Jersey ? If a Kinglet wears a crown that is too big, thus slipping on its head, it could be fatal. My crown has slipped a few times nearly killing me. I get it.

   There are six species of kinglets on the planet. We have two in North America, the ones you see here. The scientific name Regulidae comes from the Latin word regulus for "petty king" or prince. That comes from the colored crowns of adult birds. Loosely, these little guys fall into the class of Old World Warblers along with Thrushes and some of their buddies, the Tits and Dippers, which doesn't sound very classy at all if you ask me! They sound like performers at a strip club.
     Kinglets have an elongated fourth, hind toe for suspending from branches. However, this still doesn't make them good at pole dancing. They perform in the tree tops preferring mixed woods. The Golden-crowned especially likes the tops of conifers, though I often see them in birches and alders. Both kinglets are insect eaters. They will also eat the eggs of insects and the pulp of berries. Their rapid metabolism and small size mandate that they eat constantly, even while nest building. Kinglets that can't eat can lose a third of their body weight in twenty minutes and may starve to death in an hour.They flit and twiddle around at the ends of branches, hovering as they glean bugs from the leaves. Ruby-crowned kinglets are recognizable by their constant wing flicking. Keeping the crown firmly on the head is an imperative during this kind of acrobatic food hunting. They are fast moving, energetic birds that are hard to photograph. They don't sit still for studio work very well, unless stunned like the Golden-crowned shown here.
     Kinglets aren't endangered, though some studies suggest population declines due to habitat loss in some areas. Many of them, though not truly migratory, move further south from their breeding areas in the winter months. But, many of them stay here. They eat insects in the tree tops all winter and especially fancy the caterpillars of moths and snow fleas. Rumor has it that during the winter, they wash the bugs in their mugs down with single malt Scotch. For me to stay in the top of a spruce tree for the winter, it would take Glenfiddich. And, you could keep the crown.

Thanks in part to:
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Wilson/v107n03/p0558-p0561.pdf

Sibley, David A, The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2000, Pg 394

Cornell Lab of Ornithology http://allaboutbirds.org
http://wikipedia.com

And, Dr. Herb Wilson, Judy Scher, Robeta Lane, AnnieO, Kristen Lindquist, Julia, Sean Smith, Sharon F. and Joel Wilcox for information and resources.

This post just recieved Editor's Pick on Open Salon (http://salon.com). It is my twelfth Editor's Pick.

FLYday - Juvenile Bald Eagle

2011-10-15T09:44:00.000-04:00

Juvenile, Bald eagle, Phippsburg, Maine

(I took this photograph while wearing my bathrobe!)

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

IN A PICKLE- IF I HAD JUST SAID NO!

2011-09-24T14:35:00.004-04:00

Antique pickle jars from the 1800's. Before Ball, Kerr and Mason came along, these are the kinds of jars that were used for food storage.

“Oh God,” I thought, and this from a person who probably doesn’t believe in God. But, I knew I was in a lot of trouble. Compulsively, I kept checking under the blanket I had thrown over it, as if it would mysteriously disappear. But, no. And now, crushed by its own weight, thin, serious fluid was beginning to ooze from it. Lividity was obvious. A fly appeared on the window ledge.

I walked out of the room to try to think. I paced; chewed my cuticles. Why did I have to do it? If just this once I had screwed up the courage to say no, I wouldn’t be in this damned mess. It was going to take me a long time to unravel this if I could get out of it at all. And that was looking less likely by the minute. “Think! Think!” I said aloud to the walls and gathering flies. Was it me, or was it getting hotter in there? I pulled my shirt away from my neck. I swear I could hear the wall clock ticking louder and louder. Time. I needed more time. That, I knew I wasn’t going to get. Decomposition waits for no one.

I should have known when they said they were leaving town the next day to just say no. What the hell was I thinking? Not thinking was my problem. They said do it; I said yes. It never entered my head to say no, even when they said it had to be done right then. I tried to beg off, stall, but no. I didn’t know Alice well, but I had always thought she seemed like a nice person. “Nice person,” what does that really mean? Nothing, clearly, because she was capable of being as forceful as need be. She got me to go over there didn’t she? Even though I didn’t want to, at least not right then. I didn’t even want to get involved in it, but I did. And I did it to appease a woman whom I didn’t even really know. “Pathetic, just frigging pathetic,” I mumbled to myself. Sweat beaded on my forehead.

Alice and Erland looked like average, middle income, middle aged, middle everything people. Boring people. Harmless people. I met Alice when she started taking care of Fannie. I’m Fannie’s gardener. Every year, I plant a few hundred marigolds in her front yard and keep them weeded for her. She used to do it herself, but for years she’s been moving slower and slower with a rolling walker in front of her. Alice started coming to help her around the house. Eventually, she was there for a few hours every day. I would see her only enough to say hi when she came and left. Erland started plowing up part of Fannie’s back forty he said for a garden. Erland liked to grow things, Alice said. Fannie said they didn’t have enough land at their place and she kind of liked having the old farm used. The farm had lain fallow for nearly fifty years, since her father died. Erland put a tall fence around the area he’d tilled. He put a lock on the gate.

Once or twice, Erland showed up to work the garden while I was pulling weeds at the front of the house. I’d nod and wave hello. He never spoke. Hell, he barely even looked at me! I figured he was shy or stupid, or both. Didn’t matter to me. He always drove his truck straight across the field and right up to the gate. I couldn’t see what he was actually doing over there as he loaded and unloaded God knows what. I could just hear him banging and thumping around. I always noticed when he left because I’d hear the shovels jouncing around in the truck bed as he drove over the old furrows long hidden by tall grass.

One time, he stopped the truck and stared at me while I worked. I was bent over, ass to the air pulling miles of sorrel roots from the sour ground. I hated working there. It was always hot and buggy. It was a job I had because, once again, I hadn’t had the starch to say no when I should have and I hated it. I stood, hands to my low back. I was uncomfortable on two counts: my sore muscles and his intense stare. “Hey Erland,” I hollered over. His right hand reflexively darted to the ignition. If he was going to be watching me, we were going to chat for a minute. I’ve found that usually, reducing anonymity cuts down on creep behavior. When I started across the yard toward him, he hesitated one second too long to make a clean get away. He dropped his hand away from the key. “There’s loads of Bluebirds coming through here, Erland.” “You ought to put up some Bluebird houses around that garden,” I said.

His stare shifted from my face. I couldn’t tell if he was looking at my body or my tool belt. Either way, I didn’t like it. “Bluebirds, that’d be nice wouldn’t it?” I said, lamely. When he opened his mouth to speak, I noticed his teeth were bad. “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birds,” he said, reaching for the truck key. I should have known right then. If I hadn’t been too hot and bug bitten to pay attention, I would have been smart enough to not get involved.

My rhythm for weeding broken, I decided to ask Fannie for a glass of water. Fearful of being robbed, she generally had the place locked up tighter than a vault. But today, Alice was in there with her. Alice insisted that Fannie let fresh air in though the screen door. They usually sat at the kitchen table gabbing about I couldn’t imagine what. Sometimes they said prayers. Alice never missed church. Back in the day when Fannie could walk, she was cut of the same cloth. She never missed a mass or high holiday. But now, it was too hard for her to get in and out of a car, so she didn’t go. And she missed it. Alice’s religion compulsion was another thing that should have tipped me off, that and her insufferable tidiness and helpfulness.

Leaning against the door jam, I pried off my dirty boots. I always took my shoes off before I went into Fannie’s house. If I didn’t, Alice would have come right behind me with a dust pan and whisk broom. Padding toward the kitchen in my socks, they didn’t hear me coming. “Alice, just ask her when you go out, why don’t you. Maybe she’ll do it,” Fannie said. She sounded nervous. “Well you know Erland ain’t gonna say nothin’ about it. That you can count on!” Alice’s declaration had a hint of nasty to it. “He’s always leavin’ the hard parts up to me. I got to find all the means for getting’ things done, “she groused.

When I appeared in the kitchen door, Fannie jumped and made a little whooping noise. “Oh! Lord! I didn’t hear you! Come in, come in,” she motioned. “You must need water, hot as it is out there. Hot as blazes! Help yourself,” she pointed to the sink. Normally, Alice would be chatty, but not this time. When I smiled and said hello, she looked down at the table top, obviously uncomfortable that I had walked in on their conversation. “Alice, why don’t you just ask her?” said Fannie. Alice reflexively picked at an invisible spot of dirt buried n the floral pattern of the table cover. She didn’t respond more than to make a little cough. “What on earth is going on here?” I wondered to myself, turning to the sink. I ran a glass of water. I turned back to the table just in time to see Alice vigorously shaking her head at Fannie, cueing her to silence on whatever the subject had been.

And that’s how I got into this mess. I should have pushed them to tell me what was going on, but I didn’t. So, when the phone rang, I was caught totally off guard and said yes, I’d come help them. When I got there, Alice was waiting in the yard twisting her apron in her hands. Who even wears an apron anymore? She looked like a frightened deer. “You’ll take it won’t you? Fannie said you’d help. Erland’ll put it in your car. We’re leavin’ town tomorrow and it’s got to go today!” Erland appeared from around the house. Without speaking, he opened my car and started loading it in. I’d have to clean it out later. I wondered how I’d get the stain out. Red’s a hard color to deal with. Bleach? Would bleach work?

I’ll admit that I panicked. Not knowing what else to do, I put it in the bathtub and covered it up. Fearful that someone would show up, I threw a blanket over it. All I needed was for somebody to see it! I’d never be able to explain. Maybe David would help me. I knew about spousal immunity. He couldn’t be made to testify against me, could he? No sane person could explain this away. Could I make a jury believe that I was a victim? In the mean time, I went onto the Internet to see if I could find some ways of disposing of it.

The second he came through the door, David knew something was wrong. “What’s going on?” he asked. “And where’d all these flies come from?” He waved a few away from his face. I knew if I spoke, I’d say too much. I took his hand and lead him to the bathroom. I had closed the door as if to keep it in there, not that it was going to move on its own. When I opened the door, he said “Oh, god, what the hell have you got in here?” I walked over to the tub. I could see the form under the blanket, a bloated corpus lying in state. Red fluid seeped from under an edge of fabric. This was the moment of truth. I couldn’t hide it from him any longer; I had to show him what I had done. I took a corner of the blanket and flung it back revealing five, hideous bushels of ripe tomatoes. May God help me!

These are killer tomatoes! This harvest business can be bad for your health.

We will be eating tomatoes into the next century. One of many tasty dishes I have made with them has been tomato pie. It goes like this:

One nine inch pie crust cooked. Don't let it get too brown. You need to cook it just enough so that when you put the tomatoes in the juice doesn't soak into it and it make it a soggy mess. It's okay if you forget to cook it first, too. I've done that and it came out fine. My mother used to put sesame seeds in her pie crust. That gives it a lovely nutty flavor, esp. good in a savory dish. If you use cheater crusts (pre made from the supermarket), you can still add sesame seeds. Roll the crust out a tiny bit before you cook it. Sprinkle the seeds on before you roll it which will press them into the dough.

4-5 ripe tomatoes. Slice them. Put them into a colander and sprinkle salt on them. Let them drain for about 15 minutes. You are trying to reduce the juice to pulp ratio a little so the pie isn't a juicy, soggy swamp.
1/2 of a big, fat red onion. Yellow or Vidalia will work, too. Cut into rings. I like them thick so that I know there is onion in the pie. To each his own. Lay the onion slices into the bottom of the cooked pie shell. Then put the tomato slices on top of the onions to cover the pie bottom.
Fresh herbs: as much basil, loveage and oregano as you can scrounge from your garden to make about 1/2 cup chopped fresh herbs. I love lovage. Basil is especially nice with this, but anything you have fresh that you like will work.
Cheese:
1 Cup cheddar or Jarlsberg or whatever you like that's in the fridge and has strong flavor. You want something to hold up to the tangy tomatoes, herbs and onions
1 Cup Mozzarella. Be mindful of moisture. For this, the cheap, shredded super market stuff is better because it's dry
1 Cup of mayo. I like the kind made of olive oil, especially since I have a cholesterol problem and the cheese is already really pushing it
about 1/4 Cup of cream. I actually use non dairy creamer for this, another cholesterol thing, and it works great. Mix the cheeses, mayo and cream together. Mix the herbs in with it and the cracked pepper. It will be stiff. You want that because the tomatoes will be very juicy when they start to cook. The cheese stuff will sort of settle down amongst the tomatoes as it cooks. Don't put in too much cream! You just want enough to make the cheese and mayo mixable. Put the cheese stuff by blobfulls (French culinary term) onto the tomatoes.
cracked pepper to taste. You already salted the tomatoes, don't do that again!
Bread crumbs, enough to cover the top. I like Panko. It's crispier.

Bake the whole mess at 350 for about an hour. Be sure to let the pie set for a few minutes after it comes out of the oven. That way all of the contents will coalesce making it easier to serve. It tastes great even if you don't.

This link has a really interesting article about food storage containers, A.K.A., "pickling jars" and their history.

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/bottles/fruit-jars

DISCLAIMER: THE CHARACTERS DEPICTED IN THIS STORY ARE FICTIONAL. THE EVENTS DESCRIBED HERE-IN ARE FICTIONAL AND DO NOT REPRESENT ANY ACTUAL PEOPLE NOR TRUE EVENTS.

IS THE WORLD REALLY MY OYSTER? The Etiology Of Retail Impulse

2011-09-21T12:55:00.001-04:00

If I’ve missed saying thank you to you for reading my work and looking at my photographs, I’m sorry. I need every one of you to keep reading and responding to what I do. I spend part of every day answering e mails and thanking total strangers for their positive regard for my writing and photography. I try to acknowledge all the thumbs ups, comments and ratings. I’ve had a good year selling photographs and receiving acclaim for my writing. But, so far, no one has offered me a book deal. My dream is to combine my photography and writing into a package that would earn a little money. That hasn’t happened, and I find it discouraging.

I try to just shut up and write, but occasionally I falter in the faith that if I stick with it, one day my dream will come true. Usually, when I whine to my husband and girlfriends about this, they suffer though it, knowing that I’ll shut up eventually if they just let me go on. It usually goes like this: “I’m just not good enough, apparently.” I try to deliver this as a matter of fact, not an emotion laden bomb, nor an opener for my neediness. Unconvincingly, I say it like I don’t care, like I’m bigger than that, like my ego doesn’t need more than doing the work for the work’s sake alone. Artistic types lie about that all the time. “I don’t paint for other people; I paint for myself.” Ya, sure you do. If that were true, you’d never show your withered water colors to another living soul.

I whine and snivel on, often after too much wine or when fatigue weakened. “My biggest fear is that I’ll never amount to anything, that I’ll never create anything noticeable, that I’ll just disappear into a cloud of artistic mediocrity. People will even remember Barry Manilow, but they won’t remember me!” I’m usually crying by this point and dangerously sloshing a glass of red wine around. On one of such occasion, a girlfriend snapped unsympathetically. “Oh for Christ’s sake! What the hell’s the matter with you? Look around, will you? You are famous! Look how many followers you have on your blog! And people already know who you are when you are introduced; they know your name! That’s never happened to me! And, all those Editor’s Picks on Open Salon for God’s sake! That’s millions of people! I don’t know what you want, lady. Look around you –you’ve already gotten someplace! You’re there! What more do you need anyway?”

I don’t know the answer to that. But, I do know that whatever it is, I don’t have it, yet. My seemingly bottomless appetites disgust me. I’m a greedy, needy, dissatisfied little, piggy person. The best I can do is confess to it in the hopes of being freed from it (And who says I don’t understand Catholicism!). I will work at fearlessness in the face of my deepest, darkest fear that no one will ever know me - whoever I am, whom ever you are.

