May 15: Ducktrap River Preserve

Led a bird walk this morning on the Ducktrap River Preserve in Lincolnville. While watching warblers forage in the poplars along the edge of a restored gravel pit, we heard a Scarlet Tanager singing in the distance, that raspy melody distinctive despite the trees between us and the bird. Further up the trail in the hemlock grove, two Barred Owls flew together from tree to tree, hooting like crazed monkeys, particularly delighting the little boy who'd joined our group. And down by the river, the long, bubbling, buzzy song of the tiny Winter Wren tells us of the stone walls winding through the woods, marking boundaries of former fields.

Trees where fields once were.
Across the green distance
red tanager sings.

May 4: Mayflowers

I spent several hours tramping around the greening woods of the Ducktrap River Preserve this morning. Some first spring sightings of warblers, including a beautiful sunlit view of a singing Blackburnian amid the hemlocks, and some first wildflowers, like this Trailing Arbutus.

Commonly called mayflowers, Trailing Arbutus flowers are often tucked away under its big leathery leaves. My grandmother, who would have been 99 in a few days if she were still alive, loved these best because they always bloomed in time for her birthday. And if you get down on your hands and knees and put your face close, you can smell their subtle, sweet fragrance.

It's a bit like prayer--
head down on the forest floor
sniffing the mayflower.

Trailing Arbutus blooming on the banks of the tea-brown Ducktrap River

January 1, 2013: First birds

At the start of each new year, I like to keep track of the first birds I see. When I got up, a crow flew through the backyard, sweeping past like a shadow against the snow. Nothing new there. Later, on a long snowshoe hike at the Ducktrap River Preserve, through sheltering hemlocks whose snowy boughs filtered sunlight onto snow patterned with snowshoe hare tracks, we only had one new species: Black-capped Chickadee. Back home, a swirl of Herring Gulls. And one goldfinch singing unseen in the neighbor's arbor vitae. And that was all. (It probably didn't help that my little window feeders were soaking in the sink, awaiting a cleaning and refill.)

If I'd really been trying, I'd have headed for the harbor or some other open water. Several birders posted observations of ducks on the Maine birding list-serv today. But I like to see what comes to me for the first day of the year, as some kind of portent. To see/hear those familiar birds might be auspicious for a year ahead full of good friends, for example. Or perhaps sustained pleasure of what I enjoyed in the year newly past.

Year's first birds appear
in stark black and white:
crows against snow, chickadees.

Ducktrap River from the Backcountry Ski Trail

May 12: Sap sippers

I visited the Ducktrap River Preserve early and spent several hours exploring and watching/listening for birds. The hemlock-shaded uplands resonated with bird song: Blackburnian, black-throated blue, and black-throated green warblers, ovenbirds, pine siskins, kinglets, and blue-headed vireos made their presence known, while down the bluff, the river rushed ever on. For a long time I sat in a patch of sun on an old fallen log and just let the music of it all tumble through the warm air around me.

The sunshine seemed to have awakened quite a few butterflies, as well, of few of which I could even recognize: red admiral, comma, and question mark. I was particularly interested to note several butterflies, mostly question marks, fluttering around a stand of birch trees. Looking closely, I could see where a yellow-bellied sapsucker--a local species of woodpecker--had drilled a few small "wells" in the trunks. The butterflies were gathering on these wells, sipping birch sap. At one, a butterfly seemed to be vying with a corps of largish red and black ants for the sap. These butterflies wintered over and now renew their energy with this sap thanks to the sapsucker. The sapsucker's only thought, of course, was for itself, but it also benefited the insects without even realizing. Ah, the workings of Nature...

Sipping spring birch sap,
ethereal butterflies--
even they must eat.

Question Mark

November 1: Ducktrap Salmon

One great thing about my job with Coastal Mountains Land Trust is that every now and then they let me out of the office to spend time on one of our conservation properties. Our Ducktrap River Preserve has long been one of my favorite places.

Late this afternoon a group of us gathered there around fisheries biologist Peter Ruksznis to learn some of the mysteries of salmon migration and spawning. Peter had that day carried out his survey of salmon redds in the river, and as he'd expected, he found none. This was sad, but not unexpected--five years ago, he'd also found none, and this would have been the next generation of that spawning year. However, other "cohorts," or multi-generational runs, have fortunately been more successful, making the Ducktrap the only Maine river with a natural run of Atlantic salmon. (All our other salmon rivers are currently stocked.) We also learned why the Ducktrap offers ideal habitat for salmon: 85% of it is permanently conserved, it's a consistently cool river (in part due to heavy forest overhanging much of its banks) with appropriate riffles, a bed that's the right texture for salmon nests, relatively few small-mouthed bass, which are voracious predators, and an appropriate amount of twists and turns
.

