September 7: Pruning

Funny how once Labor Day passes, it seems like the end of summer is nigh. Really, we've got two more weeks to go, but already there's a nip in the night air and fallen leaves rustle in the yard. Perhaps that's why I was in clean up mode after work today. While my husband gave the back yard its last short trim of the summer--preparing it for autumn's carpet of leaves--I pruned the spirea, quince, and yew shrubs. During this lush summer they'd grown completely out of control, wild limbs blocking the pathway to the back door, reaching toward my car. Then I washed my car and weeded the driveway. For some reason it seems important to neaten everything up before it's covered with a swirling cascade of birch, maple, beech, and ash leaves. The impulse seems seasonally motivated, akin to stacking firewood or canning vegetables. Getting ready.

Pruning shrubs, weeding--
trimming back summer's excess.
Change is on the way.

September 6: Bold Coast

The Bold Coast Trails in Cutler offer some of the most beautiful coastal hiking I've ever experienced, especially on a cool but sunny day like today. We hiked through several miles of mossy spruce forest over bog bridges and tree roots as kinglets flitted in the treetops overhead. The trail follows the ocean's edge for several miles, as well, featuring one vista after another of dramatic rocky bluffs with crashing surf below, lobster boats at work on a sparkling sea, gulls and eiders bobbing offshore, and on the far horizon, the hazy length of Grand Manan Island.

At one point we crossed a small stream draining into a pebbly cove, and in a little side pool amid the rocks, I spied a frog. Hardly what I was expecting for wildlife so close to the shore. The frog was bright green with black spots, a leopard frog. My husband tells me they like wet fields, and we had crossed one earlier, but this palm-sized amphibian still seemed a bit out of its element.

We hiked almost six miles, and were a bit surprised to see the parking lot full upon our return. Clearly we weren't the only ones to think that this quiet, wild place in the middle of nowhere was the place to be on this holiday.

Why here, leopard frog?
Were you too drawn by sea's thrum,
these water-worn stones?

September 5: Spruces

This obviously isn't the only major distinction, but compared to Midcoast Maine, Down East Maine is very boreal. Spruce and fir are the dominant trees on the landscape, which is also marked by quite a few ancient peat bogs and blueberry barrens. A spruce forest has a different feel to it--denser, darker, impenetrable, with thick beds of moss carpeting the forest floor--wilder. It's a forest in which you can imagine gnomes or elves living. Or, if you're a birder, Bruce.

Bruce the spruce grouse is a regular on the Boot Cove Trail in Cutler.  A friend who's a professional bird guide regularly takes clients there for their lifer spruce grouse, a boreal forest specialty species. He told us this morning, when my husband and I ran into him and his wife while watching the hundreds of shorebirds at the South Lubec Sand Bar, that he has often seen Bruce within the first tenth of a mile down the trail, once even in the parking lot. Bruce apparently has a small territory, which he patrols carefully. The key was to get there first thing in the morning, before people walking dogs there had spooked Bruce further back into the trees.

So of course we were driving by the trail head just before sunset, after more great birding at Quoddy Head State Park, and decided to give it a shot anyway. We've both already seen a spruce grouse, so had no life list "must see" anxiety. This was just on a whim. With the sun low in the sky, the woods were dark and a bit spooky. In the distance we could hear the roar of waves and a ghostly-sounding fog horn that sounded like someone blowing across the top of a giant bottle. We went silently, hoping to catch Bruce foraging one last time before roosting for the night. We startled a garter snake. A red squirrel scolded us. In these primeval woods, the grouse's appearance really seemed possible-- we knew he had to be there somewhere, probably watching us from within a tangled spruce thicket.

Then a loud family with kids came up the trail, and we knew we weren't going to get lucky this time. We sat on a bench overlooking a bog as the sun dropped behind the pointed spruce horizon, and then made our way back to the car, wishing Bruce a good night as we left his woods behind.

Grouse territory--
we can feel his spirit here
though we don't see him.