A few years ago, I had my first oysters on the half shell. I only had a couple shared from someone else’s restaurant appetizer, but I was hooked. I wanted more someday. My husband recently came home with a big, fat bag full fresh from a local oyster farm. He shucked while I looked on the Internet for preparation guidance. We laid the oysters on their shells nestled into a bed of crushed ice to keep them cold and stable. If they fall over their delicious liquor spills out which would be a shame. My husband pried them open, and then delicately released each one from its fleshy hinge. The ecru morsels were floated back into a personal pool of brine and pearl shell.

Oysters are best slugged down in one gulp, like a shot, juice and all from their own shell spoon. Purists don’t add anything to them. I can’t leave well enough alone, though; I always need to tinker. I squeezed on a little fresh lemon. On some we had a squirt of brilliant, red, Tai hot sauce. Some I served with a dollop of cool, cucumber Mignonette with shallots and rice wine vinegar. Rice wine vinegar added just the right acidic sweetness complimenting the oysters’ sweet meat. The cucumbers married the earth and sea. We tried several with both the Mignonette and the hot sauce. Each way we had them was more divine than the previous. They tasted like mouthfuls of the sea, the sky and the earth combined, floating in briny oceanic goodness. They were so delicious that we ate three dozen! I would have eaten more had there been more. There will never be enough oysters for me. We sat on our deck, looking out to the southward sea, savoring oysters and the last days of summer. What more could I have wanted? I don’t know, but something.

I also know there will never be enough shoes for me. My husband likes to razz me about how many pairs of shoes I own. He says I have shoe stashes all over the place, like a drunk that has bottles of booze hidden around the house. He doesn’t’ really care how many shoes I own but rather sees it as a personality quirk. He also thinks I have a sunglasses fetish which may be true. When I came home with another pair recently, he said “What, more sunglasses?” “How many do you have anyway?” “Not that many,” I defended.

One of my girlfriends has told me I have a shoe problem, too. I winced when she said this, having assumed no reasonable woman would have thought such a thing. Wounded, I examined my shoe piles. There wasn’t one set I was willing to part with. They all have different purposes, moods, practicality, or total lack thereof to support their existence in my space. I need them all.

A few days ago, I went shopping for a pulse meter for exercising. Next to the pulse meters were pedometers. Logically, I went from the sporting goods store to buy a pulse meter to the TJ Max shoe rack. And it was not my fault, either. Some evil temptation entity put the pulse meters next to the pedometers to prod me toward the shoes in the next retail establishment. I can’t be held responsible for that.

I came home without the pulse meter. But I did get two pairs of the coolest, sexiest, hottest boots ever heeled. When I put on those boots I felt like a rock star! Who needs a pulse meter when you’ve got great boots! So that was that: I had to have them. Winter is nigh upon us and I’ll need something appealing to mince through snow and then slog through mud season. I’ll need something that will help me to look better than I will feel. Then, while working on my retail rationalization, I saw it: the most must- have, to die for, out of this world accessory ever fabricated.

Imagine a sort of boa, a silky, soft, begs-to-be-touched shawl-ish wrap of fur. Close your eyes and conjure a cuddly, delicious scarf of Finlandian fox died in every color of the rainbow. Slung around my shoulders, the colors came to life as I moved; I was a goner. I would have defaulted on my mortgage before I’d pass up that chunk of lovely luxury. “Winter will be coming,” came to my mind again like the words of a song.

When I got home, I had to try on everything. I had all the makings of a great outfit. I slung my wrap around my shoulders, put on my new Jackie-O sunglasses then sashayed out onto the deck. I felt taller in my boots and I’m sure I looked younger. I looked out to sea. It was calm. The water surface undulated softly, a satiny blue color, like the shells of oysters. Every color of the sky breathed in my scarf -pink, purple, teal, midnight blue, and tangerine. For just a few minutes, I felt like a famous writer.

Winter Point oysters (Crassostrea virginica) served three ways, with lemon, Tai hot sauce (Sriracha is a common brand of Tai hot sauce) and cucumber Mignonette.

Oysters are an important form of aquaculture in Maine. These came from J.P.'s Shellfish in West Bath, Maine, just up the river from us.

For more on Maine aquaculture, click here.
Read this for an interesting article on local oyster farming:
http://www.workingwaterfront.com/articles/New-oyster-farming-technology-comes-to-Maine/13165/

"LIFER!" Green Snakes And Birding Trash

2011-09-18T11:10:00.061-04:00

Opheodrys vernalis, or Smooth Green Snake to the rest of ya

"Oooooooh! I declare: this looks like a Chateau Grasshopper if I ever saw one!"

Smooth Green Snake moving on from dinner reject. Note that the snake has its tongue out. Snakes communicate by smell and tasting chemicals in the air released by other snakes. They also communicate with body language. This one may have been looking for other snakes or food.

And here, it may have found its true love!

I just spent most of two days on Monhegan Island. Monhegan is ten miles off the coast of Maine from Port Clyde. The island is on the eastern flyway, so it's a birding hot spot. I was hoping to add to my paltry, birding life list with a new species or two. But, no such luck. It's already a touch late into migration and the weather was not on my side. The first day was socked in with pea soup fog and drizzle. The second day, though the sun was shining brightly, the wind was blowing steady at 35 MPH with gusts higher than that. My husband and I were there to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. So, additionally leaping from bed at the crack of dawn and running into the woods seemed like bad form. I lingered with him over coffee and love talk, so probably missed some really good birds in the early morning. "Good birds" are what birders say when a birder sees a rarity or a bird out of its usual range or season. I don't believe in "bad birds," though I know some who do. European starlings, Mourning doves, House sparrows, Mute swans, and other "trash birds" which have been introduced from other continents are regarded as bad birds. I like all of them. That makes me birding trash, I suppose. Monhegan feels like another continent, and I was definitely a foreign introduction.

Another thing that makes me birding trash is that I'm a photographer. I am more interested in great photographs than I am in ticking birds off a list. Don't get me wrong: I've got enough ego that I groove on adding to my Life List (the list of species a birder tallies), but I'll sacrifice a bird tick for a photo tick every time. I am also every bit as drawn by other species of wildlife. I think ideally, we should all have wildlife life lists, not just confine ourselves to one type. After all, birds and snakes and insects and all the kids in the pool are connected to one another as food eventually.

It was my husband who saw these snakes first. He has a major aversion to snakes, though I wouldn't call him a full blown herpetaphobe. He knows I love snakes. Ahead of me on the trail, he motioned to come quickly. "Look! Snakes!" He hissed, pointing to the ground at his feet. There were three, Smooth Green Snakes staring each other down and circling a grasshopper. I could not have been more delighted as I had never seen one before. "That's a Lifer for me!" I declared with glee while shooting photographs.

Green snakes are common in Maine and throughout most of the United States. They are not endangered, but for some reason, I had never seen one alive. When they are born, they are brownish to olive green. A few of them keep that coloration into adulthood, but most turn the brilliant green you see in these photos. They have a creamy yellow belly that is slightly whitish on the most underside. When they die, the yellow and green skin pigments turn to blue. I have seen dead, blue Green snakes after which I was blue, too.

There are two species of Green snakes, Smooth and Rough. You guessed it: the scales of the smooth are smooth and the other rough. The Green snake is the only species of green snake. They grow to around two feet long. Females are slightly larger than males, which have longer tails. If you can figure out what part of a snake qualifies as tail, you're a better herpetologist than I am. Other than the head, they look like all tail to me. Green snakes breed in the spring. They lay about 8 eggs which hatch in August and September. It takes two years for Green snakes to be old enough to mate. No one really knows how long they live. It is reported that one in captivity lived to be six years old. Don't try to keep one as a pet, though. Usually they refuse to eat and die. You wouldn't want that on your hands, would you? You and your Green snake would then be blue.

Green snakes' preferred habitat is grassland, which their color gives away. They are most active during the day, so that's when people usually see them. If it's hot, they will be about in the mornings and evenings. Green snakes are also found in forest and rocky areas. We were on the wooded trails on the east side of Monhegan when we saw this trio. Eventually, we tallied six of them, all in the sun on rocks. Green snakes are solitary for most of the year, so it was odd to find three together. In the winter, they hibernate in groups, sometimes with other species of snakes. Perhaps everybody was getting together to go under ground to the ant hills and empty rodent burrows where they hibernate. They might have been taking a supplies inventory for the long winter. "Larry, have you got extra flashlight batteries?" "And Joan, you were supposed to get a box of granola bars. Did you?" There would be a snake like me that made sure there were enough bottles of Merlot to go around and maybe some dark chocolate. The other snakes would look at each other and roll their eyes. But, come February, none of them would be shy about swilling my wine and nibbling my shared chocolate, either.

Green snakes usually eat insects - crickets, spiders and grasshoppers being tops on the list. They're general carnivores though and will eat small amphibians if they find them. They use smell and vibration to find lunch. I was sure that the snake in the top photo was going to snag that grasshopper. It did give it some consideration, but then slithered by. Maybe the grasshopper looked like a screw top or a bad vintage. Milk snakes, another Maine native, eat Green snakes. So do cats, foxes, raccoons, and birds. The Green snakes' only defenses are a musky smell emitted if the snake is handled and its camouflage color. They are not venomous.

While you are in the natural world,

Looking for the lovely bird,

Cast your eyes from the sky

To the lowly ground.

If luck be with you,

A slithering Green snake may be found.

For more information, look here:

Green Snakes in Maine Provided by eHow.com

Maine Herpetological Society
J.D.'S Herp Page This is an interesting web site with a load of information and great photos on assorted reptiles - snakes, frogs, turtles, salamanders and the like. The author has a herp. life list, as I think we all should to be thought well rounded.

For more Monhegan images from our trip, click here.

SCENIC SUNDAY - Marshall Point Lighthouse

2011-09-18T09:39:00.000-04:00

Maine scenic, Marshall Point Lighthouse where a scene from the movie Forrest Gump was shot, Port Clyde, Maine

FLYday - Sandpipers And Plovers, Maine

2011-09-16T01:20:00.002-04:00

Sandpipers and Plovers in migration, Phippsburg Maine, Popham Beach 2011

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

My Memorial September 11, 2011 9 AM

2011-09-11T11:12:00.001-04:00

Waving from a driftwood beach shack, Popham Beach Phippsburg, Maine

SCENIC SUNDAY- Vacationland, Maine

2011-09-04T00:44:00.005-04:00

View to south from Totman Cove, Phippsburg, Maine

Caution To The Wind - Hurricane Hype Fatigue

2011-08-29T15:29:00.001-04:00

-The Center of a sunflower-

For a week, we were bombarded with media coverage about the hurricane advancing across the ocean and up the coastline. Speculations and computer model analysis were endless. Hearing about it was as inescapable as the storm itself. The meteorologists and broadcast weather reporters had important work to do, but I was sick of listening to them. I had hurricane hype fatigue and it was my own fault. I checked the weather channel constantly, checking on the progress of the approaching storm. "What number is the weather channel," my husband asked. "Three sixty-two," I responded without hesitation.
     When I can’t sleep I watch inane television. I recently told my husband that I have been watching “Toddlers And Tiaras.” It’s a show about little girls competing in beauty pageants. Three year olds have their eye brows plucked, false eye lashes applied, make-up slathered on and Dolly Parton mega do’s piled on their heads. Sequined dresses costing in the thousands are worn only once for a single pageant. Moms and dads teach their little dolls to twirl, shake their booties and throw kisses to the judges. Breast inserts are put in the bathing suits of toddlers who stick out their chests enticingly like worn out old hookers. It’s ghastly. “Who watches that crap?” my appalled husband asked. “I hope you don’t tell anyone you watch it!” he chided. I held back that I also watch “Sex Change Hospital.”
     The week before the storm filled me with building anxiety about what was coming and what we should do to prepare for it. I couldn’t sleep. I watched Toddlers And Tiaras and was glued to the weather channel. I quick clicked the remote back and forth. The storm jargon, “Cat One, Cat 2, wind field, terrain effect……” soaked into my brain. Click, “Her little personality really comes through on stage,” said a helmet haired judge with overly rouged cheeks. Click. The storm advanced.
     Over and over, I watched the reporters across the entire Eastern seaboard pelted by sheets of rain and wind. I came to know them and have preferences. Jim – the short guy in the L.L. Bean rain gear, Stephanie was the new girl that had to keep looking at her blowing notes, Long Beach -the town covered by the fat guy who didn’t need to worry about being blown away. Slickers, notes, hats and hands flapped and chattered across the East. I was transfixed by the satellite views spinning and grinding up the coast. I was nauseous. I had a headache. But, I kept watching.
     Four of our family members, including my daughter, were evacuated from New Jersey and Virginia. Each time the phone rang, I was thankful that it did ring, a good sign that the communications infrastructures were still intact. The cell phone towers were predicted to be compromised. I got a physical address for where my daughter had “evac’ed” to. I would need it if she went missing. I wondered, would it be too much to tell her to tell her to write her Social Security number on her forearm? Each time the phone rang, my primal brain sounded the alarm, “Oh no!” The calls were status updates from loved ones, not bad news. But still, each time I was lurched. I almost wished it would come already and get it over with. The earth was going to hell! How much would it matter what I did or didn’t do to mitigate the effects? The gloom and doom prognostications were too much to get my head around. Almost too big to handle, the anxiety bar had been set high this time. We told each other to stay indoors. “Stay safe, I love you,” was chanted like a mantra.
    We live seventy-five feet from the ocean. Additionally, we care-take numerous properties for absentee home owners. They also called us and sent e mails, anxious about their assets. For days, we’d been securing other people's patio furniture, planters, flags, beach toys, trash barrels, bird feeders - the list was endless. “I’m taking my boat out of the water, just to be safe,” one said. “Can you see if Larsons took theirs out yet?” I looked across the water. Not a boat to be seen, the cove was strangely desolate for August.
     Then, we hustled to put our stuff away. We lashed down our boat. We deliberated about procuring plywood panels for our huge windows. Some might ask, "What's the question? Put up the panels!" The answer is expense, labor and denial. We just don't want it to be bad enough to warrant that. Boat owners don’t want to lose one precious day of the craft in the water. When the boat comes out, it won’t go back; summer is over. We want the good times to go on forever. Pushing back the fear some poor choices would be made - boats left in the water, windows left unprotected, or evacuation notices ignored. Surfers and sightseers will go to the beach.
     Tra-la, la, la! Is that danger I hear at the door? “What kind of idiot goes out in this kind of thing?” The question was heard over and over. I confess: I’m that person. I’m the person the governor of New Jersey was hollering at to get the hell off the beach. I’m the person who would go sightseeing and have a tree fall on my car crushing me. I’m the person who would go surfing. I’m the person who would stand on the rocks in the face of a monster wave, blithely watching the magnificent earth wreak havoc upon itself. I don’t want to come to terms with the world being a dangerous, sometimes horrible place. I embrace hope and denial. I throw caution to the wind and go out in the storm.
     This time, we got away with it and I’m thankful. Our top wind speed was forty-six MPH with sustained winds of thirty or so. Those stats don’t even make a “Cat One” hurricane. The great, muscled seas roared in swinging punches, but did not connect. Our house vibrated and groaned, but nothing was ripped away, no damage nor loss. Our day for plywood will come, but not this time. I’ll say loftily that these storms are good things. Sounding like a phony Old Salt, I’ll say “Storms clean the earth.” Then, I’ll click to Toddlers And Tiaras.

Phippsburg, Maine shipwreck October 26, 2008

Flyday - Ravens

2011-08-26T01:56:00.003-04:00

Raven in flight, Phippsburg, Maine

I found this bird after it had been shot out of the sky. It's legal to shoot crows. Swing low, sweet chariot.

