Nature in the Quoddy Region
Chunky the snowshoe hare on July 5, 2011.
Chunky the snowshoe hare on May 6, 2012
A diamond droplet on a lupine plant.
My first bat of the season. Pretty hard (for me) to take a picture of a bat. I think it's a Little Brown Bat (hopefully no White Nose Syndrom).
Quoddy Nature Notes – Tree Swallows
Old man winter is finally defeated when the Tree swallows nest. The Canada geese may already have goslings; the ravens
have three pretty homely heads sticking out of the brush pile way up in a spruce near our house, and the robins have set up housekeeping on a shelf I built on the side of our barn, specifically for robins. I have to travel around Pembroke a bit to see that the Tree swallows are starting to nest, since we haven’t had any at our house since the early 1990‘s. The population of Tree swallows has dropped since then, and I haven’t been able to learn the reasons why. At the time English sparrows were accused of using the nest boxes put up for Tree swallows or Bluebirds, but English sparrows themselves have suffered a decline in numbers. Such are the mysteries of nature.
Tree swallows are very widespread across North America. They have been known to breed in almost every state in the Union, and winter along the Gulf coast and into Mexico. The primary food of Tree swallows is small flying insects such as mosquitoes and other beasties like black flies, so with the onset of these pests the swallows are always welcome. We have four other members of the swallow family (Hirundinidae) that we see here in the Quoddy region and these are the Barn, Cliff and Bank swallows and the Purple Martin. The Barn swallow has the forked tail; the Cliff swallow has a light spot above its tail; the Bank swallow has a dark necklace, otherwise, with white underneath and dark above, looks like a Tree swallow, and the Purple Martin is the biggest and mostly all dark. Of these additional swallows, the Barn swallow is the most common, but with the decline of agriculture their numbers are pretty low. Purple Martins are pretty rare, and Rough winged swallows may be spotted, but I have never heard of them nesting in the area. We also have the Chimney Swift, which looks like a swallow (or more like a cigar with wings) but the swift is in the family Apodidae and more closely related to the hummingbirds.
Tree swallows like open fields and a pond or two nearby. I have put up hundreds of nest boxes over the years with the hope of attracting Tree swallows or Bluebirds. These birds may use the same type of area, but harvest different types of insects. Chickadees also use these nest boxes, especially if they are near some woods. Tree swallows are generally individual nesters, but sometimes, like along East River road in Pembroke, they might set up a small colony. Every April I like to check some of the nest boxes I had set up for necessary repairs and to read the results of last year’s efforts. Years ago I got permission from Moosehorn to put a series of boxes in Hobart meadow, and this year I conscripted a few Boy Scouts to help me with the chore. It was a little discouraging, because last year was a poor year for Tree swallows and all seven boxes had been used but were unsuccessful in their attempts for a new generation. With high hopes we cleaned out the boxes and even put up another.
In late August and September our Tree swallows will leave for the south. Huge flocks of them will stop at Cape Cod for a while to see if there are any late flying insects and to gorge on the many bayberries growing on the dunes. Tree swallows are one of the few animals that can digest the wax in the various bayberry species. From there they will winter along the Gulf coast, and largely surviving on more species of bayberries, until next year when we will welcome the Tree swallows back to the Quoddy region. We won’t even care if they smell a little like bayberry.
Early Spring Butterflies
The American Lady and the Red Admiral apparently don’t hibernate here but migrate from the south. I have not been able to find out how far south. The Mourning cloak does hibernate here.
In anticipation of two more summers of butterfly survey work, we are considering another Saturday MBS training workshop this coming June (date to be announced) at Colby College. This workshop is designed for people who would like to participate in MBS for the first time, people who have been contributing but never attended a formal training session with us, or members who have been to a workshop in the past, but have not participated actively in sampling and feel they might like a refresher session before going into the field during the next two summers. If you or someone you know fits this description, then please have them contact Herb Wilson at Colby College ASAP (WHWilson@colby.edu) so that we can determine whether there is sufficient interest to schedule the workshop.
- American Lady Butterfly
American Lady Butterfly, wings closed
Mourning Cloak
Red Admiral Butterfly
Quoddy Nature Notes – Fox Sparrow
Foxes, except for Fox news, are usually shy and not comfortable around people, but being bashful is really apparent in the Fox sparrow. There are, however, a couple of ways he really shows off, and one is his scientific name. The Fox sparrow is still confusing the ornithologists who can’t decide if the critter has a lot of subspecies or just different populations of the same bird. Around here in the Quoddy region we have Passerella iliaca with a subspecies iliaca. In Western Canada you may find P.i.altivagans; in the Rockies you might find P.i. schistacea or towards California P.i. stephensi or coastal P.i.fuliginosa or P.i.megarhyncha or up towards Alaska P.i.unalaschcensis. Carrying names like that it is no wonder the poor bird is shy and retiring. After a bunch of DNA tests and a lot of meetings and discussions by scientists, Fox sparrows may or may not be split into four separate species and/ or lumped into a different genus. The other noticeable characteristic of Fox sparrows is their foraging method. Sibley describes it as” …In one abrupt sequence, while the body remains relatively stationary, a slight hop allows both feet to reach far forward then quickly sweep backward, kicking out debris from underneath the bird to reveal any food items…”. Sounds like some break dancing maneuver to me. If I was a bird I would learn the less ostentatious barnyard chicken scratching method. That goes better with my handwriting.