Salmon leave the Ducktrap and swim to the West coast of Greenland, to return four years later  to spawn. They find their home river by smell. I couldn't help but wonder how far out to sea a salmon can pick up the scent of its home waters, and what triggers are at work in that little fish brain to help it recognize where to go. It seems miraculous, really. We're talking about a tiny handful of fish independently returning to a tiny river on the complex coastline of Maine after swimming to Greenland and back.

Thinking about the miracle of the continued return of salmon to the river (just not this year) put the river in a new light for most of us--a light that was only enhanced by actual end-of-day sunlight falling heavily, brightly, onto the river and the surrounding tangle of forest.

Clean, chilly riffles

lit by filtered fall sunlight.

Here there be salmon.

October 7: Ducktrap Harbor

One of my favorite local spots is a small town park at the tip of Howe Point, which ends at the mouth of the Ducktrap River in Lincolnville. When I was a kid, I'd come with my family to this cobble beach to pick mussels, look for crabs under the rocks, and swim in the deep waters of the river channel, jumping in and letting the tide pull me into the ocean. This was also a high school hangout, where we congregated on weekend nights, shivering as we stood around in the dark sipping cans of Bud. And it's still a place I like to come with a beach chair and a book on a free summer morning. Or this time of year, to enjoy the quiet and my memories while observing migrating waterfowl.

This morning I had the place all to myself: high tide, sun dazzling the beach, harbor dotted with ducks. I counted 54 red-breasted mergansers scattered on the harbor, as well as two green-winged teals very close to shore on the river side of the point. The green speculum on the teals' wings flashed a brilliant emerald in the morning light. A ring-billed gull squealed from the shore, as a young double-crested cormorant repeatedly dove in the river channel, bringing up small fish. A crow flew into the tree over my head, silent; two more flew low over the stones further up the beach, looking for something, anything.

View to the harbor, with Islesboro a dark line on the horizon

Sun-dazzled harbor--
ten minutes here watching ducks
sets the whole day's tone.

September 7: Nice weather... if you're a fish

For us humans, this cold rain makes for a bleak and dreary day. But as we move closer to the autumnal equinox (a.k.a. the first day of fall), these wet days replenish our rivers and streams and create the watery highways that Atlantic salmon and some trout follow to their spawning grounds.

Salmon return from the deep sea to their home river to spawn, guided miraculously by various factors--sense of taste, the earth's magnetism, currents--that are as little understood as those enabling bird migration. When they get there, there needs to be high enough water for the female fish to move upstream to appropriate habitat to make redds, the indentations in the river bed carved out with her body in which she lays eggs for male salmon to fertilize. On the Ducktrap River, where a remnant population of this endangered species lingers, some falls only a dozen or fewer redds are counted by fisheries biologists. But the fish are still hanging in there. And this rain will help them return to the river once more.

What's cold rain to us
is the way home for salmon--
a refilled river.

July 29: Scarlet Tanager

A friend has wanted to see a scarlet tanager for a long time, so this morning we embarked on a tanager quest. I knew there was at least one hanging out on the Ducktrap River Preserve this spring, so I suggested we go back there, though I had no idea if he'd still be hanging around singing. As it turned out, I was surprised by how many birds were still singing. We heard at least half a dozen Blackburnian warblers squeaking way above our heads in the old hemlocks. A family of four white-breasted nuthatches flew to a nearby tree trunk and foraged, the young pausing now and then to beg, the adults still giving in to the impulse to feed them. A hermit thrush's flute song rose from within a stand of pines, and goldfinches twittered overhead.

As we paused among the shade of the hemlocks on a ridge above the river, trying to actually see one of the Blackburnians, my ears picked up on a distant, raspy warble. A tanager! It sounded like he was on the other side of the river, in dense woods, but as we listened, he seemed to come a bit closer. We decided to head down the slope to the river in hopes of catching a glimpse of this brilliant red bird.

The river was beautiful in the morning sun, its mossy banks a bright, verdant green, the water low in this dry season and tea-colored due to tannins from the surrounding hemlocks. Water bugs skipped around on its surface, while tiny fish--were they salmon parr?--darted in shaded shallows. We sat on a big rock and listened. Tantalizingly close, the tanager sang over and over. Another tanager farther up river answered him. They sang back and forth for a while, the sound shifting as they flew to different perches. But we never saw either one.

No matter. My friend and I agreed it was time well spent in the company of each other, the river, and the birds singing around us. And on our hike out, an ovenbird--a notoriously hard-to-see warbler--popped up and gave us a quick glimpse. You don't always find what you go looking for, but sometimes what you do discover is just as meaningful.