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

(This post was Editor's Pick for Open Salon {Salon.com}, August 25, 2011)

So Hot the Deer Are Swimming! White-tailed Deer

2011-08-16T11:41:00.003-04:00

White-tailed deer swimming in the Atlantic ocean.

This is the view from our house, looking south out to sea. See the deer near the mooring ball? The deer could swim straight to Morocco from here.

Deer have such fragile looking legs, it's hard to imagine them clambering on slick, sea weed covered rocks.

Deer swim like dogs. When they get out of the water, they shake like dogs do, too.

This has been a hot, sultry summer with record breaking heat. That's not news to anyone in Texas, but we Mainer's aren't used to it. My husband installed an air conditioner in our bedroom. I was skeptical about the need for what seemed like a decorating monstrosity. Here on the coast, it's usually ten degrees or more cooler than inland and we have steady breeze off the water. However, we had enough days of ninety degree weather strung together to claim a heat wave and I had to eat crow. Even the deer took to the water!

Deer swim well, but it doesn't look natural to me. They swim to escape predators and to find new territories for food and mates. In the photo above, the land mass on the left is the tip of Hermit Island. "The Hermit" is over run with White-tailed deer as no hunting is allowed there. This was not the first time I've seen deer swimming the mile or so across the cove. Hermit Island has more than 200 camp sites. Perhaps the deer object to the camper's noise, or choices in music. I start feeling a little crowded with summer people, too. I'm much too lazy to swim that far, though. Deer sometimes get into swimming pools, too which can be a disaster. Their sharp hooves tear up liners and if they can't get out, they drown. White-tailed deer weigh between 125 and 300 pounds. That would be a lot of dead weight to haul from a pool. Deer may seek relief in cool water from skin parasites, like ticks, Deer flies and mosquitos. Or, they may swim just for the pure joy of it, like we do. This particular deer swam across the cove, got out, then turned around and swam back. To date, I've never seen a deer wearing ear plugs nor a bathing cap and, they swim in the nude.

Soon enough, before we even realize summer is really over, it will be cold and snowing. We'll be complaining about shovelling instead of the heat. The air conditioner will be gone and frost will coat the windows. I'll scratch a hole through the frost to look outside and shiver at the falling snow. Maybe I'll see a deer ice skating or skiing. I'll let you know.

(This post was chosen as Editor's Pick for Open Salon at http://salon.com. It is the ninth of my works selected as Editor's Pick.)

MACRO Monday - In Your FACE!

2011-08-16T09:56:00.001-04:00

A pollinating fly on a fern, Phippsburg, Maine

Macro Monday is a weekly homage to small things, or sometimes large things close up and in your face. Most people start their work week on Monday and dread doing so. I hope Macro Monday will give you something other than the minutia of your work life on which to focus.

(I do know that this is Tuesday, but everyting new must start somewhere, sometime!)

Power Of The Porky - Porcupine Encounters

2011-08-11T12:46:00.005-04:00

This is the business part of a porcupine, the quills. In the top collage, the porkies in the trees are babies. The one in the middle is an adult.

Tough foot pads and claws help porcupines to climb trees.

Baby porcupine feet, teeth and 'product.'

Porcupines can be very destructive to trees. When they girdle the bark as in the lower photograph, it kills the tree. They are voracious eaters. The food they eat is low in nutritional value, so they must consume vast quantities. That results in lots of 'end product,' as seen above.

When there were six feet of snow on the ground last winter, the porcupines sat on top and ate the bark of these Spruce trees. These trees will die soon.

The sharp, hard quills are mixed in with stiff, guard hairs. The quills contrast with the hairs so that predators can see the porcupine in the dark when they are the most active.

"OUCH!"

     A couple of months ago, our dog got a face full of porcupine quills. It was the fourth time he has done it. They say that dogs don't learn from the misery of that experience and will do it again and again. Apparently so. Our dog doesn't attack them, as some dogs do. He does not have strong prey drive. He just sniffs them, but that's all it takes.
    The common name "porcupine" comes from the French porc d'epine, meaning "thorny hog" referring to the more than 30,000 quills which serve as their main defense. They are docile creatures reported to make good pets (don't try this at home, kids). Porcupines do not attack dogs; dogs attack porcupines. Porkies have muscular, rolly-polly bodies like small pigs and smell kind of like old sawdust. Their quills are simply specialized hairs which raise up when the animal is tense, much like the hair on your arm raises when you are scared. An alarmed porky will rattle its quills to warn a predator. The quills also emit a strong hormonal smell when the animal is threatened.
     Neither do porcupines shoot quills, as is the folk lore. They raise the quills up to make themselves look bigger to the enemy. A threatened porky will thrash its quill laden tail back and forth impaling its assailant. The quills come loose easily, much like hair. The outer tip has a reverse barb which hooks readily into whatever it contacts. The sharp quills cause tremendous pain, prompting the dog to paw at itself and roll its face in the dirt in efforts to remove the quills, only driving them deeper.
   We live in old spruce forest, favored habitat for porcupines. We have met the porkies face to face in the dens they make in the piles of windfalls. They have denned under our house and I've seen as many as seven at one time! We are over run with them! This time, our dog encountered the porky at home under one of our decks. He yowled, then raced to the door, desperate to come in with what looked like a dead animal in his mouth. "Oh no you don't, Buster!" I yelled and slammed the door in his face. At the same instant, I realized his muzzle was bristling with quills.
     We have a wonderful dog, but he does have his issues. Besides lapses in judgement, he also hates to be restrained. Though he only weighs thirty-eight pounds, it nearly requires a straight jacket to trim his nails. We have to take him to the vet for that. He gets so wrought up he trembles and pees himself. Not unlike myself, he requires sedation for almost everything. Nor will he take pills of any kind. No matter what it's hidden in, he will spit the pill. He won't take biscuits from the UPS driver, either. He makes the driver put the biscuit on the ground only taking it after the guy leaves, so that it never appears that he can be bought. He's no dumby, though he is very difficult when it comes to medical needs.
     So, of course the latest quill debacle happened on a Friday night at six-thirty, when all good vets are at home working on their second martinis. Emergency veterinary services were more than an hour away. Quills need to be removed immediately. Some suggest that if you take a dog into a wooded area where you expect porcupines, take pliers with you so you can do the job right away. The longer the quills stay in flesh the harder it is to extract them. They also begin to migrate into the body and can kill an animal.
     The dog was shrieking in pain and clawing at his own face. It was not a time for timidity. There was nothing to do but get the pliers, swig a mouthful of whiskey and pull. First, we offered the dog a couple of shots of whiskey, but he said no, he only wanted a bullet to bite down on. So we swilled his share and commenced. We pulled three quills before we had to get help. Brute strength was needed and the two of us weren't enough. I raced to our neighbor, Ed's house.He was standing at his barbecue grill tongs in hand, but did not hesitate. He tossed down the tongs, shut off the gas and ran with me to our house.
     We put the dog in the bathroom so he wouldn't escape and because blood was coming from somewhere. It was tight quarters for three adults and a dog. The bathroom turned into a steam bath, sweat was pouring from all of us. The dog started blowing hair everywhere, which dogs do under extreme stress. He immediately slipped his collar and leaped into the bathtub to get away. We bound him in a blanket and started over. After the dog had seen the pliers, we couldn't get near his face. The strength of a terrified animal is astonishing! We had to blindfold him. He curled back his lips, snarled and bared his great, canine teeth in self defense. That may have been because he had quills in his mouth or simply horrendous pain. Either way, it was dangerous. A terrified dog in pain will bite no matter how loyal a beast he may otherwise be. Hell! I would have bitten someone myself under the circumstances! We were all fearful that we would be bitten or otherwise maimed. It's easy to injure a dog in a melee like that. Their shoulders can be dislocated or bones broken while you're wrestling them.
     I got a golf club to put between the dog's jaws and teeth so he had something to bite besides ourselves. The plastic covering of the club was shredded immediately, but the metal held. Somewhere in there the dog bit down on his own tongue. Blood gushed all over the place as he screeched. The four of us floundered in a battlefield of blood, sweat and hair . Just when it seemed it could not get worse, the dog pooped himself.
    We suffered two and half hours in the bathroom hotbox, flailing in dog poop, blood, sweat and fear. In the end, we pulled eighteen quills. With nothing left in any of us, we had to give it up and hope for the best. If the dog got through the night, I'd take him to a vet the next day. Exhausted, we all went outside. The dog was double leashed, though he didn't have the strength to go anywhere nor tangle with wildlife. He could barely stand up! We sucked deep draughts of fresh, night air and  babbled light hearted chit chat, while reconnecting on a friendly level with the dog.
    When this whole affair had started, my husband had just gotten out of the shower and was in his pajamas. There he stood in his P.J.s staggering as badly as the dog and about to collapse. I realized it was hours past when he had needed dinner. Ed made soft talk to the dog. "There, Perry. You'll feel better pretty quick. Have a little drink of water will ya? Here ya go, fella," he said, nudging the dog to the bowl of water. We were all plastered with blood, dog hair, and "other." Though we were out of the bathroom, I could still smell intense poo."Ed, I can't thank you enough," I said. "I'll owe you forever for this." "No, no you don't. Don't you worry about it," he said. "These are the things friends do for each other." I watched the dog teetering sideways. Awash in after crisis let down and love, I thought I might cry. My husband muttered, "Ya, Eddie, thanks. Oh God! I've got to sit down." As he sunk to the steps, I saw that he had a big smear of dog poop across the lens of his glasses.
     Ed went home. The dog went to bed. My husband took another shower. I made dinner. While cooking, I pondered the nature and depth of friendships. Ed was a friend indeed and heroic, as was my husband. If I were to be stranded on a desert island, they are the two people I would want to be with me. I want people in my life who love me enough to do whatever it takes to help me. No matter what it costs, I'm worth it to them. Our dog will one day probably engage with a porcupine again. We love him anyway and we love him enough to rise above our own fears to help him through his serial stupidities. That's the kind of person I want to love me.
     The question remains: why do dogs persist in contacts with porcupines? It's unlikely they forget the pain and terror, because dogs have good memories. It must simply be that there is something so enticing and attractive that it's worth it in the end. As a photographer, I understand. To get close enough to a porcupine to smell it and feel its chubby body, to photograph its teeth, quills and feet was risky. But I couldn't help myself. I did it anyway. Now, we'll see who loves me enough to hog tie me and pull the quills from my snarling face!

FLYday - Barn Swallows

2011-08-05T08:31:00.000-04:00

Barn swallows in flight and feeding fledglings while on the wing.

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends so best, fly.

FLYday - Double Osprey Delight

2011-07-30T13:28:00.001-04:00

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

These are Osprey, also called Fish Hawks. The bird on the left is an adult female chasing a first summer, male bird away from the nest. The mother bird on the left has two new chicks in a nearby nest. The younger bird on the right was hatched last year and probably was trying to come back to the nest it knew when it was a new chick. Kind of sad!

FLYday - Common Tern

2011-06-17T08:10:00.000-04:00

Common Tern with fish - Phippsburg,

Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Red-tailed Hawk And Ravens

2011-06-10T01:58:00.001-04:00

Red-tailed Hawk harrassed by Ravens, Phippsburg, Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered freiends do best, fly.

FLYday - Osprey

2011-06-03T01:38:00.001-04:00

Osprey, or "Fish Hawk" in hover flight. Phippsburg, Maine May 2011

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

Hope And Tomato Season - Five-Spotted Hawk Moth

2011-06-02T15:29:00.003-04:00

Another farmer's tomatoes passed on to me last summer

Pupa of the Five-Spotted Hawk Moth

Five-spotted Hawk Moth

Manduca quinquemaculata

Tomato Horn Worm

"Yum! Tastes like Karl!"

It seems that everyone I know is boasting about how many tomato plants they have already planted, or are about to. They've nursed their little sprouts along on windowsills for months. Now, the long, limp tendrils beg to have their feet in soil. Top heavy for the peat pots binding their roots, they can't even stand up but topple over sideways with every breath of air or attempt to water them. As if to say, "Plant me, plant me now, or I'm just going to lie down and die!" The bruised flesh smells rank green, oozing their very life blood from every pore.

But the truth is, tomatoes will virtually grow themselves unaided. In the flower gardens I grow now, I find them sprouting having volunteered from seeds in my compost. I pull them out, but I feel guilty. There was a time when I would have been delighted to have such strong tomato plants coming on their own. I, too grew tomatoes (and lots of other things) indoors readying for the garden. I usually started flats of greens in February which was much too early. We always have snow then. The lightless days are too gray and long to really keep things going, plants or people. Slogging mentally through the end of winter, I was always desperate to grow things. Clinging to optimism, I over sowed, too. I had every flat surface in my house covered with seed trays and ruined every windowsill in the place. I had trays on the top of the furnace, the top of the refrigerator, the TV, everywhere that generated some heat. Beyond my own amusement, my children were young and I needed a vegetable garden to feed us. I was divorced, financially destitute and desperately needed things to grow. Every flaccid stem in a tray was to me, hope for the future.

My vegetable garden was fifty feet by sixty feet. It was fenced to keep deer, woodchucks, dogs and children out. I had a gate with a gargoyle glaring at would be intruders. I was big into gargoyles at the time. I had them in my bedroom and sitting in my perennial beds. They were supposed to keep evil spirits and enemies away.

Inside the fence was a series of raised beds with neat paths between. I labored long and hard to keep it clean and orderly, far more so than the interior of my house, which was a wreck. I was always adding some sort of amendment to the soil, tilling it in, learning the good and the bad of it over each season. I worked like a dog, but I also found great meditative peace with the work. I laid newspapers in the paths to keep weeds down. I rotated crops. I composted. The first coyote I ever saw was sitting atop my compost pile.

My ex-husband's vanity car, a swanky Buick Le Sabre I got in the divorce was turned into a farm vehicle. The plush, blue upholstery was swampy with loam, peat, and manure. I was always on the look out for free stuff to use. From a local greenhouse, I procured spun wood fiber discarded from their shipments of garden statuary. The stuff had been wrapped around concrete bird baths, garden gnomes, and solar lights. Free for the taking, it took four trips in the Le Sabre to bring it home. The pulpy fiber would break down eventually adding tilth the clay soil I was perpetually battling. It definitely brightened up the place and was dry to walk on. When the carpeting in my house finally gave out, I tore it out and laid it nap down between the paths. Though not environmentally very sound thinking, it made my vegetable garden an elegant place. It was by invitation only to join me within the confines of the fence protected by the gargoyle.

I had a boyfriend then. He was a bum. He lived with me briefly and I was supporting him, the folly of which I missed out of sheer desperate need for companionship.I was attracted to him because he smoked a pipe. My father had smoked a pipe and the smell of pipe tobacco was comforting. The boyfriend, who I'll call Karl, was also a great pontificator, as was my father. As armchair philosophers, both of them had big opinions about how other people should do things and what was wrong with our government, society, culture, businesses - the list was endless. Karl and my father could go on interminably about everyone else's failings. As I had learned to do with my father, I turned a deaf ear to Karl's tiresome rambling.

In my garden, I had a sitting area, with salvaged patio chairs and a little table. Karl liked to sit there smoking while I worked. Apparently, it didn't occur to him to raise a hand to help me and I was such a mess that it didn't occur to me to expect it of him, either. But, toward the end of the summer, I was sick of his going on about politics, the injustices of our economics, and how lousy Americans were compared to Europeans. His tobacco smoke had become less alluring.

One August day, late in the afternoon, I was weeding while Karl sat drinking a beer from a six pack I had bought. Sweat trickled down my back and into my eyes. I was annoyed and wanted to yell at him, but kept working while he babbled. I could hear him tamping his tobacco then snapping a match to light it. Puff, puff, puff - he pulled air to the flame. "These pipes are just no good anymore," he groused. Something about poor materials, poor workmanship, couldn't get a decent draw from them. Blah, blah, blah. I didn't hear the words, just his droning complaints. I smelled the tobacco ignite. The sweet smoke drifted down the garden path to me.