The Fox sparrow is the largest of our sparrows at about seven inches overall length. It is unique to North America, and our version has a handsome rufous tail and its upper parts are also reddish (hence the name ‘fox’) with a gray wash.
The Fox sparrow is the largest of our sparrows at about seven inches overall length. It is unique to North America, and our version has a handsome rufous tail and its upper parts are also reddish (hence the name ‘fox’) with a gray wash. Its breast is white, but with heavy rufous streaks, more so than any other sparrow, and its legs are a dull pink. The beak of our (eastern) version is yellowish brown and built to handle small and medium sized tidbits like weed, grass, blueberry and elderberry seeds and sometimes insects and spiders, but a western variety P.i.megarhyncha has evolved a gray colored massive bill that can scrunch some pretty rugged seeds. All variations of the Fox sparrow feed on the ground, and make a considerable ruckus in their search for food especially kicking around in dry leaves. One would suspect that they would risk attracting predators like weasels and feral cats, but they must be relatively cautious because their numbers appear to be stable.
Alas, the Fox sparrow in the Quoddy region is just a transient. They come through here in early March and visit a bit then head up to their breeding grounds from New Brunswick to Alaska. They generally overwinter in the Southern US. E.H. Forbush wrote that he had a couple of Fox sparrows at his bird feeders overwinter in Massachusetts in the hard winter of 1903-1904. Ever the scientist, he recorded one eating 103 seeds in 2 minutes and 47 seconds. Usually Fox sparrows overwinter along the Gulf coast but a ways inland from the shore, and they seemed to have learned to do this even before oil drilling was common in the Gulf. From there they make a silent journey primarily to Canada to raise a new generation, and I’ve been sort of jealous of the Canadians that I’ve never heard a Fox sparrow sing. In “Birds of Canada” Taverner writes “…This sparrow remains within the limits of civilization only for a few days in spring and autumn. Occasionally in spring it greets us with a song of full clear tone that is equaled by few other birds and rarely surpassed.” I guess I feel better.
Quoddy Nature Notes – March Snakes
March is no time to think about snakes in the Quoddy region. All of our few snakes are hibernating, and we won’t see any for a couple of months, or so I thought. Helping out a little at a recent church function, I encountered a small Eastern garter snake in the cellar. Since no one at the church seemed to want to claim ownership; that the religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity believe that the snake was a coconspirator in the eviction of mankind from the Garden of Eden (and that’s why we have to wear clothes, even in the summer), and March is the month that we honor St. Patrick (and one of his memorable deeds was driving the snakes out of Ireland); I did find evidence that the cellar was a dangerous place for snakes, and I strongly suspected bad vibes, so I took the snake home and set up a little aquarium for him to camp out for a couple of months. Garter snakes are pretty quiet and don’t eat much, so I didn’t think it was a big deal.
I’m not an expert on snakes, but I think they are pretty neat. I’ve handled a lot of garter snakes, which are the most common snake that we have here, and it’s surprising to me that their range of personalities goes from the most docile to the most feisty. I have been bitten several times, but never enough to draw any blood; sort of like being bitten by a yellow perch while taking the hook out. I have seen pictures and videos of pretty good bites by garter snakes but my most memorable bite occurred once when I was feeding a snake angle worms by dangling the worm in front of him. The snake reached up and grabbed the biggest, wormiest, thing in sight, which happened to be my forefinger, and tried to drag it under the porch. There was a little disagreement over the proceedings, but I convinced him that was not a good thing to do. Garter snakes apparently have a mild venom and small teeth that break off pretty easily when they bite, and their largest teeth are in the back of their mouth, which makes a strange bite pattern. All bites should be cleaned and watched for any infection or allergic reaction.
Hibernation for a snake (more correctly,’brumation’) is a very serious matter and not to be approached casually.