September 4: After the Storm

Swaths of heavy rain, a remnant of Hurricane Earl, passed through last night and early this morning. Torrents were streaming down the street, and now the river is running high and brown. You could probably kayak down to the next dam right now without bottoming out. Wet and bedraggled goldfinches are hanging off the sodden thistle feeder as if they had just been waiting for the rain to let up. The sounds of rain, a rising wind in the leaves, and the rushing river blend to fill the air with a living, breathing swoosh, a constant backdrop as we go about our usual morning ablutions, safe and dry here inside the house.

Ash tree sways, dripping,
above the swollen river:
hurricane season.

September 3: Four Woodpeckers

This morning when I got out of bed I looked out the back window to see why the blue jays were making such a ruckus. On the lawn were dispersed three robins, a squirrel, and a flicker. The flicker was almost underneath the window, and my appearance there caused him to look up. Flickers often "graze" on lawns for ants and other lawn-loving grubs, but they aren't usually right under my window. So I got a good, albeit brief, look at his smooth brown belly covered with black spots, the black band across his breast, and the little black "mustache" pattern on his face that told me he was a male. Then he flew off into the trees, flashing his characteristic white rump. The robins and squirrel hung out for a while longer, and a downy woodpecker whinnied from the trees over our shed.

Woodpeckers have been especially verbal today. When I got to work, a pileated woodpecker was calling loudly and repeatedly from somewhere nearby. Yesterday afternoon he made so much noise that I finally went outside and spotted him preening in a birch tree above my co-worker's truck. The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America describes the sound as "a loud wuck note or series of notes, given all year." That hardly conveys the crazy cackle that resonates throughout the neighborhood when a pileated woodpecker feels like making some noise. In addition to his wuck-ing, I also heard another flicker and a hairy woodpecker--a total of four woodpecker species in one day without even going outside. I may be a lazy birder during my work week, but I can't complain about the birds I do manage to see or hear.

Posing on my lawn,
flicker shows his true colors.
Then--white rump flashing.

September 2: Still Life with Crows, Squirrel, and Beach Ball

This morning a crow out back made a sort of throaty chuckling noise, causing me to look out the window. What I saw made me chuckle, too: on the green tableau of my neighbor's back yard were arranged four crows, a grey squirrel... and a beach ball. The crow that had called seemed to be addressing itself to the squirrel, which was on the alert but not backing down. All five creatures appeared to be grazing together without incident, in fact, perhaps poking around for the first fall of green acorns. And the beach ball? Well, it wasn't doing anything. But if I were a children's book author, I think I'd have my next story there somewhere.

An odd arrangement:
four crows, squirrel, and beach ball.
Fun interrupted?

September 1: Water Play

It was so hot today that they let school out early. Only in Maine! My neighbors across the street coped with the day's heat by laying out a tarp on a small hill in their back yard and running the hose to create a water slide of sorts. The four little boys, tanned and tow-headed from a summer spent on the beach and running around outside, happily slid down the wet tarp over and over. The youngest child, a little girl still young enough to play outside with no clothes on, wanted to join in. But soon she was crying. I looked over with some concern, but her mother explained--as she carried off the wet, naked baby--that the girl had slid too fast down the tarp and it scared her. By next summer she'll be old enough to join her brothers without tears, I'm sure.

I remember the first time I ever realized that a girl wasn't supposed to walk around without a shirt on. It was a hot summer day like this one, and I was seven years old. Without even thinking about it, I went outside to play with just shorts on. At some point, one of my friend's mother told me that I needed to put a shirt on because I was a girl. It made no sense to me, because my chest didn't look any different from a boy's chest. But, self-conscious, I went home and changed my clothes. And never went topless again. Except for the occasional skinny-dipping indulgence, which would have felt really nice on a day like this.

A simple cool-down:
four tan little boys, a tarp,
a hose, a back yard.