I stood to stretch my back. With pipe in hand Karl was yammering away from the comfort of the lawn chair while reaching for a second beer. I imagined him engulfed in flames, frying from under the lawn chair like a roast pig on a barbecue. Then suddenly, with uncommon speed he leaped to his feet. "Jesus! What the hell!" He screamed while slapping his own derriere with both hands. He was on fire! He was really on fire! I snapped out of my fantasy realizing that the spun wood fiber had ignited beneath his chair, probably from his lousy pipe. Toppling over his beer, he hopped from one foot to the other dodging flames on the ground. He slapped his own head a couple of times thinking his hair was on fire and swearing all the while. "What the hell were you thinking with this stuff anyway?" He demanded, as if I had planned it. By then, I was laughing so hard I nearly peed myself. "Don't blame me! Blame the gargoyle!"was all I could say.

I had already outgrown Karl by then, though he had been still hanging around because I hadn't thrown him out. After the The Ball Of Flaming Fire incident, sure that I had intentionally set him ablaze, he moved on. Eventually, I moved on from growing tomatoes in the quantities that I used to. I still grow one or two, but not the windowsill wrecking numbers of those old days. Now, I wait until inevitably, someone who is overrun with tomatoes at the end of the summer passes them on to me. I've learned to trust the universe a little more and need gargoyles a little less. I am still a woman who loves the companionship of a man, but no longer need one that sounds, nor smells like my father. My children have moved on, too. So, I feed and nurture other beings now. I'll probably always be that woman.

Last year, on the few tomatoes that I did grow, I had Tomato Horn Worms. They are the bane of the tomato grower as they can wipe out a crop over night. Starting out small and the same color as the tomato plants, they are hard to see until they have gorged themselves. I was in the habit of squashing them, but for some reason, I was curious about what they would become if I let them complete their life cycle. So, I put them in a jar with tomato leaves and dirt on the bottom. At first, after eating all the tomato leaves I supplied, it looked like they had died. I was about to toss the jar's contents when I noticed under the dirt, pupae had formed. They started out as the green pupa you see above. In that same collage, you can see how they turned brown and hard in a couple of days. I knew they would become some kind of moth and thought they would do so quickly. But, oh no.

For nine months, they sat in the jar on my kitchen counter. And, they required tending. The pupa needs a bit of moisture so as not to desiccate, but not so much that it will rot. I put a coffee filter over the top of the jar so they could breathe. Every evening while cooking supper, I misted the the pupae. Like a human pregnancy, it took over 270 days of misting and watching, waiting, not knowing who would come out. Then, a few days ago, suddenly, TA DA! The giant, Five-spotted Hawk moth, Manduca quinquemaculata emerged! And, a great handsome thing like its name it was, too with a wing span of 4 inches. Though according to resources it's a common moth in Maine, I had never seen one before. I had only known them as their caterpillar selves and held them in disdain as tomato decimators. It took a day for the moth to dry its wings enough to fly. Crawling on my hand, it was soft and friendly. A light breeze bore it aloft and it flew, free.

I've planted my tomato plants and loosed the Hawk moth. I know that it's out there laying eggs if not on my plants, on some one's. It will complete its life cycle, pollinating and mooching and destroying as it goes. Which brings me to my dilemma: when the eggs hatch into infant Tomato Horn worms, will I be able to squash them as before? Probably not any more than I could actually set Karl on fire. I shall have to hope for the universe to restore order in the form of insect eating birds or perhaps reinstate a gargoyle.

NOTE: This essay was Editor's Pick on Open Salon, # 8 of my works to be chosen.

Rhodora Roaring And Bend Over Betty

2011-05-27T11:41:00.002-04:00

     The Rhodora is roaring on the roadsides, and oh - a lovely thing she is! I grew up calling this a Swamp azalea, because that's what my mother called it. Swamp azaleas are actually a totally different critter, more common in the south than the flower you see here. Swamp azaleas are usually white, though they can be pink, but not this magenta color. The outrageous magenta flowers seen in ditches, swamps and bogs in Maine are Rhodora, correctly Rhododendron canadensis. I captured her first blossom, the start of her hollering, on May 22nd. The Service Berry trees are passing as the Rhodora begins to bloom. Rhodora blooms before the leaves come out, making the flowers more obvious. One or two blossoms might not be too impressive, but the little shrubs boast hundreds of flowers making them en masse, very showy. Once the flowers go by, the shrub all but disappears into obscurity as the narrow, bluish green leaves blend in with surrounding vegetation.
     In the nineteen hundreds, taxonomists thought this was a distinct genus from the rhododendrons because of the flower shape, thus the name Rhodora. The blossoms have three lobes, rather than five like other rhodos. The floral structure is different, too. The flowers have no true tube or throat which would hold all the various plant parts together. Instead, the flower is split almost from its base with an upper three-lobed lip and two lateral strap-shaped petals. The stamens, styles and stigmas are large and protrude, exceeding the length of the petals. In the two photos below, the differences are clear between the Rhodora on the top and the rhododendron on the bottom.
     Eventually, the taxonomists changed their minds about where Rhodora belonged and included her in the genus of rhododendrons, but her name stuck, nonetheless. As with birding, just about the time you think you've got a name straight, the rules of play also change in botany. Rhodora is not endangered. The outrageous magenta blooms can be seen on the roadsides from Pennsylvania to northern New Jersey, northward to Ontario, Quebec and the Canadian Maritimes. The ostentateous magenta isn't eveyone's favorite but, in the Northeast we forgive and love Rhodora's tastelessness as a sure sign that summer is about to erupt.

Rhododendron canadensis, commonly known as Rhodora on the top. A cultivated rhododendron on the bottom.

Range map for Rhododendron canadensis

Ralph Waldo Emmerson thought Rhodora was swell, too. I've never been a big Ralph fan, but I have his famous poem for you here.

The Rhodora

On being asked, whence is the flower.

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.

Another garish roadside presence in spring and summer in Maine is the Bend Over Betty lawn ornament, or yard art. Here, we pronounce that "yah-d ah-t." She's surely no beauty, but she does have presence. Once in a while, she is accompanied by her partner, Bend Over Bob. He is also seen only from the rear and with his boxers showing. Like the color magenta, their beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Once the novelty has worn off, they are often seen listing sideways with the weeds growing up around them. Like a derelict Bend Over Betty, I too can be found hip deep in the weeds of late. As the Rhodora blooms gardening season is flourishing, too. So, I've been lost to Weeding For Dollars and have not written for a month.
Numerous of you have sent e mail inquiring as to where I've been. "Have you gone underground," I was asked. No, but close to it, bent over with my head to the dirt, hands moving through the earth, pulling, teasing and chopping at the unwelcome, a professional Bend Over Betty. It has moved me that I have been missed. There could hardly be a worse insult than for my absence to have gone unnoticed. Rest assured that I am out here, like a tennis ball your dog lost in the tall grass.

Yours truly, Bend Over Betty

Better not to ask about the rabbit and the donkey.

Thanks for some of the information to:

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johnson, Charles W. 1985. Bogs of the Northeast. University of New England Press, Hanover, New Hampshire and London, England.

Appalachian Mountain Club. 1964. AMC Field Guide to Mountain Flowers of New England. Appalachian Mountain Club, Boston, Massachusetts.

Slack, N. G. and A. W. Bell. 1995. Field Guide to the New England Alpine Summits. Appalachian Mountain Club, Boston, Massachusetts.

Wallner, J. and M. J. DiGregorio. 1997. New England’s Mountain Flowers: A High Country Heritage. In cooperation with the New England Wild Flower Society. Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula, Montana.

FLYday - Ring-billed Gulls

2011-05-27T09:09:00.000-04:00

Ring-billed gulls in flight. Phippsburg, Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - American Kestrel

2011-05-15T08:53:00.000-04:00

An American Kestrel diving from its perch for prey. The kestrel is our smallest hawk. Phippsburg, Maine 2011

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

Note: For those of you who may have been wondering where I am, I've been working on a project and Weeding For Dollars as 'tis the season. In the mean time, our dog took a face full of porcupine quills which has really fouled up my time lines. Thus, a FLYday that is on Sunday. I do know it's Sunday and have not totally lost my mind, yet. I'll be back, never fear!

FLYday - Bald Eagle

2011-05-06T01:05:00.006-04:00

Bald eagle, adult Phippsburg, Maine

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Mute Swan

2011-04-29T01:47:00.003-04:00

Mute swan in flight, March 2010, Brigantine, New Jersey

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Turkey Vulture Chimney Top Take Off

2011-04-29T01:30:00.003-04:00

Turkey Vulture Taking Off From Chimney Top, Phippsburg, Maine April 18, 2011

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

SCENIC SUNDAY - Fishing Boats, Lubec, Maine

2011-04-24T01:54:00.002-04:00

Fishing boats at anchor, Lubec, Maine - March 31, 2011

So Many Birds, So Little Time - Bald Eagles Like The Beach

2011-04-23T15:49:00.002-04:00

Young Bald eagles, Atkin's Bay, Phippsburg, Maine April 18, 2011

The eagle on the left is older than the one on the right. Bald eagles like the beach!

"Hey! Give me back my iPod!" Bald eagles like listening to music.

"Watch me nail this landing!"

Bald eagles, two youngsters, probably 3rd and 4th year and an adult, Phippsburg, Maine April 19, 2011

Remember that you can click on any of these pictures to see them larger. In the photo to the top right of the bottom collage, there are two eagles mixing it up so closely that they look like one.

This is the time of year when I start gardening for other people, or "Weeding For Dollars." From now until July fourth, it's exhilarating! The brown months have folded seamlessly into the newness of the green months. The whole planet is coming on full force with blooming flowers, fresh air and signing birds. Over the winter I had become somewhat starved for birds. Our part of the earth, muffled in snow, didn't hold much for bird song. I'm a listener, too. I was so wanting for the sounds of birds that a few times, I imagined I heard birds when cracking, frozen branches and keening wind were the sources. Now, the trees and sky are alive! From every quarter, someone is singing, even me! I've been thinking when my back finally gives out, perhaps I 'll start a career in opera. I'm sure my children will be pleased that I have goals.

I love the work, but like all things, sometimes it can be a real drag. There are the days when it's hot, buggy, or wet. This first part of the season, it's cold which will only give way to Black flies, mosquitoes, ticks and Brown Tail moth rashes. Have I mentioned Poison Ivy? But, for all of that, I am out of doors in gorgeous places. The gardens are beautiful, this I know because otherwise I'd have some explaining to do to myself. And I usually don't start talking to myself until the middle of August.

I do get resentful though when I feel like I'm being taken away from photography. I often remind myself that toiling in other people's yards like a Bend-Over-Betty lawn ornament does give me opportunities to see amazing things. I almost always get a few photographs out of it, too. So many birds does make it hard to concentrate on weeds, though. I have to stop looking up for every tweet, chip and chur to pull, hack and tease. And rake. Then rake some more and rake again. And haul. There's so much to be done and so many distractions, yet so little time.

I may be jumping the gun by saying this, but I am finding the gardening work easier this year. Having spent the winter working out and controlling my consumption, I've lost thirty seven pounds. At just five feet tall, so that's a load o' lard, over twenty four percent of myself, to be exact. So, I'm moving with comparative facility and energy this year. I was recently asked if I had some medical emergency that prompted the weight loss. "Yes," I said. "Oh dear! Are you alright? What was it?" the inquirer pried. "When bending over to tie my shoes meant holding my breath and suffering the spins, that was the medical emergency," I explained. They thought I was joking, but I wasn't. I've even given up red wine, which anyone who knows me would never have predicted possible. So, when I nonetheless had a full blown hallucination this morning, I was taken by complete surprise.

I've slimmed down enough that I no longer dread looking in the mirror. I don't even avoid it. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's true. It's been a decade since I've been able to stomach my own stomach. But today, I caught my reflection and saw that I have the beginnings of an abdominal six pack! Well, maybe only a four pack, and possibly merely better definition of a couple of rolls, but something different from what has ever jiggled hello to me from the mirror before. I have a beach body! And I don't mean one of those human potato people that unabashedly parades themselves on the Volga River, either. I have always admired their guts, or perhaps I should say courage. Those portly women looking like half cooked dumplings in bikinis seemed to like themselves well enough nor have cared what anyone else thought. Their junk in the trunk wasn't enviable, but I have held their bravery in high regard.

Now, I feel like a super hero with abs of steel and I'm shedding my bathrobe! I'm going to celebrate my newly remodelled temple with a belly piercing! About 1970, when I was fifteen, my mother wore a navel jewel. That was before body piercings unless one had come from the Congo or some other exotic place, but my mother came from Topsham, Maine. She was a mill worker with five children to feed, but she managed to have belly jewels!

She wore several colored jewels which she interchanged to titillate my father. Revelling in her own outrageousness, she revealed the jewels to us children when she swapped out the colors. "Look! I've found an emerald green jewel!" She would squeal with delight, lifting her shirt up for us to see. I was at once, horrified and captivated by her belly flesh which looked to me like cottage cheese. "How does she keep them in there?" I wondered to myself. "Glue? Suction?" I never dared ask. On what little TV programming there was then, men and women were not even shown in the same beds! Yet, my mother pranced around our tiny, gundgy kitchen flaunting a navel jewel. She staunchly believed she was doing us a favor by being a living example of not giving a damn what anyone thought of her body. Her parenting skills were way ahead of the curve in that regard. So, to honor her, and myself, I'm going for the gold: belly piercing it is. My deflated middle doesn't look like cottage cheese, though. It's more like a slumped Brie. Vive la France! I don't want a timid stud nor jewel for my navel novelty, either. I've commissioned my husband to find something unique from the dump. I'm thinking a chrome hub cap might do just the trick. The glinting disk should be visible from space. Be looking for me on the beach this summer with my new, shimmering field mark.

...................................................................................

Bald eagles do like the beach. They are usually found near water and in large numbers when there is enough food, like ducks and scavenged fish. The numbers of eagles in Phippsburg has increased tremendously in the past decade. I see 3-5 of them every day without trying and know of two active nests close by. I frequently see them when I'm gardening, though how I do this bent over to the ground is an as yet, undiscovered talent. I have yet to see a Bald eagle sporting a navel jewel or belly piercing, but will report promptly if I do. The top series of photographs of the eagles on the beach was a lucky find after a long day of spring garden clean up. The two eagles are about a year apart. The eagle with the whiter head is the older one. Bald eagles are sexually dimorphic; males and females have the same plumage and only vary slightly in size. The second set of images was captured the day afterward, also while I was gardening. The two young eagles in the bottom collage are the same two that were on the beach. They could be siblings, but not nest mates. The mature Bald eagle flying with them is probably one of their parents.

Golden eagles are seen in Maine on rare occasions. Though they are often confused with Bald eagles in various stages of plumage, they are not even closely related. Plentiful in the western Rockies, Golden eagles are birds of mountainous areas that hunt mammals and other birds. Though Golden eagles have a different body shape than Bald eagles, both birds as juveniles have longer tails, broader wings and stouter bills than the adults. A young Bald eagle may look to the inexperienced eye like an adult Golden eagle.

Bald eagles have brown feathers speckled with white usually until they are five years old. They are sexually mature when they have white heads. They may develop fully balded heads as early as three years, but that's very rare. A significant field mark is leg covering. Golden eagles' legs are completely feather covered, while a young Bald eagles' legs are bare, like little boys wearing nickers before big boy pants. Golden eagles are most easily confused with Bald eagles as first year juveniles when they have a white rump. In flight, as juveniles, they also show white under their wings. Bald eagles also have white under their wings as juveniles through their second year. This is the plumage phase when less experienced birders are apt to erroneously report having seen a Golden eagle. I've done it myself. Zut alors! In birding as in medicine, we say "If you hear hoof beats, think horse, not zebra." In Maine, if you see a funky looking eagle, it could be a Golden, but it's more likely to be a Bald eagle that hasn't come into its star spangled, balded glory. It's simply not mature enough to flaunt its navel jewel.

