Please e-mail Frank
Wihbey, Editor: menature@maine.maine.edu Vol. 3, no. 22, Tuesday, June 2, 1998
Quick jumps: | This week's reports | From the Press | Prior weekly Nature reports | Black fly report for May 27-June 2 | Prior Black fly reports |
You are invited to report on any aspect of Nature in Maine
Please e-mail Frank
Wihbey, Editor: menature@maine.maine.edu
This week's reports
Report format = Day, date, [time]. Location (Maine Atlas Map number) Report text. Initials of correspondent.
Tuesday, May 26. E. Orland (Map 23) Toddy Pond near the dam. Black fly severity = 3. W.D.
Tuesday, May 26. Orono (Map 23) There was a confirmed sighting of moose tracks in our garden [here in town, but next to the Land Trust]. A large one at that. L.J.
Friday, May 29. Orrington (Map 23) I live on the Swett's Pond Rd. in S. Orrington and have fed birds the six years we've lived here. To discourage squirrels, I hung 12 wire nine feet off the ground between two white pine trees, and suspend the feeders from the wire. They all hang about six feet from the ground along a thirty-foot stretch of wire. We were away for the weekend but I noticed all the feeders had seed on Fri. p.m.(5/22). We returned late Tues. night. Wed. morning I discovered the wire pulled to the ground and ALL the feeders destroyed. A triple-silo sunflower feeder with a plexiglas squirrel shroud on top was in a million pieces, and had both teeth and claw marks on the tubes. The aluminum portholes were twisted out of shape, also. A Droll Yankee sunflower feeder (with a lifetime guarantee) was twisted in two, chewed on, and also had teeth and/or claw marks. This seems to be the first visit from a bear neighbor. Wild Bird Crossing will hopefully replace the Droll Yankee feeder next week.. J.A.S.
Sunday, May 31. Holden (Map 23) Some of the wildflowers out now in the fields, pond edge, and forest edge at the Fields Pond Nature Center are: blue vetch, blue flag iris, bluets, buttercup, dandelion, foam flower, lupine, pink lady's slipper, and raspberries. F.W.
Sunday, May 31. Orono (Map 23) This morning there were a
few small holes dug in the lawn –- no surprise, probably done by a skunk that
occasionally visits. What was surprising is that a chestnut was right next to the hole, as
if dug out and then abandoned as undesirable. There are no chestnut trees on or near our
property. But I recall that we collected a batch last year in Brunswick. We must have
dropped one outside. This one might have been found by a squirrel and buried, or was
trampled into the soil by passing human feet.
Anyway, the greatest surprise to me is that this occasional visitor could detect this one
nut lost in this large lawn, just with its (incredible) sense of smell! F.W.
Monday, June 1. Milford (Map 33) In the Sunkhaze National Wildlife Refuge in Milford, sign or tracks of black bear, moose, coyote, fox, snowshoe hare, and star-nosed mole were found on May 30. Tracks of a large black bear were found near the Veazie Train Line in Orono. J.K.M.
Tuesday, June 2. E. Orland (Map 23) Toddy Pond near the dam: An algae bloom has grown at our shore and is as bad as any we have seen midsummer. The low water and warmth of the spring would not seem to fully account for this growth. W.D.
Tuesday, June 2. E. Orland (Map 23) Toddy Pond near the dam. Black fly severity = 3. W.D.
Weather unhinges warbler migration
The Associated Press
from the Bangor Daily News, Thursday, May 28, 1998, page B8
PORTLAND — Maine has missed out this spring on its usual "fallout" of migrating warblers, and the weather is most likely to blame, experts say. June Ficker, an avid birder from Kennebunk, says she usually sees birds dripping from the trees by May 4. This year, it's one black and-white warbler here, two blackthroated green warblers there. "They've been dribbling in," Ficker said.
It's not that warblers are boycotting Maine this year. Birdwatchers all over the eastern United States are reporting the same problem, said John Fitzpatrick, director of New York's Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Warblers are arriving from their Central and South American wintering grounds just about on time, Fitzpatrick said, but "there's no question the total numbers are low." The way the migration plays out from year to year is "90 percent weather," says Jody Despres, editor of Maine Bird Notes and a self-described "warbler nut."
* * *
Maine farmers reaping
benefits of early spring
Bumper crops of bugs also forecast as warmth, gentle rains create lush environment
for growth
By Sharon Mack of the NEWS Staff
from the Bangor Daily News, Wednesday, May 20, 1998, pages B1 and B6
Ah, Spring! Oh, glorious reawakening! Oh, lilac and tulip, tender strawberry blossom and sweet songbirds' return. Oh, mosquito and black fly and pollen and armies of black ants. If ever there was an example of taking the good with the bad, it is this season in Maine. And this year, as a welcome surprise, spring has sprung two weeks early. It came so fast that most of us completely missed mud season, and we went directly from mittens to mosquito netting.