She survived cancer.
Tanager's riverside song
seems blessing enough.

March 3: Drive-by

Driving up Route One on my way to a meeting in Belfast this afternoon, as I drove over the Ducktrap bridge, I happened to glance quickly downriver toward the river's mouth. There was a dark shape of something on the edge of the cobble beach, near the water. Then I was past it. Some things we glimpse and then they're gone, and we never really know what we saw. I think that's when we make up our best stories.

What was that dark shape
hunched, brooding, at river's edge?
Looked like an eagle.

October 27: The Miracle of Fishes

You know how people say when it's raining, "Nice weather... if you're a duck!"? I was thinking tonight as  I drove over the Ducktrap River in a torrential downpour that it's also nice weather if you're a spawning salmon. Late fall is when Atlantic salmon--the few indigenous fish that remain--return to their natal rivers to spawn. The Ducktrap River is running high now with all this rain, so returning adult fish can more easily make their way upriver over all those shoals and stones to find the optimal gravel beds in which to make their nests or redds.

As I made my way along rain-slick Route One, I thought about this, and began to wonder how the salmon know which river to come back to. I remember reading something once about salmon being guided by their sense of smell. Maybe they simply swim along the shoreline until they smell home. Or is it a sense of taste? Nothing tastes quite like the waters of the home river. If any creature could sense that, it would be a salmon, a creature of both fresh and salt water.

According to Stephen D. McCormick of the Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center, Atlantic salmon may find their way from the feeding grounds in the North Atlantic, where they've been maturing for several years, to the right area of coastline using a magnetic or solar compass. But no one knows for sure--it's one of those mysteries of science.

Another mystery: why do Pacific salmon species die after spawning but not Atlantic salmon? Apparently the word for the type of fish that survive spawning is "iteroparous," although spawning takes such a toll on a fish's body that even Atlantic salmon don't always make it back to the sea afterward.

Rain fills the river,
spillway for spawning salmon
smelling their way home.

May 16: River

When I have time to myself to head into the woods and look for birds, one of my favorite places to go is Coastal Mountains Land Trust's Ducktrap River Preserve. While my husband was occupied with writing today, I woke up blissfully late, drove to Lincolnville, and hit the trail. Because of my late start the bird song was winding down for the day. Sun shone on the river, and as has often happened when the trees aren't dripping with birds, I crouched down on the mossy riverbank amid the ferns and simply watched the water.

In the past this exercise of living in the moment has brought me interesting rewards. Once a veery walked slowly out of the woods and came within ten yards of me. Another time a red-shouldered hawk flew low overhead, yelling at me. Sometimes an invisible winter wren will suddenly burst into his enchanting song across the river, the long serenade accompanying perfectly the rushing sound of the river. Often the drumming of a ruffed grouse can be heard like a heartbeat thrumming from deep within the woods behind me.

The river is not deep here, nor wide. Its gravel bed, clearly visible through sepia-toned water colored by tannin from the roots of conifers upstream, appeals to wild Atlantic salmon--the Ducktrap is one of eight remaining rivers that still hosts a (small) indigenous population of this endangered fish. The initial stretch of the northbound trail closely follows the river for about a quarter mile, offering several good vantage points to sit and absorb the beauty of the place. I won't say quiet beauty, because the trail there is still close to the speedway that is Route 52. But this morning was relatively quiet, except for a handful of warblers and the low "quork, quork" of a nearby raven.

The raven's call made me think of my husband--ravens were the theme of our wedding, and tomorrow's our seventh wedding anniversary. I'm sure he would much rather have been on that riverbank with me today, casting a fly into the current where I saw first one, then another fish rise above the surface of the water.

From the mossy banks
I watch fish rise in eddies.
Wish you were with me.

May 14: Primary Colors

This morning I led a bird walk at the Ducktrap River Preserve. The birds were relatively quiet, which is understandable given how chilly it was--I wore my fleece gloves almost the entire time. A highlight for everyone was a pair of scarlet tanagers. We heard the male's husky, robin-like warbler off in the forest and crossed our fingers that he'd cross our path. The bird gods heard us, and eventually the bird flew close enough so everyone could enjoy good looks at his brilliant red coloring. He posed and sang. But we soon realized he wasn't putting on a show for us. Teed up on a tall pine nearby was a lemony-green female tanager. For a while the two birds perched together, giving us a field guide view of the plumage differences between genders: bright red male, bright yellow-green female. Probably a mated pair at that. As we admired them, a blue jay flew into a nearby tree, rounding out the color wheel and thoroughly brightening an overcast morning.

Red bird, yellow bird,
blue jay: primary colors
on forest's palette.