Thanks for some of the information to:

Wikipedia.com

Sibley, D.A., The Sibley Guide To The Birds (2001), Knopf: New York (2000), pp. 126-127

FLYday - Red-tailed Hawk

2011-04-22T01:15:00.009-04:00

Red-tailed hawk lifting off, then taking off from tree branch, Randolph, Maine April, 16, 2011

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

(This post is an Editor's Pick on Open Salon )

"KIWI!!!!" Or Maybe a Woodcock

2011-04-15T10:07:00.001-04:00

American Woodcock April 7, 2011 Phippsburg, Maine

This wasn't a rush, because it was lone woodcock. One is a woodcock, two or more are still woodcock, like deer are still deer. A group of woodcock is called a "rush," "fall", "flight", "plump," or "cord." Don't let anyone cheat you; a cord of woodcock measures 4 by 4 by eight feet.

Look closely at the back end of this bird. Naughty, naughty, naughty!

My sainted husband is not a birder, but he does know what makes his little wifey happy - BIRDS! Though he isn't good at identifying birds, he has developed a pretty good eye for the weird, odd, curious and standouts. That is why he is married to me, after all. He recently called me at home from his cell phone yelling "KIWI! There's a kiwi on Popham Road, come quick!" I didn't ask questions because that would slow me down. I jumped into the car and sped in pursuit. On the way, I pondered, "Kiwi?" What the hell was he talking about?

The American Woodcock and the kiwi don't even reside on the same continents, so I was pretty sure that he was looking at a woodcock. But, an exciting thing about birding is, as the saying goes, "You just never know!" Distributions of species of birds changes as the environment changes (I'm trying not to say "global warming"), birds get blown around by weather events, and people obtain and release foreign species. So, most anything could be possible and is at least worth consideration. Birding allows every one of us to morph from the tweedy Professor Henry Jones, Jr. into Indiana Jones. That is, if you're willing to drop everything and take off in the pursuit of the living artifacts.

This is me hot on the hunt for the Phippsburg kiwi

Of course, when I got there, the kiwi was gone. But, I could hear two of them in the woods. Body snatched by the spirit of Indiana Jones, I raced silently through the forest. My heart pounding, with breath quick, I could almost feel the coveted golden idol in my hands! My ancient Temple Of Trees was filled with booby traps entangling my feet. I stepped unwittingly into a snare and was lurched by my ankles high into the canopy. But! From my boot tops, I grabbed my Bowie knife and cut the line, swinging from the end to the ground. Now, camouflaged in leaves and mud, I continued. "I must retrieve the golden idol before my arch rival, French ornithologist, Michuad Fahaydue!" Twice, I flushed them but was left with a ghostly whirring of wings through the branches. Light failing me, I would have to return to my University in Indiana, to search another day.
Of course, I went back the very next day. Sure enough, it was an American woodcock. I do understand why my husband thought "kiwi." The birds are not dissimilar in appearance to the untrained eye, the eye of one whose birding knowledge does not go beyond a can of shoe polish and his wife's undying gratitude for the effort. The kiwi and the woodcock have vaguely similar morphology, but that's where all similarities end.

Kiwis lay the largest eggs relative to body size of all living bird species on earth.

    Kiwis, are from New Zealand and not even remotely related to woodcocks. The kiwi is flightless, while the woodcock is not and the kiwi is endangered. American woodcock, sometimes called "Timberdoodles," are not endangered. However, their numbers have been steadily decreasing by about one percent a year since the 1960s. When young forest was plentiful, woodcock were abundant. But many brushy areas have grown into mature forest, where woodcock do not live. And human development has destroyed much of the birds' former habitat. In true action movie form, The National Fish And Wildlife Foundation has a "Woodcock Task Force" which targets woodcock populations for conservation. "Save the woodcock!" Do you suppose they wear camo. to their meetings?
     Like the snipes they are related to, the woodcock are a popular game bird. They present a particular challenge to hunters because they are so hard to see on the ground. They are elusive targets; when startled into flight, they bely their portly shape, quickly zigzagging through the trees. Some species, especially those endemic to islands, have been hunted to near extinction. Artists value the woodcocks' pin feathers used for fine painting work. The woodcock are a group of seven or eight very similar living species. But, there are only two woodcock that are widespread, most of them found in the Northern Hemisphere. Indiana Jones would groove on the notion that eight species of woodcock are known only from their fossil records.
     As the name implies, woodcock are woodland birds that live near wetlands, streams and rivers. Oddly, they are actually a sandpiper, and a wading bird! They are unusual in this group (sandpipers, dunlins, curlews, etc.) of birds as the only members that live, nest and breed in the woods. They are one of the few shorebirds widely hunted for sport.
     Like all wading birds, they have a very long middle toe. For wading birds, the middle toe acts like a snow shoe, distributing the bird's weight over a greater area so they don't sink into the mud. They have eyes set wide apart on their heads which gives them 360 degree vision. With their long, slender bill they poke around in the dirt for worms. Unlike most birds, the top of their bill is flexible at the tip. The guess is that they actually feel the worms underground with their tongue and bill tip. But, no one really knows what's going on under the earth. A woodcock rocks its body back and forth without moving its head as it slowly walks around, stepping heavily with its front foot. This action may make worms move around in the soil, making them easier to detect. The woodcock in these photographs was doing just that while maintaining a sideways eye on me.
     I waited a long time, hoping that the bird would do something a little more interesting than humping along the ground, walking like an Egyptian in search of supper. Suddenly, it hunched up, extended its neck, then ruffled its feathers. Camera trained and ready, I squealed, "Oh yeah!, It's gonna do something and I'm ready!" It arched its back slightly then shot out a load of poo, as you can see in the second photo. Oh, well, action is action in the wildlife world. Be careful what you ask for. Woodcock are mostly nocturnal wandering around in the wooded dark looking for food. In the day time, they rest like the one you see here.
     Though they are a common bird, they are often hard to find because of their cryptic plumage. They blend into their surroundings of usually fallen leaves. You may actually nearly step on one in the woods or, as is the case, on the grass and never know they are there. Had I not been on a quest for this particular bird, I would have missed it entirely.

Woodcocks in North America are migratory. In Maine, they start appearing in mid March.

A spring freshet, Phippsburg, Maine April 2011

This is the very sort of habitat woodcocks love!

My earliest sighting was February 12th here in Phippsburg a couple of years ago, but that's early. They become conspicuous when they begin to mate. In the spring, they often begin mating on lingering patches of snow. Where the woodcock displays is called a "singing ground." In the elaborate display called "roding," the males begin to call on the ground, "peent! peent! peent!" It's a high, nasal sound with a slight buzz that you might have heard and mistaken for spring frogs or insects. One of my gardening customers has a solar powered gizmo for warding rodents from his stone walls. It emits an electronic peenting buzz every fifteen seconds which sounds exactly like a woodcock. I've been foiled more than once skulking around his property looking for the hiding bird.

Once peenting, the bird flies upward in an ever widening spiral for two to three hundred feet! As he rises, his wings begin to twitter. Once descending, he chirps and starts a zigzagging, diving pattern to the ground. Nearing the ground he silently lands near a female if there is one. On the ground, he starts peenting again. The displays are usually at dawn and dusk and can go on all summer, long after mating is finished, but they're most common in spring.

Having completed this doctoral disertation, I must be be off in search of an emu reported to be near, or was that the fog horn on Seguin I heard? Now, if only I can find my bullwhip..........

For some of the information, thanks to:

wikipedia.com

allaboutbirds. org

whatbird.com

Elphick, J. in The Golden Age Of Lithography: 1850-1890, BIRDS - The Art Of Ornithology 2008, Scriptum: London (2004), pp 241

Tudge, C., 2008. In The Bird - A Natural History Of Who Birds Are, Where They Came From And How They Live, Tudge, C. PLOVERS AND LAPWINGS, SANDPIPERS, SNIPES, CURLEWS, DOWITCHERS, PHALAROPES, AVOCETS AND STILTS, JACANAS, PAINTED SNIPES OYSTERCATCHERS, THE CRAB PLOVER, STONE CULEWS, PRATINCOLES AND COUSERS, SEED SNIPES, THE PLAINS WANDERER, SHEATHBILLS, GULLS, TERNS, SKUAS AND JAEGERS, SKIMMERS AND AUKS: ORDER CHARADRIIFORMES, Crown Publishers: New York (2008), pp 136-37

Sibley, D.A., The Sibley Guide To Birds, 2000, Knopf: New York (2001), pp 192

Keppie, D. M., and R. M. Whiting, Jr. 1994. American Woodcock (Scolopax minor). In The Birds of North America, No. 100 (A. Poole, and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.

FLYday - Osprey With Flounder

2011-04-15T01:36:00.000-04:00

Osprey With Flounder, Phippsburg, Maine

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

FLYday - Snowy Egret

2011-04-15T01:00:00.002-04:00

Snowy Egret, Phippsburg, Maine

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

Reincarnation And The Science Of Connection Or Just Another Harp Seal

2011-04-11T13:17:00.019-04:00

Harp or "Saddle" seal, male April 9, 2011 Phippsburg, Mainen Soaking up the sun on the Kennebec River, Phippsburg, Maine

Harp seal basking in the spring sun, April 9, 2011 Phippsburg, Maine

     I went to the supermarket a few days ago. That's always a big deal because I wait until there is literally nothing left in the house to eat. I only go shopping about once a month to really restock my pantry. It's amazing how far I can stretch it, too. I can come up with very tasty dishes from a few cans of whatever, a lone onion sprouting a green tendril and a dehydrated sausage in the back of the freezer. The cue for when I must go shopping is when I get to the dead birds in my freezer, and I don't mean chicken.
   I have a collection of dead birds that have hit my windows or otherwise met their demise carefully wrapped and stored in a freezer, known as "the mausoleum," in my basement. I've lost count, but there must be a dozen. Though it is against the law to possess them, when I find these birds, I just don't have the heart to throw them onto the compost or into the bushes. Most of them are as perfect as the moment before they died when flight was still their friend. It feels unfair that they died suddenly, sometimes inexplicably at thier most beautiful. They are so lovely, even the plain-Janes of the bird world. It seems disrespectful to the dead to just fling them. So, I wrap them in a paper towel shroud and double bag them. Into the mausoleum they go. God bless whomever invented the zipper lock bag, commonly known as "Zip Locks," for they maintain a tight seal for years. So I've discovered.
     Once I have rummaged in the freezer depths and pillaged the food contents, when I get to those birds, I know I must get to the supermarket. The process fills me with dread. When I get to the birds, a bubble of anxiety the size of the Hindenburg balloons inside my chest. For one thing, each time I'm reminded that I'm committing a crime by keeping my entombed feathered friends. Akin to knowing that one has cheated on one's income tax (something I would never do), one lives with the fear of getting caught. The other thing is that I know it will take me hours to go shopping and cost me a sheik's ransom before I'm done. I am a package reader and examiner of ethnic foods, much like I examine the feathers, eyes and feet of dead birds. It takes me ages to get through the market. If you go with me and are in a hurry, forget it. But, I can tell you what's in Hoisin sauce and how many calories there are in a tablespoon.
     After one of my mega shop expeditions, I employ measures to correct the physical effects of the attendant panic attack. To calm the chest pain, palpitations and hyperventilations I reward myself. Some might resort to a handful of Xanax in cases like this, but I take photographs. This time, I took the longer, scenic route home in the hopes of finding photographic subjects and was handsomely remunerated by nature, the greatest recompenser.
     With a full load of perishables and frozen foods, I was whizzing homeward when I saw what looked at first glance like a human body on the shore. The day before, tragically a local man had fallen out of his boat and was missing, so this wasn't a ridiculous notion. A massive search by the Coast Guard, Marine Patrol and hundreds of neighbors was still underway. "Oh, God, it's Dick," I thought. I pulled the car over.
     Dick was a clammer who spent his life on the banks of the Kennebec River. A well known character about town, he was a man of opinions and yarns. Better than most, he knew the shores, the mud flats, marshes and waters where the river meets the Atlantic. But something went terribly wrong. His boat was found running in circles and nearly out of gas without him. It's been days now, and he hasn't been found. No declarations have been made, but in our hearts we all know he's not coming back. His body will probably never be found. Dick's story will be told without a real ending. As much as it would have been awful to be the one who found him, it would have been okay to give closure to the family he left behind. They will probably always live without explanation which we humans rarely suffer well.

Harp seals live where it's colored purple.

     Harp seals live in the Arctic circle on the Labrador front. They are pagofilic, or "ice loving." They spend most of their lives on pack ice where they give birth to their young. Prior to 1994, they were virtually unknown on the coast of Maine. Since 1990, their range has been inching southward. Harp seals summer in the Arctic and winter in Newfoundland, but increasingly are seen as far south as North Carolina. It's not rare to see them between December and April in Maine. They are usually seen on shore ledges in coves and harbors. This year, from Maine to North Carolina, a hundred sightings have been reported, three times the number of previous years. In Maine, there have been forty reported, which is double that of last year.
     The Harp seal in these photographs is an adult (I'm guessing male) called a "white-coat" at this phase of its life. Adults are not seen as often as juveniles. From birth to about 14 months, they are called "beaters," for the erratic way that they swim. They do not develop the distinctive, lyre harp pattern on the back until after they are a year old. The first Harp seal I ever saw was on April 6, 2009, a "beater," here in Phippsburg.
     Why these seals are showing up here more frequently is not known. There is speculation that diminishing habitat - melting pack ice, may be a factor. They might be looking for more places to ice out to whelp pups. Reduced populations of the fish they eat may be another reason. Harp seals are common in their normal range, so less ice for them to occupy results in too many of them for the habitat. There have been fluctuations in pack ice before, but never as dramatically as seen in the past two decades. These factors are only speculative to date, as none of these possible causes have been proved. Scientists continue to gather data toward answering this question. But, for now, what goes on in the minds and hearts of a these animals can only be guessed.
      I for one, have another idea. In our need for closures and explanations of events without real answers, it serves as well as any. I think Harp seals on the coast of Maine may be reincarnations. My sister, who adored seals, died the first week in April thirteen years ago. Her's also remains an unexplained death. I associate seals not only with her, but in particular, the Harp seal with her death. And again, there is another Harp seal, a great strapping bull, just like Dick who was a strapping, rugged man who loved the sea.

This post is in memory of my sister, Piper Lee Riley, and Richard, "Dickey" Lemont.

Thanks for some of the information to:

Wikipedia.com

Maine College Of The Atlantic

University Of New England

Marine Mammal Rescue, Maine Department Of Marine Resources

Increase In Extralimital Records Of Harp Seals In Maine, Stevick, P.J. and Fernald, T.W., Northeastern Naturalist 5(1): 75-82

SCENIC SUNDAY - Harp Seal And Squirrel Point Lighthouse

2011-04-09T18:34:00.003-04:00

Harp Seal And Squirrel Point Lighthouse on the Kennebec River. Photograph taken from Phippsburg looking across to Arrowsic.

FLYday - Turkey Vulture

2011-04-08T01:05:00.002-04:00

Turkey Vulture, Phippsburg, Maine 2010

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

(This blog post was Editor's Pick for Open Salon
http://open.salon.com/cover , April 10, 2011)

The Oxymoron Of The Northern Shrike - Death Of A Songbird

2011-04-04T15:44:00.004-04:00

Northern Shrike, Phippsburg, Maine March 2, 2011

Two Northern Shrikes photographed in Pembroke, Maine March 31, 2011. Note that each is on a different type of utility wire.

