September 5: Raccoon Beach

as if etched with runes

beach stones with cool striations--

ocean's ancient spells

 

 

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September 4: In the channel

Noisy fishing seals--

not knowing we're there

a woman snorts back at them.

 

 

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September 3: Beach stones

sea worn stones underfoot

striped ones bring luck

but I keep the heart-shaped one

 

 

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August 31: Boot Head Preserve

On the final day of our birding tour in Down East Maine, we visited Maine Coast Heritage Trust's Boot Head Preserve in Lubec, which features a bog, moss-carpeted forest, a dramatic coastline, ripe berries along the trails, and birds--including the elusive Boreal Chickadee.

Hiking Boot Head Trail--
pulled forward by unseen birds,
distant surf, foghorn.

August 29: Riptides

The tides of Cobscook Bay in Down East Maine are big and ferocious, punctuated by a boiling mass of whirlpools called the Old Sow. Gulls feed in a frenzy here as the churning waters swirl fresh food through the bay.

Old Sow boils over

Appetites of tides, gulls

We want to see it all

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August 28: Jasper Beach

Jasper Beach--

running down heaps of stones

sea-worn, a kid again.

Now I cast a long shadow.

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July 21: West Quoddy Head, on the path to the Bog

Impression on the trail
where a grouse once bathed.
Spruce, moss keep secrets well.

July 20: Puffin Quest

Went Down East to join a bunch of birder friends on Andy Patterson's charter boat out of Cutler to Machias Seal Island, in search of a Tufted Puffin that has been seen there sporadically over the past few weeks.

What's the big deal? Well, the Tufted Puffin is a bird of the Pacific Ocean; only three or four have been observed in the Atlantic, ever. This one's been hanging out around this amazing seabird nesting island--a disputed US/Canadian territory--along with thousands of its alcid relatives: Atlantic Puffins, Razorbills, and Common Murres.

Fourteen birds looking for one bird among thousands, but the seas were calm and skies clear, making it a perfect afternoon to linger offshore and scan for hours from the gently rocking boat. If the Tufted Puffin had been there, we'd have found it. And we had such an awesome time trying that we didn't mind that it wasn't there. As they often say, in the end it was all about the quest, all about the calm and beauty we found on the way.

Machias Seal Island Light 

Atlantic Puffins and one Common Murre

Alcids offshore

A strange sea lullaby--
lapping of waves on island,
seabirds' mews and groans.

July 27: Grand Lake Stream

Spent the weekend Down East in interior Washington County, at Weatherby's sporting lodge in the lakeside hamlet of Grand Lake Stream. You get there after a 3-1/2-hour drive through very rural Maine which included a Passamaquoddy Indian reservation, torrential rains, and a flooded road on the route we took. This weekend was the GLS annual arts and crafts festival, a quality event that attracts people from miles around--so the tiny town of one store is suddenly abuzz with festival-goers overwhelming (and probably overlapping with) the usual crowd of fishermen and ATVers.

 

We stayed in a little cabin at Weatherby's. Saturday we visited friends at their camp tucked into the pines on the shore of West Grand Lake. We enjoyed an afternoon cocktail on their porch while listening to the sounds of the summer lake. The sky had cleared at last ,and the lake sparkled as we rode back to town in their classic square-sterned Grand Laker canoe, just in time for dinner together at the lodge.

 

Screen door's slam, slap of

flip-flops on dock, lake warm

under my trailing hand.

 

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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?