Potato farmer Daniel Labree, whose farm is in St. Agatha, just south of the Canadian border, always has marked the completion of spring planting with his birthday on May 27. "If we are done by his birthday," said his wife, Roberta, on Monday, "we know we are in good shape." The Labrees finished planting Tuesday afternoon—far ahead of schedule. "This is the earliest planting I've completed since I began farming in 1966," Labree said. "I am very happy, not only to get, such an early start, but because some of the potato varieties I plant require a long growing season. If the gentle rains follow, we will have a wonderful harvest."
In central Maine, Thorndike strawberry farmer Herb Schartner said all indications are that he will also beat his own record for strawberry harvesting. "The earliest we ever picked was 10 years ago on June 17," said Schartner. "This year could be even earlier, possibly by June 1." Schartner said the strawberries are in full bloom now and the apple blossoms have already gone by. "I just got in from planting tomatoes," he said Monday at noontime. "It feels like July out there."
John Harker of the Maine Department of Agriculture said cranberries, strawberries and blueberries are all far ahead of schedule and may produce a bumper crop, if the summer is satisfactory. "If, if, if. The farmer lives by if," said Harker.
According to experts, the early arrival of spring to Maine was caused by consistently warmer than-usual temperatures from March to May. Eric Sinsabaugh, a meteorologist with the U.S. Weather Service in Gray, said Monday that the early arrival can be attributed to a natural swing in the cycle of the seasons and not to the now-infamous El Nino weather monster. "It's tough to attribute to any one cause," he said, but it's clear the warm weather is unusual and has shattered previous temperature records. "Spring can actually start in March or drag into the middle of May, " said Sinsabaugh, "but overall, it is earlier than normal this year." March and April were record breakers, he said. Temperatures in March were 3.7 degrees above normal, in April, they were 2.5 degrees above normal. It was the warmest March and April since 1991 and the fifth-warmest April in 58 years.
On March 31, an all-time record was set when 88 degrees was recorded at the official U.S. weather station in Portland. "This is very unusual," said Sinsabaugh. "A high of 88 in March was definitely unusual. We also had unofficial data reporting temperatures in the 90s. We also had no snow at all in April. "When you start getting day after day consistently above normal, you will really speed things up, " he said, referring to the Maine growing season. "Already, through the 17th of May, we are looking at departures from the normal. Eleven of the 17 days were above normal, and it appears to be a definite trend."
And plants and trees aren't the only things affected. Milk production is at an all-time high; wardens are estimating an outstanding birth rate for deer this spring; and chickens are laying eggs to beat the band. But this time of rebirth and replanting, when the air is full of the smells of earth and fresh rain and lilacs in bloom, is also when the air is filled with black flies, waves of mosquitoes, and pollen raining down on stuffy noses and weeping eyes. Deb McKay, school nurse at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield, said her office was filled last week with students thinking they were suffering from a spring cold. "They had allergies," said McKay. "Even kids who never had an allergy symptom before are having full-blown reactions. " Lake surfaces and car windshields are blanketed with the fine, yellow pollen.
Bangor allergist Dr. Paul Shapiro says people who have never experienced spring allergies are now having problems. "I agree, this spring is very, very different. The pollen effect is real. The pollen count numbers are much higher, and people are being affected sooner," said Shapiro. "It's really bringing people out of the woodwork for treatment," he said.
Meanwhile, shopkeepers are having a hard time keeping their shelves stocked with both over the-counter antihistamines and bug repellents. Although he has seen no concrete evidence of increased numbers of bugs because of the warm weather Don Barry, an entomologist at the University of Maine in Orono, said the warm weather may have contributed to a better over-winter survival for carpenter ants. "As far as mosquitoes go, there will always be a lot of them. And carpenter ants own New England," said Barry. "People tend to forget from one year to the next and every spring are surprised all over again by the numbers of black flies and mosquitoes." Black flies breed in the very pristine, fast-running water that is so much a part of the beauty of Maine, he said, and there is not just one type out there, but dozens of species. "Their life cycle is only three weeks, " he said, "so what we may be seeing now are swarms of different species, all hatching at the same time because it is so warm."
And because one of the things that attracts black flies is a molecule in our breath, it becomes nearly impossible to avoid them. Barry advises wearing light colors when doing outside chores because black flies are attracted to large, dark, moving objects -- like moose and deer or a gardener in a dark sweater. "When they land on you, they are like little robots. If they your particular taste, they going to bite you again again," he said.
But what of the rest of year? Does an early, warm spring foretell a hot, long summer? Sinsabaugh said he couldn’t predict what the weather pattern for summer would be. "It is impossible to say what the summer will hold," he said. "It could stay warm, or patterns could change and it could be wet and cool. "Generally, you could flip a coin and come out right 50 per cent of the time."