Northern Shrike in Pembroke, Maine with a caterpillar capture. I was photographing this bird on the wire above when it swooped to the ground in front of me and whisked up this delicacy.

     Now here's an oxymoron for you, the Northern Shrike is a predatory songbird. In my ideal world, birds would be one or the other, either precious little singers, chortling and warbling in the trees telling us all is well with the world, or killers, but not both. Like most humans, I need a certain amount of order and logic. I like to compartmentalize things and when they don't wrap up in tidy packages the way my mind wants them to, I'm left confused and agitated.  My brain gloms onto discrepancies between sometimes glaring realities and what I want to be true. I want to believe in the tidiness of good and evil, right and wrong. The truth is, birds, no matter how lovely, must eat and some of them eat other birds, as does the Northern Shrike.
   Shrikes sit on wires or prominent elevations like this weather vane to hunt. They tail dip if alerted or courting, as do mockingbirds. Shrikes miss very little of what moves below them, suddenly launching in a tight tuck to the ground to snatch a catch. Like some hawks, they do a little hover flying when scanning fields. The Latin species name of the Northern Shrike, Lanius excubitor, means "Butcher watchman." The shrike has a hooked, sharp bill for tearing flesh and killing prey. They don't have talons, like other predators, so they can't grasp onto food. Instead, they impale their kills onto thorns or sometimes, the barbs of barbed wire. Early observers thought this to be wanton killing, but it allows the shrike to then pull bits of flesh away from the large insects which make up the bulk of their diet, or rodents and sometimes other birds. Food items that are too big to consume in one sitting are also stored by hanging on thorns or in the crotches of branches to be consumed later. This adaptation helps shrikes to survive periods of food scarcity. These food caches are also part of courtship displays by males seeking to impress females with their hunting skills. Usually, the caches are found about three feet off the ground and in the vicinity of nest sites. When I was younger I was often attracted to guys that had a "bad boy" streak. A guy that would hang a dead rat on a fence to woo me would have been right up my alley, too.
     At just under ten inches from bill to tail tip, the shrike is a powerful bird that will kill birds bigger than itself. The shrike comes up underneath and behind a flying victim then grabs the feet or tail snatching the unsuspecting bird from mid air or stunning it with it's strong bill. The Northern Shrike is also a talented songster with an appealing, melodic warble. They have been known to mimic the songs of smaller songbirds to lure them to their deaths. They are also easily confused in the field with Northern Mockingbirds, known too for their splendid ability to mimic and sing.
     In North America, there are two kinds of shrikes, the Loggerhead and the Northern. Their ranges overlap slightly during the winter. In Maine the most commonly seen is the Northern Shrike, also called the Great Grey Shrike in Britain. Shrikes are boreal birds of the taiga and northern forests. They migrate slightly south of their summering range for the winter. In southern Maine, Northern shrikes are usually seen as migrating birds. This year, there have been higher than usual numbers of them reported. They are territorial birds most often seen singly, though they do form monogamous mating pairs for the breeding season. Males and females look very much alike. Both build the nest, incubate and care for young. Shrikes are not endangered, though habitat destruction has likely resulted in reduced numbers. Pollutants, especially heavy metals, find their way into shrikes by way of the rodents they consume.
     Long ago I was suddenly fired from a job I desperately needed and truly loved. The event so devastated me that it was the last job I had in health care as a registered nurse. I still have a Maine nursing license and will probably take it to my grave, though I no longer practice. I maintain my license, not because I think I might one day want to return to work in health care, but because for over half of my life, being a nurse was my identity. People often said to me "Wow, a registered nurse, huh? I could never do that kind of work. It takes a special person to deal with all that stuff. Blood? Yuk! Not me! Thank God there are people like you; I couldn't do it." I had a lot of pride wound up in being that special person they talked about.
     And, in nursing, I wasn't just any nurse, either; I was the cream that rose to the top. I had a career with a capital 'C.' As a supervisor in a rural community hospital where there weren't doctors after supper time, I ran from one crisis to another. We nurses handled everything, the strokes, the heart attacks, the respiratory failures, car accidents, overdoses, all of it, until a doc could get out of bed and get there. It wasn't uncommon for the nurses to manage a case even when a doctor did show up because they weren't always as experienced as we were, or even sober. I took care of sick, terrified and often dying people, their families and my staff. As the interface between nurses, doctors, patients and families; I was the problem solver; and frequently, the hero. I thrived on the adrenalin rush coursing through my super star veins. I loved what I did for work and it was me. For decades, I lived and loved the crises and stories and glory.
     Then one day, all of a sudden it was over. Without warning, I was called into an office and fired. Flimsy reasons were given, thin excuses to cover the human resource depatment's decision. I hadn't done anything wrong! Outraged, I forced them to try to explain to me what was happening, but they said their decision was not performance based. "The patients and your co workers love you. You are an accomplished clinician, but it's just not working out. We need a comfort level," is what I was left with to make sense of the catastrophe that became my life.
    I was at first, filled with rage and wanting vengeance. In the hours when sleep was impossible, I plotted and planned how I would get back at them. I fantasized my vindication. I'd tear them down as they had torn me down! I wallowed deep in humiliation, confusion, anger and helplessness. Terrified  about money, I was scared for my children's welfare. I saw my whole life and future collapsing before my eyes. The whys spun around in my tortured head night after night. "It's just not fair! It's not right! Why? Why!!!????" I cried, howled, and ranted. I couldn't make sense of any of it. There wasn't a pigeon hole big enough or the right shape to stuff this bird into. I had done and been everything I knew how to be and yet, for some reason in the end, I was not good enough. That empty fact left me with nothing to hold onto and I slid deep into depression.
     I spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what had happened. Needing to make sense of it, to see the logic, I tried to find someone to blame. "Who did this," seemed a question with an answer that would restore order. A few faces and names linked to ordinary work place dust ups came to mind. Paranoia reigned my brain swamped by waves of rage from which I'd crash into grief. In the end, I never did know what was behind my being fired. Eventually, it was just the passage of time that loosened my grip on the need to know. I had to get on with my life. But, I did conclude that at the heart of it was an error in my thinking, not my doing; I had forgotten that songbirds can also be killers. Most of the time, there's no right or wrong, just the need to survive.
    My employers were people just trying to do their jobs. They probably weren't the evil incarnate I was at one point sure of. Most likely, they don't even remember what for me remains one of the most painful events of my life. To this day, I don't know why I was fired, but I am pretty sure somebody simply did what they thought they had to do to survive. I was merely the one that wound up impaled on a barb.

Northern Mockingbird, Phippsburg, Maine May 27, 2010

Mockingbirds are easily confused with Northern shrikes. They have a pointed, not hooked bill, are a little larger and have a longer tail.

For some of the information, thanks to:
wikipedia.com
allaboutbirds.org
whatbird.com

Sibley, David A., The Sibley Guide To Birds (2000) Knopf: New York (2001) pp 340-341
Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B. & Zim, H., A Guide To Field Identification - Birds Of North America (1966),Golden Press: New York ((1966) pp242-243

SCENIC SUNDAY

2011-04-03T10:30:00.005-04:00

Lubec, Maine March 31, 2011

(remember that to see this image full screen, all you have to do is click on the image)

FLYday - "Go Goosey, Go!"

2011-04-01T11:03:00.001-04:00

A weekly homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

Canada goose, Phippsburg, Maine

"You Can't Walk Backwards And Sip, Don't Swill" - Snow Geese And The Super Moon

2011-03-29T20:48:00.002-04:00

Instead of the "Super Moon" maybe we should have called it the "Big Tangerine!" The top photo is of the magnificent orb as it crested the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean. The color was as you see it here, an intense melon shimmering slightly through haze on the water.

March 19, 2011 Super Moon as it came over the horizon, east over the Atlantic Ocean from Fox Island, Popham Beach State Park, Phippsburg, Maine

This was the Super Moon an hour later as it crested the tree line in the parking lot of the beach.

I just guzzled a whole can of carbonated Polar seltzer. I slugged it down so fast that a huge bubble of gas ballooned into my throat and choked me. For just a second the bubble bulged into my larynx so I couldn't talk or even burp. Then, out it blew with a satisfying belch that would make a sailor blush.

Writing is like that. Emotional experiences, like compressed gas in a can, are awaiting their moment to irrupt. If the can is opened too soon, the gas dissipates into the air as a non event. Too late or too fast and it's likely to choke me. Timing is everything; it can't be rushed, but it's rarely too late. Sometimes, right after a thing has happened, I can't write about it or look at the photographs because it's too much - emotional Vesuvius in the can of my brain. If I open the can and swill I think I might die.

When my husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer, I felt like that. And, my beloved little dog died a year ago, though I have yet to write about that, either. Through my fingers on the keyboard, I feel the swelling in my throat coming and it feels too big. There are things in life that are so monumental as to defy my art, yet I need to tell them. How do I explain my terror, or awe and joy? How do I explain that when I sent my husband alone down a corridor to an operating room and laid my dog into the ground, when I saw the great rush of thousands of migrating Snow geese and the rising Super Moon that I knew union with the whole universe? That I saw God?

From our house, we have a clear view of the eastern sky over trees. We see the moon every night when it's not overcast. But, to watch this rare celestial event, my husband and I went to the beach. Sometimes, to broaden your horizon or change your perspective, you've got to travel. For us, that was about three miles to Popham Beach.

     We've been married ten years which isn't long since we are middle aged. But, a decade is long enough that romance falls by the wayside of living if couples don't work at it. We are old enough that minor things are apt to feel like struggles not worth the hassles. And, unlike when we were younger, we flirt with lack of initiative.
    "Honey, let's go to Popham to see the Super Moon," I suggested a few days in advance. He answered, "It'll be cold." Though we were sitting in our living room, he shivered in advance to emphasize his point. I, on the other hand, had visions of a nighttime picnic on the beach. "Come on," I said. "It's once in a life time." "There's another one in sixteen years," he retorted. "Yes, but it might rain," I answered.
     I remembered that ages ago, a friend had given to me a wicker picnic basket, complete with dinner ware, a bottle opener and table spread. I had never used it, but had stuffed it in a closet, somewhere in our great ark of a house. It would be perfect; now, if only I could find it.

Remembering that I own things is one thing. finding them is another. It can take days of tearing closets apart, going up and down the cellar stairs, and checking the haunting darkness of outbuildings to find things. And, that's if I can stay on task and remember what I was looking for. So, the lovely, perfectly appointed picnic basket was the first hassle factor to drop off the romance staging plan. Too bad, too because I could almost hear the dry creak of the wicker reeds and feel the soft nap of the throw in my hand. The basket will sit wherever it is waiting for its day, if by then I remember that I own it.

I had a bottle of Pear sparkling wine with a pearlesent golden label so pretty it had seemed a shame to mar it with spillage. Dribbles would be inevitable if opened in the dark. I had held onto the special bottle of bubbly for so long waiting for the magic moment to open it that it was probably flat anyway. And, if I didn't take a basket, glasses would be hard to transport without breakage. I know I could have used plastic, but I hate drinking from plastic. It's also not romantic. Item number two to drop from the plan: Pear bubbly.

Earlier in the day, I had packed the meal. Thankfully, the cold, Tai noodle dish was elegant, but not complicated by the need to keep it hot. The soba noodles rich in chili peppers, cilantro and smokey undertones of sesame oil would give heat enough.

My husband has a tremendous metabolism. He must eat every forty-five minutes or he starts getting antsy. In the beginning of our marriage, when still blinded by love's power to make a woman do most anything, I cooked twenty hours of every twenty four to save him from collapse. Then, I wised up. The blush was off the rose when I announced that I'd only cook one meal a day, no matter what happened. If he keeled over I would make sure that clause was written into the prenup the next time around. I am sensitive to his jittery state when his hungry horrors set in, though. Sometimes, I cave in and feed him. The moon rise wasn't due for hours after the regular time for feeding the bear. I'd have to do something, or I'd never get him to the beach alive in the dark.

The third article to drop from the Super Moon Romance Plan was the picnic dinner. Standing in the kitchen, I plopped the Tai noodles onto a plate and handed him a fork. It was a nice idea, but like sex on the beach, sand in the cold noodles wouldn't have worked.

Another thing about my husband is he wakes up very early, so he goes to sleep early. He's nodding off and cheek puffing before the evening news is over. He'll deny this until pigs fly or when the cow jumps over the Super Moon, but it's true. In order to keep him awake, I had to get him out of the house into the chilly March air before it was dark or I'd lose him. He was, after all, the last remaining shred of the Super Moon Romance Plan.

Like a lot of people with fast metabolism, my husband doesn't tolerate cold well, unless it's the frostiness that I dish out. We bundled up against the beach breeze and brisk night air then headed out. With time to spare, we walked out to Fox Island, which can only be done when the tide is low. Every year, someone gets stranded out there not realizing that they must get off the rock before the sea closes in around them. When the distress calls come across the Coast Guard radio channel locals say "Yup, someone from away must be out there." I knew that once I had my husband on the island, he would have to wait with me while the sun set. He's got a short attention span and otherwise, might have gotten fidgety waiting for the moon. The molten peach of the setting sun was reflected in every still pool of water. Rhythmic surf left a thin lace of foam on the sand and stirred up a thick musty smell of decay that was delicious. Then, the moon rose.

     On the far eastern horizon, the straight line between to sea and the sky was broken by a bubble of luminous orange. Swelling as it rose, the Super Moon was everything the media had promised. With it, my heart swelled to bursting and I thought I might cry. Not speaking, I reached for my husband's hand in the dark. I can't imagine life without him and I wanted that moment to last forever.
    Then, his voice of reality said, "Crap. The tide's coming in and we've got to get off the island. We'll break our necks in the dark on these rocks. How are we going to see?" I sighed. From my pocket, I handed him the flashlight I had thought to bring. We headed down the rocks then across the flat sand with the moon to our backs. I wasn't ready to leave, but I did, to be with him, even though he was a mood wrecker.
     But, my husband couldn't be a moon wrecker; it was simply to compelling. I kept stopping to look back at the Super Moon. It was pulling me. I thought of every time I didn't say "I love you," every time I was crabby or in too much of a hurry. I thought of every time something seemed like too much trouble or too big to tackle. I said to myself, "From now on, I'll always........" and a thousand things rushed in to the hole. My husband was power marching to the car, his back to the moon. Finally, way ahead of me, he disappeared into the darkness, just the flashlight beam showing that he was still out there.
     I wanted him to be with me, but I couldn't turn away from the moon. To holler seemed like an offense to the sounds of the night. Like a kid, I tried to walk backward. So, I tripped and fell onto my butt with a thud onto the damp sand. Suddenly, he was there. "Everything okay?" he asked, taking my hand. He had come back for me. "Ya, I'm okay. It's just it's once in a lifetime ya know. It's so beautiful I can't look away. I even tried to walk backward. Don't you wish you could walk backward?" My face was tipped up to the candle colored light of the moon when he kissed me. "You're once in a lifetime. And, none of us can really walk backward," he said and took my hand for home.

     Savor all your once in a lifetimes. Share your songs, your dance, your words and images. You are part of the universe, you are a piece of everything -you are a migrating bird, you are the rising moon.

To see this photo full size and get a better impression of the magnitude of it, double click.

This blog post was the Editor's Pick for Open Salon (http://open.salon.com/cover) March 29, 2011

Scenic Sunday - Surf's Up!

2011-03-27T01:55:00.001-04:00

FLYday - Belted Kingfisher

2011-03-25T01:00:00.003-04:00

Belted Kingfisher, female in flight, March 5, 2011
An homage to what our feathered friends so best, fly.