It turns out that hibernation for a snake (more correctly,’brumation’) is a very serious matter and not to be approached casually. In one study of western garter snakes the researchers estimated that the mortality rate for hibernating garter snakes was from 30 to 50 per cent. A naturalist studying the Eastern racer in Southern Maine stated that the survival rate of hibernation for first year snakes was about 18 percent. Apparently garter snakes need to hibernate during the winter, no matter what the temperature. They need to have ample fat reserves, but no food in their digestive tract. When disturbed from or during hibernation they won’t necessarily eat or drink, even if they are starving or desiccated, and desiccation seems to be a primary reason for mortality. I always thought of amphibians as being prone to desiccation but I never thought of dehydration as a major concern for snakes. My
snake probably had one or several of these problems, plus a pretty befuddled keeper.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Juncos
It hasn’t been a very exciting winter in regards to our bird feeder activity. The heavy spruce cone crop seemed to supply all of the nutritional needs of our fine feathered friends, and our black oil sunflower seed bill so far this season has been pretty small. Towards the end of February we got a few more customers with the arrival of a half dozen blue jays, and shortly after that, a dozen Juncos. If your bird guide dates from the 1970’s it might list under ‘Junco’ a bunch of different species that inhabit North America, like the ‘White-winged’, ‘Oregon’, ‘Pink-sided’, ‘Slate-colored’, ‘Gray-headed’, Shufeldts’, ‘Carolina’, and ‘Red-backed’ junco. However it has been determined that these are all the same species, Junco hyemalis, or Dark-eyed junco, which makes life a lot easier for us birders. The only real rarity around here that might cause the birders’ lines to buzz would be if someone spotted a Yellow-eyed junco Junco phaeontus.
A dark eyed junco sits in a balsam fir tree.
Many juncos hang around here all winter, especially the young males, since they want to be here and establish territories for the nesting season. The older males may go south to the Mid-Atlantic States for a little easier wintering. These adult juncos want to get back in the spring, but they are pretty confident of claiming their former territories. The females, however, have none of the real estate worries and may migrate all the way to the Gulf shores for the winter. All of them will be back by late April, have their property squabbles ironed out in short order and begin nesting here in the Quoddy region in May. The female does the work of building the nest. I guess since she is going to use it she doesn’t trust the man of the house to follow her instructions, and she wants it done just right and in the right place. The nest is usually on the ground and pretty well hidden under some roots or overhanging dead grass or shrubs. Dad’s job, during the construction and also the incubation of the eggs, is to stand guard and look important. After the 11-13 day incubation period he does help in feeding the young with small worms and insects. The feeding chore at the nest is only for about two weeks, and then the young are fledged. The parents worry about the youngsters for a few days before starting on brood number two, which is common in this area.
Juncos are pretty rugged birds. One can often see them during a semi or full blizzard foraging for small seeds and grit on the side of a country road. Edward Forbush noted in his book, “Useful Birds and Their Protection” that juncos were a great help to agriculturists because they consumed so many of the seeds of the … “pernicious weeds of witch grass, amaranth, lamb’s quarters and sorrel.” He even quoted a Dr. Judd that timed a junco eating 93 seeds in 2 minutes and 23 seconds. I pretend to help them with an increased bounty of thistle seed and fine cracked corn, and, of course, all of the grit and pernicious weed seeds that they can find.
Since Juncos are ground nesting birds they and their nests are subject to being preyed upon by raccoons, skunks, free roaming cats, weasels and foxes. Sharp-shinned hawks, kestrels, and Cooper’s hawks can catch them in flight. Fortunately, even though juncos may be pretty low on the food chain, they are also quite prolific, and their numbers seem to be in good shape. Other birds, like starlings, crows and quail, have a special word for a group of these birds. I don’t know if there is a distinct word for a flock of juncos. Since they’re my juncos (at least when they are in my yard), I’ll call it a ‘Jehoshaphat’ of juncos.
Quoddy Nature News – Foxes
Foxes
There is actually quite a bit of activity going on in Maine in the bleak midwinter. Bears typically have their cubs (See ‘Lugnut’ and her twin cubs, born 1/16/2012, at http://www.wildliferesearch.org); honeybees are starting a new generation of workers, and foxes have romance on their minds and are marking their territories. We only have the Red Fox here in the Quoddy region and there has been some debate as to whether or not these critters are native or were introduced by the early European settlers. Our Red fox was long recognized as a separate species Vulpes fulva, but it is now deemed the same clever animal of European folklore V. vulpes. Even though some of these animals had been brought over from Europe, the early explorers noted Red foxes and the trade with Native Americans included the furs of the Red fox. Martin Pring, searching for furs and anything of value to trade in 1603, noted Red foxes in the openings along the coast of Maine and especially on the islands. He even named one of the islands ‘Fox Island’, which is now known as Vinalhaven. I checked with Kirk Gentalen, the only naturalist that I know on Vinalhaven, and he wrote that he saw a Red fox there about 7 years ago, but hasn’t seen any signs since. I haven’t seen a fox on our property for many years, even though I encourage native predators, and there is a Fox Island off our shore in Cobscook Bay. I have seen foxes in the town of Pembroke, but I have never gotten a good picture of one.
