Maine Nature News

October 28, Rangeley (Map 28)
It's quiet up here in Rangeley, most of the birds have gone south from here, and only the winter residents are around, so it's quiet. I did hear some snow geese fly over one night last week, And a friend has reported that she has a tufted titmouse at her place. That is a rarity for here, I did see a pair at my place about 20 years ago, and then they were gone. I have had a Lapland Longspur hanging around my house lately. It seems rather lonely. And back on the 12th I came across a cow, calf and bull moose on a short hike . The following day, we had our first snow.  KB

My great grandfather used to say the best way to be found when you're lost in the woods is to pull out a deck of cards and play Solitaire. Someone will be right along to look over your shoulder and tell you the next move.  I'll get out my deck of cards if someone will play with me. It sure is lonely after three weeks without a single report. 

You aren't about to be subjected to one of my stories, like the time my mother stood on the seat of an ATV yelling, "I want to see it," as my aunt and cousin sped away from what they thought was a bear.  You've been saved from a story about the time one of Dad's friends ran two miles home in the pitch-black dark of night when a bear scared him. You owe thanks to Fred Gralenski.  He contributed Quoddy Nature Notes so you get to read QNN instead.  Thanks Fred!  

Send reports.  Don't make me start telling stories.  ~Robin

Quoddy Nature Notes

By Fred Gralenski

Yellowlegs

I knew from the distance that it was a Greater Yellowlegs.  The old time market hunters called him the ‘Tell-Tale’, the wary bird that would loudly call out his ‘Teeoo, teeoo, teeoo, teeoo’ and alert every other bird around as he flew out of range.  I figured I would play the wind and position my kayak upwind of him and if I judged everything right the breeze would nudge me into the range of my Nikon Coolpix .  At 100 feet he was getting noticeably nervous, but then an immature Merlin came zipping down at him.  The Yellowlegs cried out and flew towards me and landed behind a rock as the Merlin flew up to a nearby dead tree and waited.  The Merlin apparently wanted his would-be dinner to take flight. Although the Yellowlegs is a good flier, it is no match for the Merlin, but somehow the Yellowlegs knew this and felt safer on the ground within 25 feet from me.  I watched him through my viewfinder and snapped a few pictures until the Merlin tired of the game and left.  Even then the Yellowlegs refused to fly, and clumsily swam back to his original breakfast spot on the shore.  I thanked him for the little visit and paddled off looking for some other adventures in nature.

                The Greater Yellowlegs, Tringa melanoleuca, is relatively common here in the Quoddy region this time of year.  As its name implies, it has long yellow legs, and is more wary than its smaller cousin who is half the weight and a couple of inches shorter.  My Yellowlegs probably nested on the ground in some remote muskeg bog in Northern Canada, and is heading south to spend the winter anywhere from southern US to Brazil or Chile.  It likes to forage in the mud or the shallows of fresh or salt water for critters like small fish , crustaceans or snails or anything else or the right size.  Yellowlegs do not migrate in big flocks, and its southern migration will be sort of erratic and generally along the coast.  Next Spring it will come ‘home’ generally by an inland route like the Mississippi Flyway, and somehow find his or her last year’s spouse.  There are an estimated 100,000 Yellowlegs in North America and their breeding grounds range in a band from Newfoundland to the Pacific coast. Nuttal, reporting in 1891, wrote that Yellowlegs nested in the Midwest as far south as Iowa and Southern Illinois. Yellowlegs are native to North America, but have been spotted in Europe, Asia and Africa.

                In the days of the market hunters the preferred table fare was Plover, Dowitcher, Yellowlegs and Eskimo Curlew.  By 1850 the populations of these birds dropped dramatically, and the market hunter went after the ‘Peeps’, like Dunlins and Sandpipers, but still pursued the bigger birds if available.  This was done with decoys and whistles and it was noted “…the Yellowlegs can be called as far as the hunter’s whistle can be heard, and it is seldom they refuse to be drawn to their destruction.”  By the early 1900’s a movement was started to protect shorebirds and  Forbush (1912) noted that “…protection that (Yellowlegs) receive on Anticosti Island has done much to keep up the numbers of those which migrate through New England.”  President Wilson in 1918 emphasized the rulings of migratory game birds and by 1927 the Greater Yellowlegs was protected from hunting, and their numbers seem to be slightly increasing.