WAITING ON THE SUPER MOON - Scenic Sunday

2011-03-19T20:38:00.000-04:00

March 19, 2011 Waiting On The Super Moon, Popham Beach State Park, Phippsburg, Maine

"March" - Northern Harrier

2011-03-19T12:12:00.004-04:00

Northern Harrier, also known as a "Marsh Hawk," hunting across a salt marsh on the Atlantic coast

"March"

At the tail end of the winter
March plods
through endless dour days
marked by brownish gloom.

While beneath the cold earth's floor
the secret songs
of flowers
are building to a roar.

Spring fed - suddenly
the crocus blooms
Shouts out
"Wake up! Wake up!"

The yellow faces yell
"Bend down
and kiss me!"
Take in the lemon smell.

The sun will shine,
the warmth will come
then we will all be well.

Robin R Robinson

..............................................................................................................................................

Yesterday, it soared to 65 degrees here with a warm, southerly breeze. Portland, Maine set a record breaking 68. I worked in my gardens for hours for the first time since last fall. It felt so good! As if by magic, the first crocuses of the year popped out of the ground. While I clipped, pruned, raked and hauled debris, more and more of them opened before my eyes. They escorted me by the hand to this sappy verse.
This morning, before I opened my eyes, I felt cold air. Through the window came the cool, blue light of falling snow.

"Out Of Place" White-winged Crossbill, Common Redpolls

2011-03-16T15:59:00.003-04:00

Common redpolls and White-winged crossbill March 14, 2011 Phippsburg, Maine

White-winged Crossbill, male March 14, 2011 Phippsburg, Maine

A flock of about a hundred and thirty Common redpolls is still here. Among them has been this lone, male, White-winged crossbill. As boreal forest birds, it's highly unusual for either species to be here this late into spring. Maine has seen unprecedented numbers of Common redpolls this winter. Though they look somewhat out of place, the birds seem comfortable in this environment far from their northern homes. They don't spook easily and are aggressive at the feeders. I've carefully studied the flock of redpolls hoping to see a Hoary redpoll, but no such luck. I did notice that some of the Common redpolls were wearing high heels and the White-winged crossbill was wearing false eye lashes. Hoping to fit in, boreal birds are known to don this type of attire when they travel south to the cities.

My husband and I just came back from a trip. We travelled south to see family and to see the Philadelphia Flower Show. Though we only went to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, for us it was a big trip. Jersey and PA are after all, south of here and closer to spring. We don't often get off the Phippsburg peninsula, and when I do it usually involves a police escort and zip ties. My children have both moved away from Maine and I sometimes wonder if my reputation is one of the reasons they fled. But, they haven't completely escaped me; occasionally, I visit them. And when I do, I try to clean up my act. Both of my kids are now adults. They have complete lives with respectable jobs, friends and images of their own far removed from when they lived with me. I don't want to embarrass them. I remember with crystalline clarity the days when I held my breath fearing that it was they who would embarrass me. I don't recall anything either of them actually did that mortified me, but I do recall the anxiety of fearing that they might.

My daughter's life is now in New Jersey, land of concrete, asphalt and the most shopping malls per square mile of all fifty states. She is a stylish, citified and gorgeous, young woman. She wears huge, hoop earrings and boots with four inch heels as day-to-day wear. On her worst day, she looks like a super model.

I, on the other hand, live where practical shoes dictate all outfits. I look comparatively like a troll that's lost its bridge. I sleep in plaid flannel and wear snow shoes to bed! The day we left, it was zero degrees Fahrenheit and we still had two feet of snow pack, making these nightwear choices prudent. Most days, I'm also bundled in layers of mismatched fleece.

My daughter and I had not seen each other in eight months. Suddenly, I envisioned myself through her eyes. I looked like a bear! Now, the mortification tables had turned and I felt woefully inadequate. I would have to do something radical to myself in order to not be an embarrassing hick, a gnarly Nanook of The North, an Ellie May Clampet without great legs. First off, I bought high heeled boots. For several days, while in my bathrobe, I wore them around the house for practice. Nothing pegs a country girl quite so fast as when she falls off her own shoes. After I had that licked, I got a hair cut. That involved two and a half hours in a salon chair. With a reciprocating saw, the beautician whacked a foot off my coif. It took half a pound off my body weight and ten years from my face. But, I wasn't done.

Of late, on television, I've been watching Real Housewives Of Atlanta. The trashy, reality TV series fascinates me because the women are preposterous. Yet, they do exist in real life, albeit in a bizarre social context. They represent a world and people so far removed from me that I find it easier to conjure Martians. And, in that respect, I find them educational. It's always good to get in touch with what's out there that you can't possibly imagine. I also learned something practical beyond the bare sociology, too.

I discovered that they all wear false eye lashes and they wear them all the time! The fake eye lashes are what account for some of their vapid, doe-eyed blinking. I noticed this when one of the ladies was crying in a fit of despair and her eye lash came off in her hand like a soggy caterpillar. Some of the "housewives" are not classically pretty women, but they do have gobs of money to throw at their problems. They definitely know how to make the most out of their less than perfect god given selves. So, I decided I'd try it. I'm sure that they spend bundles on expensive false eye lashes made from the furs of endangered mammals. But, I bought a five dollar set from a chain drug store in the same aisle as the cigarettes, condoms and on sale cans of Spanish peanuts.

Like the high heeled boots, it took some practice in the privacy of my own home to master the application. Naturally, or not - as the case may be, I put them on crooked a couple of times. I got the adhesive in my eyes more than once, which ruled out reading anything for a couple of hours, but I persevered - anything for the cause of fashion. When I left for New Jersey, I no longer looked like a country bumpkin; I looked like a squinting bear with a thorn in its foot and a limp.

I'm just not a glamorous person and my fashion artifice left me feeling like a silly fraud. In the mirror, I saw a stranger in my own skin. Beneath the Bambi lashes, killer heels and fancy do, I was still just me. I know my daughter loves me regardless of what I look like or even if I were to embarrass her. She loves me as I love her, unconditionally, no matter what. She sees me for who I really am and I feel beautiful in her eyes; I feel okay. It's a pivotal moment for parents when we realize that our children accept us for who we are, and sometimes for who we are not. From the moment my children were born they have punctuated my life with moments of beautiful clarity.

Displaced Baltimore Oriole at the 2011 Philadelphia Flower Show

"No matter how foolish you feel, someone always looks worse. "

The Redpoll Riot - Bathrobe Birding

2011-02-28T13:35:00.009-05:00

"They're everywhere! They're everywhere, north, east, south and west!"

Common redpolls, clockwise from left female, female, male and bottom is male again. First year male birds look very similar to females and can be hard to distinguish.

Redpolls like birch trees. When they hit the feeders en masse it feels like an invasion!

(Remember that you can double click on these images to see them larger)

These adorable, scrappy little birds are Common redpolls. Redpolls are a woodland bird of the northern tier of the United States, breeding in the taiga. They only come this far south in the winter. As a rule, less than 2 % of all the redpolls reported to Cornell Lab of Ornithology are reported this far south. I get a few every year, but this year I've been invaded by a spectacular riot of redpolls. Maine birders have been reporting unprecedented numbers.

This has been an irruptive year, that is the birds are busting south from their normal northerly range in search of food. The irruptions are a cyclic phenomenon. Redpolls eat tiny seeds. They have pouches in their throats that allow them to gather lots of food quickly, and then take off to a safe place with it. They eat mostly seeds of catkin bearing trees like birches and spruce seeds. When there is a crop failure of these seeds, the birds have to look elsewhere. At about latitude 44, our coastal Maine homestead is rich in high latitude spruce and birch trees .

Redpolls forage in flocks sometimes numbering in the hundreds. The flock that has been hanging around here for the past two weeks is about fifty strong. Constantly on the move, they descend from the sky in rolling waves. They are busy, finchy and acrobatic birds that are well adapted to feeding at the very tips of small branches, hanging upside-down, and using their feet to hold food. They also forage on the ground, especially in winter. I see them suddenly and then, just as suddenly, they are gone. Like a lot of finches, they have an undulating flight pattern. Slightly bigger than an American goldfinch, they could easily be mistaken for them in the sky. Though they seem so finch like, the redpolls closest bird relatives are the crossbills, another bird of the northern forests given to irruptions. Like the crossbills, I can usually hear the redpolls even before I see them. They are quite vocal, constantly making contact calls within the flock. The call is a dry reeling song like goldfinches with a rolling burr at the end.

Sometimes redpolls are in mixed flocks of goldfinches, winter sparrows, juncos and other small winter birds. Rare visitors to southern Maine are Hoary redpolls, though they have been reported near here this year, too. I have yet to see one, but I scour these flocks looking at every bird in the hopes of finding one. You'll be the first to know when I do!

Depending on who you talk to, there are either one, two or six species of redpolls. This is because birders like to argue. Actually, it's because there are so many variations that without DNA samples, redpolls are hard to nail down. One of the species lives in Finland, so if I tell you I've seen one here, you'd better check my pulse and cut off my bar tab. The other two that are known to occur here are Common and Hoary. Hoarys are a little bigger with a smaller bill. They have a frosted look, thus the name "hoary," which is not a misspelling of slutty behavioral traits. I know what you were thinking! It can be tricky telling the difference between Commons and Hoarys because there are lots of variations. To anyone's knowledge, the two don't interbreed which would make them Common Hoars. Redpolls are named for the red knot on their heads. Males have pink or cherry red breasts depending on how old they are. Females just have the knot, or 'poll' on their heads. Red Poll cattle are named for the same thing, the red knot on their heads, but they don't fly. If they start falling out of trees like the redpolls have been, my advice is "don't look up and keep your mouth shut."

These are Red Polls, not redpolls. Though they can be tipped, let's hope they never fly.

Thanks to allboutbirds.com, wikipedia and the following for some of the information:

Sibley, David A 2000, The Sibley Guide To Birds. Knopf: New York (2000) p 532

Old Fashioned Boiled Frosting - Scenic Sunday

2011-02-26T23:51:00.001-05:00

Gray Fox At Greyledge - Bathrobe Beasting

2011-02-24T14:47:00.614-05:00

Gray Fox at Greyledge, Phippsburg

This is a Red fox also from Phippsburg. You can see its black stockings, absence of gray fur, and longer nose and ears that differentiate it from a Gray fox.

This is the time of year when we are all really sick of snow, cold and ice, but it seems to keep coming. "Enough already" can be heard from every quarter. We still have two feet of hard snow pack on the ground. However, the days are getting longer and the sun is warmer. Everyday, my husband announces the minutes of daylight we've gained, an important detail when living in the eastern most United States where winter daylight is at a premium. All this being said, I can assure you that spring is closer than it feels.

      Even on days that the temperature is in the single digits, it's not as shocking when I step outside to take photographs in my bathrobe. Up against our house or sidled up to my car, which I use as a blind if trying to photograph critters, it feels less mean. The two lunatic Song sparrows that have stayed all winter are now singing their spring tunes.
   Our dog definitely has spring fever. He has been rousting us out of bed between three and five in the morning. He yips, bellows and yodels until we have no choice but to let him out, fearing that maybe, just maybe, he's fussing about some other need. Once out, he doesn't tend to any business besides racing around the yard, nose hard to ground and singularly spring crazed.
     Another early sign of spring is the calls of breeding foxes. They have a hard, sharp yap that cuts through the deep spruce woods at night. Our dog has been announcing this in the wee hours. A few nights ago, at the dog's insistence husband got out of bed then turned on the exterior lights to see what was going on. My husband has a thing about motion acitivated perimeter lights on our house. He loves to have the place fully illuminated. He's not paranoid about robbery or anything; he just loves lights. Like giving our property the name of "Greyledge," to him the lights give our little dump a satisfying palatial feel. Our house is festooned with banks of lights to rival a night football game, and he keeps adding more! He and I are usually esthetically simpatico, except about the lights. "For God's sake! This place is lit up like a penitentiary yard!" I crab. The only time I am okay with the glaring lights, is when there actually is something in the yard.
     The criminal in the yard of "The Big House" recently was a gray fox, at least that's what my husband said it was. I didn't see it because I was in bed wishing the lights would go out and the dog would shut up. My sleepy brain thought he said "gay" fox which lead to all sorts of bizarre dreams. My husband is not a wildlife guy and I've never seen a Gray fox here, so when I woke up, I figured it was a small 'g' gray fox that was yapping and snuffling bird seed out of the snow. Over the next few days, I saw tracks around the house and other spots where some fox had been grubbing seed out of the deep freeze. Foxes start breeding between the end of January and the end of March. At this time of year, to hear them mate calling in the night is common.
     Recently, at two in the afternoon, my neighbor called. "Quick! There's a fox coming up the road to your house!" I would not have looked a wildlife gift horse in the mouth and asked what kind of fox it was, even if the question had occurred to me. I'm immensely grateful for the scouts I have out there who alert me in a timely way! Out the door I ran, still in my bathrobe, natch. Actually, I snuck out the door, so as not to frighten off whatever was coming.
     I crept around the back of my car, being very careful not to make a sound and praying for my dog to keep his big mouth shut. I heard the fox call twice, closer each time. The fox's second yap was so close and loud that I thought, "I hope it's not rabid, because it's going to jump into my lap." I really hate it when foxes jump into my lap when I'm wearing my good bathrobe! I saw the fox just as it came around the stone sign at the end of our drive that says "Greyledge." Through the camera's viewfinder, I saw immediately that it was a gorgeous, Gray fox, no lights required.
     Grey foxes are not common in Maine. Their range is throughout the southern half of North America and some parts of southern Canada to northern Venezuela and Columbia. To photograph one that hasn't been lured by calling (I swear, I didn't) or by trapping is unusual. They aren't seen as often as Red foxes because they are more reclusive and nocturnal in their habits. Gray foxes tend to be active from the late evening until dawn. There is evidence that they are on the increase in southern and western Maine, though. The Department of Fish and Wildlife pelt tagging records from 1998-2004 more than doubled for Gray foxes. Gray foxes were once the most common fox in the east. Human advancement allowed the Red fox to become more dominant, though Gray foxes remain dominant in the Pacific states.
      Grey foxes and the closely related Californian Island foxes , an endangered species, are the only two living members the Urocyon genus, the most primitive of the living dogs, or canids. Remarkable among other types of dogs, the Gray fox is one of only two dogs that climb trees (the Asian Raccoon dog is the other)!
     A close cousin, Red foxes are slightly larger than Grays which run a pound lighter than Reds in the range of 7-13 pounds. Gray foxes look bigger though, because they are stockier. An excellent climber, its body proportions make sense. Its relatively short legs lower its center of gravity, and its forelegs have greater rotational ability than that of any other member of the dog family. It can reach around tree trunks or limbs while the long, curved claws of its hind feet enable it to grasp and push. They readily climb trees and jump from branch to branch while hunting arboreal food sources or escaping predators. The Gray fox descends by jumping or descending down the tree trunk backwards as cats do.
     Red foxes and Gray foxes have similar vocalizations; the Red fox barks more, but the Gray fox barks louder. They both have a sharp, slightly rasping voice that my husband, "The King Of Light," thinks sounds like a seagull. Obviously, the Gray fox has a grizzled, gray peltage. A quick way to tell the difference between the two in the field is the stockings. Red foxes have pronounced black stockings which Gray foxes do not. Millenniums ago they gave that up after they kept destroying their stockings on tree bark.
     In addition to its mostly gray fur, the Gray fox has a black stripe down its back from the neck to tail-tip, which is dark unlike the white tip of the Red fox's tail. Its feet are rust colored whereas those of the Red fox are black. The cheeks, throat, inner ears and most of the underside are white. Gray foxes have a shorter, rounder snout that looks more cat-like than the Red fox. Though the two species have overlapping ranges, they do not interbreed.
     A possible explanation for the apparent increase in Gray fox populations is regrowth of forests. This fox is more a denizen of woodland and swamp, while the Red fox is more at home in open fields and edges. Gray foxes eat more eggs and birds than Reds do, but their highly developed tree climbing skills probably have more to do with escaping predators like domestic dogs and coyotes.
   More omnivorous than other foxes, the Gray fox eats carrion, insects, birds, turtles and their eggs, and invertebrates. They eat more vegetable material than other foxes which includes fruits, berries, and nuts. They do eat cats, though rabbits and rodents are their favorites. Our Black spruce woods host thundering herds of Red squirrels and chipmunks which may account for why this Gray fox is in our yard. Though the Eastern Cottontail is the Gray foxes preferred food, the rabbit's scarcity in Maine may not support an increase in Gray fox numbers here. Foxes travel the same hunting routes, so it's likely that this fox will be back.
    Another reason this Gray fox may like it here is that there are lots of den sites. Unlike Red foxes which dig dens into the ground, Gray foxes den in dense brush, cavities in stumps and trees, rock crevices or under out-buildings such as barns and sheds. We have big, piles of fallen spruce which have succumbed to wind and age, lots of rocky ledges and certainly some attractive out buildings. However, Gray foxes have not urbanized like Red foxes.
     The gestation for foxes is about 50 days. The half dozen or so kits that will be born start playing outside the den a week later. They'll be out hunting on their own in another four months, so I'll be looking for more Grays around September. If they make it through the next winter, they'll start breeding their first spring.
     Gray foxes aren't rare in the United States in general, but for some reason they have been intensively persecuted. Healthy foxes pose no danger to humans, but there is a perception of danger (see this link for a recent newspaper article about a woman bitten by a fox in Maine: http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/rabid-gray-fox-injures-woman-in-garden_2010-06-17.html). Gray foxes are especially susceptible to mange and distemper and can carry rabies. Between 1979 and 1980 at least 370,000 foxes were killed in the United States, many on the pretext that they constituted a threat to farm animals. In Virginia, removal of Gray foxes from a turkey farm was followed by an explosion of weasels (now there's a visual!) resulting in more turkeys lost than ever before! After the Gray foxes were reintroduced, the weasel numbers dropped.
     Unlike other foxes, Gray foxes are not a valuable fur bearer. They have thin, coarse fur, unlike that of the more desirable Red fox which has a silky, dense coat. Nonetheless, during the six-years between 1998 and 2004 when the pelt tag numbers for Gray foxes doubled in Maine, the pelt price rose from an average price of $7-$14 per pelt to $10-$14. Considering the skill and time required to trap a fox, process the catch, then get the pelt to a fur dealer, it appears that either the trapper receives a very low wage, the gray fox pelt has very little value, or both. Even with the substantial increase in the average price offered for a Gray fox pelt, we in Maine lose ecologically on every pelt tagged. In neighboring Quebec, The Gray fox is listed as a threatened species, so to kill a Gray fox is illegal. We ought to consider taking the lead of our neighbors to the north and ban Gray fox killing in Maine.
     Before caller Id, when telemarketers called, my husband always answered the phone with a cheerful "Greyledge!" Telemarketers would usually hang up, thinking they had connected with a business. But sometimes, they would continue,. "May I speak with the decision maker in the household?" My husband loved to mess with them and this inquiry left them wide open. "He's my gay lover and he's in Europe for six months, " he'd say. They always hung up, but we could just image them thinking "Damn, I should have known!. He said gay - ledge!" Call it "Gray" or "gay," killing Gray foxes should be a hate crime.