The Red fox has the widest range of any terrestrial carnivore, and, with over 50 recognized subspecies, it is found on most continents except South America, Antarctica and most of Africa. It may be seen in many colors; including black, gray and silver, but it always has a white-tipped tail. The Red fox has a keen sense of smell and acute senses of hearing and sight. Interestingly, the ears of the Red fox are most sensitive to sounds of about 3.5 kHz; much lower than other predators. It is thought that this sound is more in the range of small rodents gnawing or rustling in the grass or leaves. The eyes of Red foxes are also unusual, being of yellow color with vertical pupils, more like a cat and not much like other canids. Foxes are of the same family as wolves and coyotes but they separated into their own genus about 10 million years ago, so although there have been reports of coyote, wolf, or dog/fox hybrids there have been no hybrids that have stood up to scientific scrutiny.
Red foxes are not very big, and average about 10 pounds. They are pretty immune to the cold weather, and seldom seek shelter for a nap in the most severe blizzard. They just curl up where they feel the safest from predators. The biggest predators around here are trappers and automobiles, even though coyotes will prey on foxes. It’s sort of interesting that there is a strong dislike among members of the canid family. Many years ago I was hunting gray squirrels in Massachusetts, and I had a couple of farm pooches that every once in a while would be helpful in my sport. This time they ran off, and shortly after I heard them barking. The barking was different; there was a distinct hatred conveyed by my normally pretty docile mutts, and I found that they had cornered a Red fox in a bank. I wasn’t after fox, and it was with some difficulty that I got them out of there and back home, because squirrel hunting was done for the day.
Red foxes are clever and considered a challenge to trap. From the data that I have, in the past 10 years the number harvested annually in Maine has ranged from about a 1000 to 2000. The pelts may average about $20, but some exotic silver or platinum colored morphs have in the past brought well over $1,000 each. I hope some plain old Red fox doesn’t get harvested because he rolled around in my wood ash pile. Nah. They’re too smart for that.
Quoddy Nature Notes – The Bittersweet Aspect of Bittersweet
The Bittersweet Aspect of ‘Bittersweet’
Bittersweet, of the genus Celastrus, is a handsome, climbing vine with dark green foliage in the summer and oodles of red berries that appear in the fall and persist all winter. According to one of my references, ‘Flora of the Northeast’ by Magee and Ahles, there are two species of bittersweet that appear in Maine. The native species, American bittersweet, C. scandens, is pretty widespread but rare, and ranges as far north as Piscataquis, Penobscot and Hancock counties, however is not listed in Washington County. The introduced Asiatic bittersweet, C. orbitculatus, is relegated to Waldo, Knox and York counties. In his book ‘Flora of New Brunswick’ Hal Hinds mentions only C. scandens, and as “Formerly inhabiting several islands in the St. John River in Carlton and York Counties and extirpated due to flooding by the Mactaquac Hydroelectric Development.”
American Bittersweet evolved in the Western hemisphere and ranges out beyond the Mississippi, but does not appear on the West coast. Asiatic Bittersweet is native to Eastern Asia (Korea, China and Japan) and was introduced to the United States around 1860, possibly as a low maintenance decorative plant. It appeared in Connecticut by 1916, in Massachusetts by 1919, and in New Hampshire by 1938, and presently has a range beyond its native cousin. One of the reasons it spread was because Asiatic Bittersweet was planted as a very economical method of soil stabilization along roads. There are some subtle but serious differences between American Bittersweet and Asiatic Bittersweet. The plants and berries look very similar, but the Asiatic bittersweet will have the fruiting stems appear where the leaves grow out of the main vine, while the American bittersweet will have the fruit at the tip of small branches that include leaves.
I’ve never noticed American bittersweet in my tromping around in New England, but I have witnessed the expansion of the range of the Asiatic variety. The plant is very rugged and aggressive and will inhabit just about any area, although it really likes wetlands and roadsides. It can tolerate shade and its favorite starting place is the base of a tall hardwood like oak, maple or ash on river bottom soil. Asiatic bittersweet grows sort of slowly in the shade but eventually reaches beyond 50 feet until it finally finds full sunlight, and there its photosynthesis shifts into high gear, and soon plunges the top branches of the host tree into shade, often with fatal results. The vine will grow in about any type of soil and is even appearing on sand dunes along the coast. Some states like CT, MA, NH and VT have listed Asiatic bittersweet as a noxious weed, and the Extension Bulletin #2506 of The University of Maine labels it a threat to native habitats, but it is listed for sale at Surrey Gardens. Be careful, as once established, Asiatic bittersweet is a very difficult plant to eradicate or control.
Bittersweet is not palatable to deer, rabbits or cattle but the berries are readily eaten (and seeds spread) by many birds and small mammals, although they are poisonous to people. The inner bark of American bittersweet had been used by Native Americans as an emergency food, and recent studies have shown anti tumor, anti inflammatory, anti oxidant, anti bacterial and insecticidal properties in compounds produced in this plant. An interesting relative of the bittersweet that is plaguing parts of the US is a shrub from India, C.paniculatus. The oil pressed from the seeds of this plant is, “… used to increase memory and facilitate learning. It induces a feeling of well-being and has reported aphrodisiac effects.” Sounds pretty benign. I certainly could use some help in the memory department. Maybe we could convince those that are inclined to experiment with drugs that C. paniculatus is a good substitute for bath salts.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Honey
by Fred Gralenski
I got the topic for this essay at breakfast. I mix up some oatmeal, bran, slices of wild apple (these will run out in a few weeks), a couple of tablespoons of ground up flax seed and sunflower seeds, and top it off with a tablespoonful of honey. Add some water, stir, then zap this for 6 minutes at a power level of 6, add a little milk and UM! UMM! Fit for a king.