August 31: Rattle and Hum

Last day of August. The evening air throbs with the music of crickets and other insects. Slowly the sun sinks behind the trees, but heat lingers. The air is very still as if it, like me, is too hot for movement. As I refill the bird feeders (the birds, at least, were active today, draining the thistle sock of every last little seed), a kingfisher rattles not far off, above the river. The river flows through a shaded tunnel of trees, and I imagine how deliriously wonderful it must feel for the bird to dive into that cool water.

Joy is everywhere:
in kingfisher's noisy dive,
in twilight's soft hum.

August 30: Calm

As I look out the window at a perfect blue sky and feel the warm breeze on my bare arms, hear the rustle of leaves and the pulse of the crickets, it's difficult to imagine that a few thousand miles away down the coast, Hurricane Earl is gathering force. Declared a Category Three storm this morning, with sustained winds of up to 120 MPH, Earl is on track to hit the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico in the next few days. Up to 12 inches of rain is predicted for some of the Caribbean islands, in addition to the storm surge caused by the high winds. By this coming holiday weekend, we could potentially be seeing waves and residual rain from Earl on our coast. But right now, on this beautiful summer afternoon, all that turmoil seems unfathomable. It feels more like tropical siesta time.

With a major storm like Earl brewing to the south, I think of the migrating birds. Many meteorologists predict that global climate change will bring more frequent tropical storms and extend the hurricane season. So these storms are going to overlap more and more with clouds of southbound birds headed right toward them. Birds have a good sense of air pressure and know enough not to fly into the face of a hurricane, but when a hurricane is heading toward you, staying perched doesn't help. So in addition to the obvious human impact, these weather patterns will affect migrating birds, bats, and butterflies, as well. As if they didn't have enough trouble on their journey negotiating the gauntlet of skyscrapers, cell towers, highways, cats, and oil spills...

Serene summer beach.
Yet in this same ocean brews
hurricane turmoil.

August 29: Spider

When the weekend days are steamy like today, the last thing on my "to do" list is anything that resembles a household chore. That includes sweeping up spider webs outside my front door, as much as they creep me out. I know, as a naturalist I shouldn't be bothered by any of nature's wild creatures, but a few things just get me: especially tent caterpillars, earwigs, and big spiders. So when I stepped out the front door this morning and noticed a medium-sized spider perched on a thick tangle of cobweb tucked between the door frame and the porch rail, right under the mailbox, my first inclination was to brush off the web. But as I brought my hand down, the motion scared a much larger spider, which I hadn't seen at first, into the back of the web. The smaller spider turned out to be trapped prey. The big one was in charge. That in itself startled me so much that I left the whole thing intact. And it's still there.

Coming back from a walk into town just now I checked out the web. Smaller, probably paralyzed spider still hangs in the middle of the web. (I can't help but think of Frodo caught by Shelob the spider monster in "Lord of the Rings"). And, well, Shelob herself is still hanging out in a sort of funnel-like cave in her web. The web's in a good spot--lots of flies and other insects are drawn to our porch light. But it's just a little too close to the front doorknob. Some cooler day when I have more energy, the web will have to go. Hopefully Shelob will easily relocate herself to some less obvious spot. And not feel the need to take any kind of revenge on me. 

Sorry, big spider.

You're not trying to frighten.

Webs are what you know.

August 28: Orange Moon

Although the moon has begun to wane, it is no less impressive when it rises, as I discovered last night on my drive back from dinner in Rockland. Tired, I was only thinking about getting home when I started up Powerhouse Hill on Route One in Glen Cove. For a few seconds you get a glimpse of the bay over Clam Cove, and there was the moon: huge, orange, slightly lopsided, still low, rising just above the water. I gasped and almost pulled over. But then I decided my one awestruck moment was enough and continued home with that image of the moon burned into my head.

A glimpse of the bay,
and--oh!--orange moon rising,
almost full, all mine.

Soundtrack: Erykah Badu, "Orange Moon"