Tuesday, March 19, 1996
Quick jumps:
This week's reports | Special report from Toddy Pond | Reports from the press |Tuesday, March 12, 3 pm. Clifton (Map 24 ) Chick Hill -- Despite new radio tower, Nature is doing well. Tracks everywhere (red and grey squirrel/fox) and on the highest point on the summit was a statement regarding the tower from a local coyote (pile of scat). Heard first mourning dove of the season as the sun was setting. B. D.
Sunday, March 17 daytime. Garland (Map 32) Largest maple sap run of the season. -- nearly one gallon per tap! M.J.
Sunday, March 17 daytime. Milbridge (Map 25) Saw evening grosbeaks, cedar waxwings. B.G.
Sunday, March 17, 9:45 to 11:15 pm. Orono (Map 23) Comet Hyakutake was easily visible through binoculars and telescope, and even to the naked eye, once you knew where to look for it. Appeared as a fat, ghostly white patch, with a faint tail, possibly divided. Had to move out to a more sheltered place, away from light pollution, to get a really cosmic and satisfying view, however. Saw several meteors while observing, not connected with a regular meteor swarm. F.W.
Monday, March 18. Marshfield/Roque Bluffs (Map 26) A colleague of mine reports that there is no open water at Six-Mile Lake in the Machias area, although there is open water on the freshwater pond at Roque Bluffs State Park. S.S.
Monday, March 18. Portland (Map 5) Here are a few comments based on my observations
over the last few days.... Generally speaking south of Augusta (from what I've seen) lakes
are still pretty solid. In fact, I saw a truck on Saturday driving through about eight
inches of ice on the surface of a pond near Augusta. I watched closely because I thought
the driver might have difficulty (read go in) near the edge of the pond. He did not, but
neither did he go slowly there either. In short, lakes appear solid but this is changing
daily.
Fringes of lakes are starting to show water, one of the first signs of winter's loss of
grip on a lake. Rivers are a tad different this spring. The January floods threw a lot of
ice every which way. Many rivers never refroze. From what I've seen, generally speaking,
only small streams refroze. Larger ones and the major rivers never got a second coating of
ice so are generally freer of ice than normal for this time of year. BUT, the key thing to
remember here is that river ice is unpredictable now. Some streams have fairly thick ice,
some none, some a mixture of the two.
Those are some quick observations of a general nature. I hope they're helpful. Finally,
this is a great time of year to watch ice. It's changing practically by the hour and will
continue to do so for the next month or more, depending on where in Maine you are. Z.K.
Monday, March 18. Farmington (Maps 20/21) It may be the week for the lst of spring but the ponds and lakes around here are solid ice with no sign of break-up. Some small brooks are running in spots. These lakes are near wilton, industry, and chesterville. Ice fishermen and shacks still are on them; and one car !!!!! on the ice in vienna/mt.vernon. "Fools rush in..." The roads are breaking up with enthusiasm however. S.M.
Monday, March 18, daytime. Mariaville (Map 24) Rte. 181, flock of snow buntings in field. B.G.
Tuesday, March 19 Otis (Map 24) In Otis, I have not seen evening grosbeaks since last
fall, and my redpolls are deserting me, still have a few at midday, but no flocks. On
Sunday, saw open water on Graham Lake from Rte.180. My brother in Cumberland had an ermine
in his yard during the past couple weeks. He is a serious Nature observer and has never
seen one before; thought that interesting since I had one, and you [the Editor], and there
was an article in the Ellsworth American( after my sighting) about an ermine in a
house Downeast. The ermine eventually got caught in the refrigerator coils and had to be
destroyed.
I hope spring is near but we received 5 inches plus of heavy white stuff this past
weekend. It is melting fast though. Our pond is still frozen. We have a month to go before
ice breakup if the past two winters are reliable. B.G.
Special report from Toddy Pond, East Orland
Thursday, March 14. Orland (Map 23)
... Notes on winter '96 from near the dam, Toddy Pond, East Orland.
A football-field-size, section thaws about half the winter. A female merganser dove here
last week. Today, two of about a dozen semi-domesticated mallards returned to our shore
unless I confused male mergansers with mallards. (A neighbor introduced the perennial
mallards four years ago, when adjacent loons stopped successful nesting--any cause and
effect here?).
Two blue jays were at our feeder of sunflower seeds this morning, until they saw me
working in the kitchen. This is only the second time this winter that we have seen blue
jays, though we hear them at a distance. In recent years many would have come,
periodically moving out chickadees for a brief, nervous feed. This winter we have seen
just some chickadees, with the exceptions above. Two or three winters ago we saw over
twenty species at the feeders and nearby water. Does anyone have a reasoned theory about
the change to far fewer species seen here?
Other recently spotted wildlife, besides the rodents encroaching on human constructions,
include two otters "playing" off ice edges at [Christmas] holiday time--we have
some distant photos of these two. A beaver or two is hold up near the dam and clears views
along the shores for passers-by. (We have shipped out beaver who lodge under and over our
dock.) The state approved trapper says there are more than a dozen beaver in this several
mile long lake. Lastly, another neighbor made inanimate two white ermine (weasels) feeding
on his prized pheasants.
Inside the winter house, we had an Asian ladybug invasion. Many people experienced this
strange phenomenon. These beetles are a net benefit to human's narrow goals--I have a
copiable information sheet from Ohio State on these particular bugs, if anyone would like
more information. Benefits will not accrue here, though. Spiders picked off the ladybugs
one by one as they huddled in ceiling corners at the warm sides of the house. Others
suicidally dove into dish water, the hot stove, and the cold floor, where we found them
dried.
Meteorologically, we have seen the northern lights only a couple of times, not so
impressively as to distinguish them well from Ellsworth lights. The weather, maybe the big
January thaw, has done something peculiar to the highway foundation for a varied-terrain,
several miles, causing transverse cracks where pavement rises to ridges. This results in a
rise and pounding down of many trucks so that the house is banged like a heavy door
slamming. The unusually early and prominent highway foundation problem is yet another
puzzle, one an engineer mind might like to dwell on and probably should have.
Tangentially, many loaded log trucks have been speeding by, possibly part of a frantic
effort to make the most of the last few days of frozen ground to twitch logs. Last in our
meteorological reports: At least three winter windstorms that distributed our roofing
widely have also blown down many trees in a woodlot that had been tidily, selectively
harvested. W.D.
From the press
Penobscot Times__March 14, 1996, page 1
"Skunks an increasing problem in Old Town" by Bob Diebold
Summary: A Lagrange taxidermist, Troy White, who is called to live-trap and remove skunks
from human residences said "A few years ago it was more in Orono ... But now it seems
to be more in Old Town than in other towns." Warden David Georgia explained their
place the area's ecology, and also remarked that "The problem is that we are
expanding intor their habitat all the time. They're not coming into ours. So there is
conflict. The aminmals are just fending for themselves."
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