                So is my Yellowlegs home free?  No siree!  He has to worry about all sorts of pesticides, habitat destruction, mutant viruses, Peregrine falcons, Merlins, habitat destruction and if the old lady will remember to jog left over Wisconsin so they can meet up in Saskatchewan.  Jeez! Why last year she got to gossiping with her cousin and came home over a week late after ending up somewhere in Ontario.

The Hunt for Red October

Just as September is golden, October is noted for its reds, at least in the beginning before the Quoddy region turns to a duller gray. But why red?  Most things in nature have a reason, and there is some interesting speculation as to why so much of our world here is colored red in October.  We remember last spring that our deciduous trees sprouted green leaves and we know that the green is caused by chlorophyll, and that chlorophyll takes sunlight, and, with carbon dioxide and water, manufactures biomass by a process called photosynthesis.  Photosynthesis is not a very efficient utilization of the sun’s energy, and one of the reasons is that a plant that looks green does not absorb all of the sun’s radiant energy but reflects the green portion of the spectrum.  If the growing plant absorbed all of the sun’s incident radiation the leaf would look black.  I do hope that some future do-gooder scientist doesn’t try to save the world and discover a way to genetically modify chlorophyll to make it super efficient.  He might liven up the earth in some aspects but if the chlorophyll was black it sure would look depressing.  I like green.  Another batch of chemicals in the growing leaf are the carotenes.  These are the stuff of yellows and such, like carrots, sweet potatoes and buttercups, and they aid the chlorophyll in its job of photosynthesis.  Carotenes sort of work in the background in ordinary leaves and are generally inconspicuous.  They are, however, a more robust chemical than chlorophyll, and during times like now when the days are getting shorter and the temperatures are dropping, the host plant is beginning to limit sustenance to the leaf. Under these conditions the chlorophyll deteriorates and the carotenes become the dominant chemical and show off their color.  The bright yellows of the poplars, birches, some types of ash, sugar maples and black cherry are some of the places where the carotenes are now on center stage.  But what about the reds?  The red coloration is produced by a sneaky group of chemicals called the anthocyanins.  Anthocyanins are absent in the leaf during the growing season but the plant produces these chemicals in the leaf in the late summer.  This seems to be a strange mode of operation; why produce something like anthocyanin in a leaf that is soon to be discarded, and over 50% of our deciduous trees do this?  Scientists debated this mystery for many years and the particulars of the discussion are still ongoing.  One theory for the use of anthocyanin by the tree is that anthocyanins help the tree reabsorb the available nutrients from the leaf prior to the leaf being discarded.  Another theory is that it is noted that aphids tend to avoid bright leaves, especially red leaves, as compared to trees with dull leaves, and this may give the tree a slight advantage.  Insect pests that harass the tree may be more easily spotted by their predators on red leaves.  Red leafed vines, like poison ivy and Virginia creeper, may utilize their coloration to advertise to birds that their fruit is available.  Red maples produce a large amount of anthocyanins, and the fallen leaves apparently hinder the growth of nearby competitive saplings. 

New England is famous for the color of its autumn leaves and there are surprisingly few places on this earth that have similar colors.  I tried to determine my favorite tree, shrub or vine but could not.  Each leaf has its own beauty, and each tree, each hillside, and all are affected in appearance by the weather, light and time of day.  Red maples, sumacs and Woodbine are the deepest reds, but I appreciate them best at a distance.  The blueberry barrens can be another memorable vista, and this scene can change daily as the season evolves.  White ash leaves can be a deep purple, blackberry bushes often have a handsome design of greens and reds, and, of course our introduced bushes of burning bush and Japanese barberry are often a deep red.  Be careful with the latter two because they can, in some areas, be a very invasive nuisance. Our red oaks have a nice brownish red color that looks sturdy like the tree itself. Red apples are colored by anthocyanins, and since the chlorophyll lasts pretty late on apple trees, the picture is often quite pleasing.  Other red fruits that can be spectacular here are highbush cranberry, winterberry and mountain ash.  This year is a good year for cones on our spruces, especially the Red spruce.  Our red squirrels are busy harvesting these, and perhaps we will be visited by red crossbills this year, and red-breasted nuthatches are usually pretty common at our bird feeders that we will start to put back up in October. Lots of reds here in the Quoddy region.  Go outside and see how many you can find.  If you turn over a rock or log you might even find a red-backed salamander.