People have been using honey as a sweetener for thousands of years. The oldest reference seems to be a 10,000 year old cave drawing in Spain depicting a couple of women collecting honey. (Of course, with two unclad maidens with baskets on a rickety ladder approaching a bee hive, this may also be the first noted record of a pinup). Mago of ancient Carthage wrote much about agriculture and bees and honey. In biblical times John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey, and a land of milk and honey was a good place to live. Honey was commonly used in all parts of the old world. In the Western Hemisphere before Columbus there was some honey harvested from stingless bees by South American natives, but honey bees as we know them were not here until the early European colonists.
Looking at the USDA production data of 2010, the US produced over 175 million pounds of honey. Surprising to me, the state that produced the most honey was North Dakota, with over 46 million pounds. Maine was not a heavy producer of honey with a total production of about 246,000 lbs. The data is a little fuzzy as to whether or not this includes the hives brought in for blueberry pollination, but interestingly our production of honey was more than that of Virginia. Since Virginia encompasses Washington DC, I guess the production of sweet talk is more important down there. The country that produces the most honey is China, with over 200 million lbs produced last year. There was some controversy early in the year about China sneaking 60 million pounds of ultra filtered honey through India and into the US. If you want to get some real honey from our own lupines and goldenrods complete with a little pollen and all of that other good stuff, buy your honey local. I get mine from Stephen Taylor of Pembroke. He claims this year was pretty good, and his hive production was very satisfactory, at about 60 lbs per colony. Bee keeping can be an iffy hobby, and some say that coastal properties are especially vulnerable. Bees are very susceptible to just about any pesticide, even if it doesn’t kill them outright, as a bee, like any of us, that is under the weather, just won’t produce. A beekeeper in Lubec had a poor year , lost one hive, and the other hives had such marginal honey production that they opted to leave the honey for the bees for winter food.
We have all watched the busy worker bees harvesting the nectar and pollen, but we are not privy to see what goes on in the hive, and we have to rely on beekeepers and scientists. When the worker bee goes into the hive with a gut of nectar and baskets of pollen, she regurgitates the partially worked nectar into a ‘house’ bee. (This is called ‘trophallaxis’ not mouth to mouth p—-g). The house bee somehow ‘works’ the nectar by digestion and drying (?) until it has the proper consistency of honey (i.e. very little moisture and a ph of about 4.0) so it can be sealed in the comb for later use. Honey in this state will last indefinitely, as no fermenting organisms can live in it. However, the endospores of the bacterium C.botulinum can survive, and with enough moisture, like in the digestive tract of a baby, the bacterium will flourish and be viable, and cause Infantile Botulism. Don’t feed raw honey to an infant, even during the holidays. Us old geezers, however, can enjoy it with impunity on our breakfasts, and if I had any Mead (or any drink made with honey) I’d raise it up and wish you all BEST WISHES FOR THE HOLIDAYS!!
Quoddy Nature Notes – Notes on Holiday Traveling and Reminiscing
It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to travel to western Massachusetts on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but schedules were set in stone, and alternatives were inconceivable, so off we went. The storm had sort of overwhelmed the road crews, and travel on Route 9 was limited, especially for the semis trying to negotiate the up sides of the hills, and many of these hills were lined with truckers probably bemoaning their fate, and awaiting better conditions. We noted many minor accidents but by Kennebunk the storm conditions had abated and travel was simple the rest of the way, and we arrived safely at our destination only two and a half hours late. (The Wednesday before Thanksgiving brought a snowstorm that closed some roads and put vehicles into snowbanks.)
