6 June 2021 (Somes Sound)

Somes Sound

thrush song rising

from the spruces

2 June 2019 (rhodora)

purple finch singing

the color of rhodora

in the fog

June 4: Blagden Preserve

Old twisted lilacs

mark where the farmhouse was.

Nearby, owls calling.

 

Posted with Blogsy

June 3: Mount Desert Rock

Lightkeeper's house--

on calm seas

imagining the storm surge.

Posted with Blogsy

June 2: Seal Cove

Parula singing.

Apple petals scatter

onto wet beach stones.

Posted with Blogsy

June 4: Bliss

Lifting fog, field of lupines.

Seaside apple tree

humming with waxwings.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

June 3: Acadia Birding Festival

Pointing out a vireo.

Trying to keep you

out of my head.

 

Seal Cove, Mount Desert Island

 

Posted with Blogsy

June 1: Nest

Helped lead a walk today as part of the Acadia Birding Festival on Mount Desert Island, on the Wonderland Trail in Acadia National Park. The short trail passes through stunted boreal spruce and jack pine forest to emerge on the granite shores of the sea. As we scanned the waves, one participant looked down instead... and found the nest of a Song Sparrow tucked in a rose bush, neatly cupping four mottled blue eggs.

Vastness that is sea
alongside these small blue eggs,
singing sparrow.

June 3: Rain in the spruce forest

This morning I and others led a bird walk for the Acadia Birding Festival on Acadia National Park's Ship Harbor Nature Trail as the rain fell and the tide came in. We could hear waves crashing from beyond the wall of spruce trees, and in the treetops, the tinkling notes of the kinglet's song. Small rafts of eiders rode the swells into the harbor, unbothered by rain, shielded by waterproof feathers. From amid the misty tangle of trees, a white-throated sparrow sang loud and clear. Wet sweet fern, crushed by fingers, seemed particularly pungent. Mosses burgeoned, green sponges massed over the forest floor. Water had formed a small pool at the root base of a fallen spruce, creating a wet cave--what might hide in there? Walking the rain-softened trail, our footsteps were dampened, allowing us to hear well the repeated song of the black-throated green warbler. In the dim light, half-concealed amid wet leaves, the warbler's yellow face shone like a tiny sun.

Raindrops on flat leaves
are easily mistaken
for movements of birds.

June 2: Nesting

We spent all morning on the Friendship V whale-watching boat out of Bar Harbor on a pelagic birding trip as part of the Acadia Birding Festival. We cruised way out into the Gulf of Maine past four different islands with lighthouses on them, including Petit Manan, which is part of the Maine Coastal Islands NWR. The island was a chaotic mass of terns and gulls in the air and on the rocks, screeching and crying shrilly, and in the water, flotillas of puffins, razorbills, guillemots, and murres. How the interns who live on the island don't go insane from that constant noise is a mystery, but the sheer dynamic swirl of life out on these nesting islands is awe-inspiring--especially when you consider that these birds are creating life on virtually bare rock, their nests just tiny hollows along a bleak shore.

Gulls near Egg Rock

After a hot shower and lunch, I had to rush off to guide my afternoon field trip at Asticou Azalea Garden and Thuya Garden in Northeast Harbor. While the flowers seemed a little ahead of last year, with many of the azaleas and rhodos gone by, there were still breathtaking patches of blooming beauty--a fire-red azalea that looked like it was flickering, a virtual burning bush; apple trees still laden with white blossoms; these allium poking up amid ferns:

Allium with ferns, Thuya Garden Rhododendrons, Thuya Garden

What moved me the most, though, were not the stunning flowers and the Japanese aesthetic of Asticou, nor the mix of cultivated and wild at Thuya, which is tucked into a forested hillside, fenced in like the Secret Garden. It was a female redstart on a nest right near a trail, the little warbler startling off it every time someone walked by, chipping nearby with obvious agitation. Why would she choose that spot? Was she drawn to a view of the flowers? Will her eggs survive all the disruptions? Is she any better off than a tern laying her eggs on bare earth, at the mercy of the gulls?

Can you see the redstart nest (sans bird) in the center of this bush?

Startled off her nest,
the redstart chirps in distress--
so precious, each egg.