"Little Boxes On The Hillside" A Not So Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-23T10:41:00.005-05:00

     Some of you may recognize this set of buildings. Or, perhaps you have driven by without noticing. Does anyone know where this is? Place your guess in the comments and I'll tell you. The winner will get the pleasure of more of these kinds of "out of the box" posts from me! Lucky you!
     I was intrigued by the colors and the irony; the little boxes, though each with it's own color, they all look just the same. I don't mean simply the obviousness of the architecture, either. They each clearly bear the hand of the same person in the chosen palette of colors, as well. "Little boxes on the hillside, and they're all made out of ticky tacky........."
     Malvina Reynolds was the folk singer who wrote this tune in 1962. Malvina and her husband Bud were on their way from their home in Berkeley, through San Francisco and down the peninsula to La Honda. She was on her way to a singing engagement at a meeting of the Friends’ Committee on Legislation (not the PTA, as Pete Seeger says in the documentary about Reynolds, “Love It Like a Fool”). As she drove through Daly City, she said “Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on.”
     I remember singing this as a kid. My sisters and I sang this ditty in the car when we would see houses that fit the bill. My beatnik parents had taught us to spot the bourgeois and mundane, things to avoid in life, and when we did, to sing this song. Wedged together in the back seat, we would sing our heads off which delighted our parents. Malvina would have been proud of all of us.
     The lyrics are below and a video of Malvina singing Little Boxes, in case you don't remember the words or the tune. This is sure to infect you with an earworm for the day as my little gift to you. The term "ticky- tacky" is now included in the Oxford English Dictionary, and credited to Malvina.

Little Boxes

Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes made of ticky tacky,

Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes all the same.

There's a green one and a pink one

And a blue one and a yellow one,

And they're all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses

All went to the university,

Where they were put in boxes

And they came out all the same,

And there's doctors and lawyers,

And business executives,

And they're all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course

And drink their martinis dry,

And they all have pretty children

And the children go to school,

And the children go to summer camp

And then to the university,

Where they are put in boxes

And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business

And marry and raise a family

In boxes made of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same.

There's a green one and a pink one

And a blue one and a yellow one,

And they're all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same.

Scenic Sunday

2011-02-20T13:48:00.001-05:00

"Waiting On The Tide"

"Bad, Bad Butchies!" Juvenile Bald Eagles Mixing It Up

2011-02-20T11:22:00.007-05:00

     Yesterday, I took these photos of these juvenile, Bald eagles - the Butchie Boys beating each other up in the air. They've been around here quite a bit lately. I have seen them engage this way several times. I'm hoping that eventually, they'll mix it up close enough for me to get better shots than this. But, in the mean time, these will have to do. When I've seen them in mid-air haggling, there hasn't been any food involved. Young eagles practice for later food fights and courtships with these talon to talon displays. Whatever their purpose, it's impressive to see. I'm sure I heard one of them scream at the other, "get on your own side of the sky or I'm tellin' Mom!"
     My husband and I both come from families of five children. When I asked him if he had lots of fights with his brothers he said he didn't remember fighting with them much at all. An exception was a big brawl in which a brother fell onto an antique table of their mother's, smashing it. With their sister, they joined forces to repair the table, as best as a bunch of kids could, before their parents got home. That was before the advent of synthetic glues. The glue was a block of some kind of animal product that required heating on the stove top to liquefy it. Heat changed the glue from a peanut brittle, without the peanuts substance to the consistency of honey. It had to be applied quickly before it cooled and hardened again. Though it stunk up the entire house and the kids' repair job lacked finesse, their parents never said a word. Like my husband and his siblings, I don't remember fighting with my sisters much, either. We were also often in collusion with one another.
     When my sisters and I came home from school, we were frequently alone until one of our parents came home from work. The idea of "latchkey kids" hadn't been invented, yet. A certain amount of responsibility and self reliance was expected of us. We made snacks and occupied ourselves until someone showed up. But, sometimes we got into trouble.
     My mother had a canary named Freep. My father had swapped one of his Siberian husky puppies for the bird. Otherwise, it was an extravagance that we could not have afforded. It's a wonder that the bird survived too, because we lived in drafty, poorly heated houses. Canaries are known to drop dead in those conditions.
     Freep was a touch of refinement and class in my mother's otherwise grim life; she loved that bird, too. The onomatopoeic Freep returned my mother's love with ardent song. He was especially inspired by the radio. When the Herman's Hermits sang, so did Freep. He was guaranteed to throw his head back and belt it out to "Henry The Eighth" and "Mrs. Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter." Though he was a tough, little bird, Freep had his flaws. For one thing, he was an uninteresting, olive green color, not the classic, lemony yellow most associated with canaries. That's probably why my father, not known for his good trades, was able to acquire the bird. Freep also liked to get out of his cage.
     One afternoon, my sister and I arrived home from school and made up some chocolate milk. We rarely had milk in our house and less so, chocolate. Hooking that treat already put us on thin ice, so we did our best to hide all the evidence of our crime. To hurry up with it, we gulped the chocolate milk. Sharing back and forth the one straw we could find, somehow, my sister sucked chocolate milk up her nose. She choked and chocolate milk spewed from her nose. Her bug-eye gasping got us both laughing so hard we fell onto the floor together, knocking over one of the glasses of milk in the process. Our roaring hilarity startled Freep, who busted open his cage door then flew to safety atop a curtain rod. We suddenly sobered up.
     We tried over and over to capture the bird. Each time we got close to him he'd fly off to another perch. We were getting really desperate, knowing our parents would come home at any minute, there was still chocolate milk all over the place and precious Freep remained on the loose. Trying to get up high enough, we tipped over some furniture too, adding to the mayhem. Then, I had an idea.
     I had read in school that birds could be caught by sprinkling salt on their tails. Salt shaker in hand, I chased the bird all around the house. I got close a couple of times, but not close enough. It seemed like it was working, because the bird was slowing down, but I still couldn't catch him. My sister figured that if salt worked, then pepper would, too. Repeatedly, she ran after the bird from one direction while I went from another, both of us shaking salt and pepper at him as fast as we could. I slipped on chocolate milk on one of my attacks and fell, taking a lamp with me. Then, I almost got him! He turned and pecked at me, startling me into retreat. Now, he had done it! No more Mister Nice Guy! I put down the salt shaker and got a mitten to protect my hand. Freep was now freaked and tired. Gauntletted with salt shaker weapon in hand, he was no longer any match for me. Climbing onto the back of the sofa I reached tippy toed for him with my mittened hand and voila! I got him. Or so I thought. Freep took off leaving me with a mitten full of tail feathers. "Uh oh," I mumbled.
    There was nothing to do but try to clean up, though it was impossible to get every speck of pepper from every crack and surface. Chocolate milk makes a very good adhesive once dried. "You just had to get pepper didn't you! If we'd stuck to salt this wouldn't be so bad," I complained to my sister. She rebutted with the lamp, which had separated from its shade and was still rolling on the floor. We realized that we were pretty even in the fault and blame columns, so put our combined efforts into damage control. While busy with that, unobserved by us the bald butted Freep snuck back into his cage.
     When my parents got home, my sister and I were angelically engrossed in our homework studies. Neither of them said a word about the aftermath of the obvious, major fracas and it was days before Freep would sing, either.

Birds, Beasts & Bon Bons - Bald Eagle, Buffleheads & Harbor Seal

2011-02-16T11:23:00.002-05:00

Juvenile Bald eagle, one of last summer's "Butchie Boys"

Buffleheads panicking across water

Harbor Seal on the rocks

     Yesterday, the sun was shatteringly brilliant on the water of Totman Cove. The wind was tearing through the trees and across the water. It was breathtakingly cold at about zero degrees Fahrenheit with the wind chill factor. In spite of this, the birds were busy. A flock of more than fifty Buffleheads were joined by a few Common goldeneyes, dozens of White-winged scoters, loons, mergansers and American Black ducks. An undulating phalanx of eighty mallards flew south above the cove.
     In the middle of the melee of birds, a juvenile Bald eagle got everyone's attention, including mine. It was one of The Butchie Boys of last summer trying out his hunting skills. The Buffleheads and goldeneyes scurried on the water, rose and settled repeatedly. Though there were dozens of them, they dove simultaneously disappearing in a rush. Herring gulls in kettles of hundreds wheeled and rolled through the skies. The Black ducks huddled together, flapping and quaking like fools.
     The Butchie Boy loped across the sky, skirting the tree line. The birds were nervous and when he dove for them, they panicked lifting off the water in a flurry of wings and salt spray. The young eagle must be hungry by now. It's late in the winter and months into slim prey pickings. Ice has narrowed his hunting grounds forcing him to open water. Though there are hundreds of waterfowl, he's an unseasoned hunter. Even an experienced eagle gets less than twenty percent of the birds he intends to dine on. If he hadn't been so self absorbed, he could have asked me for a handout. I would have thrown him a hot dog from the freezer, or perhaps one of the dehydrated, lost HotPockets hidden in the back.
     Though the wind was bitter, I stepped out the door to photograph some of the action. Naturally, I was wearing my bathrobe. This is where a writer given to overwriting would say that the folds of the robe licked up around her legs, further exposing her. She'd say "frigid air bit into her tender flesh."  But, I have way too much self control for that.
     A great fear, a terror even, that writers have is "writer's block." We all worry that there won't be anything new to write about. We obsess that the muse has left us to tickle the creative fancy of some one other than ourselves. We fear we'll be orphaned by our own brains. This crosses my mind sometimes, too. But, the rational part of my brain, the stern governess that supervises the fickle filly of my creativity, says "Be quite. Be patient. Something will come along." If I wheedle and whine, the governess admonishes, "Don't be a hog!" The governess knows I'm a little piggy, too.
     Once, decades ago, someone gave to me as a joke a two pound box of cheap, assorted chocolates. The box was adorned with red writing and a cheesy, gold sash printed diagonally across the cover. It was the size of a suitcase. My friends taunted me, "You're not really going to eat that crap, are you?" "Gross!" I hadn't intended to eat them, but once they started giving me grief, I defended the box of chocolates as vigorously as I defend my decrepit bathrobe today. "Yes! Yes I am going to eat them, every one of them!" I declared.
     As a matter of principle, I refused to share any of my chocolate booty with my critical, jeering friends. I carried it around everywhere I went for over a week, guarding it so they couldn't purloin the sweets. I took it to bed with me. When I bathed, I took the box into the bathroom. Secretly, I punched a hole into the bottom of every one of the bon bons to see what was inside. I nibbled the corners off before eating any to make sure that I didn't get a mouthful of the DREADED JELLY. If the DREADED JELLY was detected, I put the bon bon back in the box. A few, weak sneak attacks were launched by my friends who over powered me, wresting the box from my grip. I fought them, regaining control of the box, though they did manage to get a few, which they threw into the trees, laughing wildly as they did. After weeks of this, I finally was too weakened to continue to defend the bon bon box. In a final attack, like a pride of lions that have finally worn down a tender antelope, they tore the box from me and threw it into a nearby river. I grieved. But, I took solace in knowing that most of what was left inside was only DREADED JELLIES, not anything of real value to me. I had secretly already eaten every oozing, carmel, chocolate, nutmeat filled delicacy. Writer's block is like a box of cheap chocolates; the writer always worries that the next idea will be a DREADED JELLY and that someone else will get all the good ones.
     Bathrobe Birding gives me nearly endless things to write about and photograph. Additionally, there are the blooms, bees, beasts and their kin. As I was photographing the eagle and ducks, this Harbor seal slopped itself up onto the rocks. Out of water they are as graceless as writers without the words. We frequently have seals in the cove, but they never leave the safety of the sea for the rocks. I don't know what possessed it. Its appearance, to over work a metaphor, was an unexpected, surprise bon bon in the box. It's reassuring that if the Bathrobe Birding fails, I can move on to Bathrobe Beasting - a whole new box of chocolates.

SUNRISE

2011-02-15T12:16:00.001-05:00

Maine is the first place in the United States to see the morning sun. In the winter here in the "far east," the sunrise can be especially intense. Sometimes, as in this photo, the sun shines straight upward through the clouds making a tube. It looks like a pathway to another planet or a conduit to a spaceship. I'm not much of an early morning person, but birds and sunrises can get me out of bed. I took this photograph from my deck having leaped naked from bed; it was 2 degrees farhenheit. "Beam me up, Scotty! There's no intelligent life down here."