It’s interesting to be back at my old stomping grounds and note the changes. I found the stone dam in the little brook that my brother and I had built over 60 years ago. The dam was still OK but the little pond behind it had filled with gravel and pebbles that had come off the mountain. This was located a little outside the pasture but the remnants of the old barbwire fence we had strung were deeply buried in the trees that marked the boundary. No domestic animals had tested our efforts at containment for over a half century, and the Norway spruce that I had helped plant back in the 1940’s were pretty big trees. When they were first growing I remember the worms that often got into the leader of the main stem, but the trees are good timber size now. A small rectangular half acre that over the years grew sweet corn, sugar beets and finally tobacco (for my father’s personal use), was now in Red pine, and the little orchard of nondescript apples had disappeared except for a cherry tree that was being crowded out by the Red pine branches. I tapped on an old bird box hanging in the tree and out popped a flying squirrel and he hid behind the tree and waited for me to leave, which I did but not before taking his picture. Another bird house that I had put up years ago had a mouse nest on top of the bird’s nest. I gently poked the nest and out popped a white footed mouse. He tired of waiting for me to get out my camera, and went back inside. I carefully looked inside the nest and there he was all curled up. He let me touch him, and I felt his warm, rapid heartbeat, and then I left him in his house. Since I built the house in the first place I felt that I had landlord inspection privileges, but I later brought him down half a roll from my Thanksgiving dinner. Continuing my check of the old sod I found a Witch Hazel in bloom and wondered why the petals are so strange and why the whole reproductory cycle of Witch Hazel seems so out of sync with the rest of the trees and shrubs. We then did more exploring on one of our favorite spots by the Connecticut River where a line of bittersweet-ladened trees separated the river from a large meadow where corn and other crops were grown. The reward of our efforts was finding a big flock of sparrows, chickadees, goldfinches, nuthatches, robins, bluebirds, blue jays and woodpeckers.
We entertained ourselves while traveling on the roads from Maine to Connecticut and back by noting stuff of nature and other miscellany. Our tally was: 15 Red-tailed hawks, mostly in Connecticut but a couple north of Augusta; 5 deer harvested by hunters and one hit by car; 32 Christmas trees on cars and 4 truckloads of Christmas trees. We returned the Sunday after Thanksgiving and, thankfully, only a small poplar was across our driveway. We did find an unwelcome hitch hiker; a deer tick. Undoubtedly, an omen of things to come. Hopefully, the ‘prophylactic dose to keep from getting Lyme disease’, which is a simple two pill treatment, is successful. I made sure the little bugger was dead before I took his picture.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Raccoons
We have three members of the Procyonidae family in the US, but only the raccoon, Procyon lotor, is here in the Quoddy region, as well as throughout the country and through Central America and southern Canada. The raccoon (or ‘Espons’ in my Passamaquoddy Reference Book) is native only to the Western hemisphere, but has been introduced into many places like Germany, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Japan. I wonder if cottage industries have evolved in those distant countries for exterminators to rid houses and buildings of our transplants? Around here it may be only a few hundred dollars, but in New Jersey I read of $1800 to remove the ‘coon and plug the access entry. Because of their intelligence, dexterity, strength, omnivorous food habits and ability to live next to people, raccoons can be and are a major nuisance. Adult raccoons typically weigh from 10-20 pounds, but the largest on record is over 60 pounds. In the wild their lifespan is about 5 years but in captivity they can live over 15 years. Raccoons eat almost everything, especially anything associated with water, like frogs, snakes, snails, clams, mussels, crabs and salamanders. A few years ago on my amphibian checks in the spring I found a half dozen dead spotted salamanders with their heads chewed off. Even though there was no definite proof, the culprit was probably a raccoon. Spotted salamanders, although not equipped with the toxicity of their cousin the eastern newt, apparently do have an unpleasant taste, but not enough to completely dissuade a hungry ‘coon. Raccoons are notorious for knowing when your sweet corn is ripening, and are very skilled at harvesting it a day or two before you do. They are not very careful or conservative about the process, and besides making a big mess, destroy or damage much more than they eat. Chickens and eggs are also fair game, especially in the late summer and early fall when the ‘coons are fattening up in anticipation of winter. In the spring the eggs of turtles and ground nesting birds are favored.
It’s very difficult and time consuming to secure protection against the destruction of raccoons, as they are very clever, and will find any weakness in any defense system you set up. I find that a fence or any arrangement that incorporates an electric shock is effective, as ‘coons have very sensitive paws. Traps and the .22 caliber solution work, but must be used with caution. Hunting ‘coons at night with dogs is a sport that seems to be more common further south. Raccoons are the most popular fur bearing animal harvested in the US, with about 3 million harvested annually, and the skins go for about $10 to $20 each. Coonskin caps were popular in the time of Daniel Boone, and in the roaring twenties any wag of note needed a coonskin coat to wear while dashing about in an open roadster. Raccoons are good to eat, and some authors describe the flavor as similar to lamb. I like the taste, and prefer it in a crockpot setting. Hunters and Ford 150’s are the only predators of adult raccoons around here, but young raccoons are harvested by owls and coyotes.
Since raccoons are very common here, a couple of cautions are in order about the many diseases common to raccoons, especially several variants of rabies. Rabies is a serious disease, but if recognized in time, treatments are available. A more sinister malady is the ‘Baylisascaris roundworm’, a common parasite of raccoons in some parts of the country, but, fortunately, not very common here yet. If the parasite infects a person, the worm migrates to the brain, and, according to the CDC, no cure is presently available. The infecting vector is raccoon poop, which may contain the eggs of this parasite. The CDC recommends considering any raccoon poop on your stairs or deck as hazardous waste, and washing the area with boiling water, as chemicals like Lysol or bleach are ineffective.
And finally, after all this, one can, with the proper permits, buy a baby raccoon online for $350. I would strongly advise against this. If your child needs a pet, adopt a cat from PAWS, teach the child to take care of it and keep the cat indoors.
Ring Necked Snake (Pembroke Map 37)
I found this little snake in my garage on Nov 18th. I knew he was injured, as I had apparently driven over him, but I didn't know how badly. Sadly, he died a couple of days later.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Canada Geese
by Fred Gralenski
Our Canada goose, Branta canadensis, may be distantly related to the silly goose of fairy tales and barnyards, but trying to categorize it and its closer cousins is pretty tough. Krohn (1988) wrote that sixteen subspecies of B. canadensis were recognized in North America, and these ranged in size from the Giant (Branta canadensis maxima), tipping the scale at up to 20 pounds, to the 3 pound ‘Cackling’ goose B.canadensis hutchinsii. Recently the single Canada goose species was separated into two distinct species; the ‘large bodied’ species Branta canadensis, with 7 subspecies; and the small bodied or ‘Cackling’ species Branta hutchinsii, with 4 subspecies. (Are you confused yet?) Historically, geese were a favorite of hunters, both Native Americans and the Europeans that subsequently followed, and by 1900 no geese were nesting in Maine and few were flying overhead to migrate in the spring and fall. This caused great concern among hunters and conservationists alike and hunting regulations and seasons were adopted and enforced. In the early 1960’s wild Canada geese were captured in the Midwest and introduced to Maine. Apparently some or most of these birds were B.c. maxima, the Giant Canada goose.
An interesting characteristic of this bird is that it is not migratory, at least in comparison to most of the other types of geese, and is content to live close to people. This feature has proven to be a problem all over New England, as geese are attracted to open fields and other places with ample grass and water. Golf courses, parks and airports often have to resort to extraordinary means to keep the pesty critters at bay. We lived in Massachusetts in the early 1970’s, and I remember some of the incidents at Logan International Airport with planes being damaged by collisions with geese. Our property abutted a small swampy pond, and I recall being impressed by a pair of Canada geese that noisily took up residence there. I was less impressed with them when they ate everything in the little 6X8 foot patch I had dug up for a veggie garden. Even when I fenced in my garden the geese would reach in and bite off or uproot any plant in range. They did migrate in the winter, but only a couple of miles to the nearest open water on the Merrimack River. When we lived in Northern New Hampshire there was always a large flock of Canada geese on the Androscoggin River. The story was that they had been collected somewhere in Connecticut and brought up there. Geese have also been transplanted, very successfully as far as geese are concerned, to Great Britain and other parts of Europe. I suspect that they are the non-migratory versions, and I wonder how the groundkeepers of fancy estates like the greased-up lawns.
Here in Maine I seldom see (or hear) the high flying Canada goose, Branta canadensis canadensis, on its Spring or Fall migration flight. Canada geese generally mate for life, and apparently if a local bird mates with a migratory bird the family takes up the non-migratory way of life. We do occasionally have the small ‘Cackling’ geese here in Maine, but the subspecies is indeterminate. I have never seen one but Bill Sheehan has posted pictures on his blog of individuals he has photographed up in Aroostook County. Maine has a split hunting season that focused on the resident Canada goose population in September and a season that focuses on the migratory population from Oct to Dec 9 here in the Quoddy region. The total harvest in Maine last year was about 9,000 birds. If you are really into goose hunting, Maryland is the place to go. Hunters harvested over 200,000 birds last year in Maryland, and that’s a lot of Christmas dinners.
Quoddy Nature News – How Did Your Garden Grow?
Do you suppose people asked each other that question back in the 1500’s when the old English nursery rhyme, “Mary, Mary quite contrary…” was first written? Probably, but that ditty apparently had little to do with gardens but with the Protestant/Catholic struggle going on at the time. But aside from stirring up old rivalries, how DID your garden grow?
From what I found out from my many questions (I do like to babble about everything, especially in small groups and with people that speak up), most gardens in the Quoddy Region didn’t do very well. Mine was poor, with few bright spots, but it was still an interesting growing season. I knew that the corn would be a failure because of the cool, damp weather, and that certainly came true, but I had read somewhere that potatoes, onions, carrots and beets could tolerate and even thrive under those conditions. My potatoes pouted instead of sprouted and produced little; my onions, usually a pretty easy- to- get- along- with crop, grumbled and wouldn’t play by the rules; my beets just sulked all summer, and the carrots looked sickly all season with yellow jaundice and didn’t recover until the end of September. They have a healthy green color now, and that should look nice against the snow. Squash, usually another stalwart, came up only sporadically and produced only one and a half small fruit. The half one was small enough to be shared by a raccoon. Usually winter squash, when they are ripe, are too big for these masked thieves to bite, but this year I had to share. Cucumbers were a different kind of story. The ones I planted directly in the ground a week after Memorial Day never emerged. Linda started cucumbers in the sunspace, and the two plants she didn’t sell at the Pembroke Library book, bake and yard sale I planted in the garden. I misjudged the hardening off process and my poor cucumbers got scorched by the sun and really looked tortured, and I worried about what I would say if Amnesty International came knocking at my door. Those two plants, for all my mistreatment, supplied us with reliable summer salads from the middle of July all the way through September and I harvested the last cucumber on October 6th. I’m not sure if I learned anything in the process or not. Peppers also were a pleasant surprise. The seeds sprouted very slowly when I planted them inside in mid-April, and the plants didn’t look very energetic when I set them outside early in June, however this was one of my better years for peppers. I raise primarily the Hungarian hot wax peppers, which really are not very hot, but do have a little zip to them. I find that the bell peppers are not as reliable, and I raise them sometimes as sort of an experiment, like I did with the super hot peppers. As of this writing on 23 Oct, I have one hot wax and two super hot pepper plants still producing. Tomato growing this year was confusing. I usually have a lot of seeds left over from previous years, as I like to raise a bunch of different types of tomatoes. I like the yellow pear, various types of cherry, plum and maybe an heirloom or so and a big beef for salads and sandwiches. This was the first year in over 20 years of gardening in Pembroke that I had problems with ‘wilt’ or ‘late blight’ with my tomatoes. My plants started out looking very healthy, but then were very slow to fix fruit, then seemed to wilt. This happened in different stages to different types of plants, even those that were deemed wilt resistant. Every gardener I talked to, except a fellow from Lubec (?), had similar problems and one gardener even claims he is giving up gardening. Is this why Wal-Mart in Calais is adding a big grocery section? Is this why ‘JOHNNY’S’ had a big ad for their new and improved 2525 DEFIANT PHR (F1) to protect against Phytophthora? Besides soil, fertilizer, water, etc. do I need a Crystal ball to raise tomatoes?
Quoddy Nature Notes – Black Knapweed
Black Knapweed is not a common plant here in the Quoddy region. The flower looks like a thistle, but the plant has no thorns or prickers to ward off us nosy people that like to poke around with such things. This knapweed is called ‘black’ because of the lower parts of the flower head (bracts) are a dark brown/black color, and each bract looks like a tiny dark frilly fern. Black Knapweed, Centaura nigra, belongs to the Aster family Asteracae, like daisies and sunflowers. It is a perennial and ranges from New England through the Middle Atlantic states down to the Virginia/ North Carolina border and out to and including Missouri; and the Pacific Northwest including California. There are about 25 species of knapweed here in the United States, and most have been introduced. Black Knapweed was first noted in the Western Hemisphere in Quebec around 1850. The prevalence seems to be around the coast, and I have not noticed it here in Pembroke but I have noticed it in the Machias area and on Campobello. It seems that it was brought here inadvertently and also intentionally as Black Knapweed is used as a garden border in its native United Kingdom. Most knapweeds prefer dry areas like gravelly roadsides and railroad beds, and don’t particularly like the heavy, wet soils that we typically have here, however these guys are pretty persistent and can be invasive. Black Knapweed is classified as a noxious weed in the state of Washington especially in King county where it was first noted in 1895, and anyone putting in a border of Black Knapweed for their garden risks a healthy fine. There are biological controls listed if Knapweed overwhelms the area, but they are not cheap. Root weevils are available at $140 for 100 insects or the more economical Flower weevils at the bargain rate of $80 for 200 bugs.
Closeup of Black Knapweed showing the frilly bracts.
I can’t find any references that the Native Americans used any forms of knapweed for anything, even though the stems seem to be pretty tough and wiry. The flowers of Black Knapweed are an attraction for honeybees and butterflies like the American Lady. The flower petals, like many flower petals, are purported to be edible, and can be added to salads. Another attractive feature of Black Knapweed is that it is unlikely to be eaten by deer. Goldfinches like the seeds, and each flower head produces about 60 seeds, and these closely resemble thistle (or Niger) seeds.
American Lady on Black Knapweed.
Black Knapweed has been used for centuries in Europe as a medicinal plant, especially as a help in healing wounds. A poultice was made of the leaves and applied to the stricken area. This procedure was also used for treating ‘whitlows’ and ‘felons’. ( According to Webster’s, these are “…pus producing infections at the end of a finger or toe near or under the nail.”) For catarrh, a decoction of one ounce of dried roots and seeds should be put in a pan containing two and a half cups of cold water. Bring this to a boil then simmer until a volume of only one cup remains. Strain this and after it cools use a dose of 2 ounces three times a day. If the patient gets better, it worked. If the patient doesn’t get better, he probably didn’t have catarrh (whatever that is) anyway. And, as a medical finale, my Culpeper states that Knapweed “…helps to stay the fluxes…of the mouth and nose…and also of the belly.”
One reference stated that in Germany it is the custom for an unmarried person to wear the flower of black Knapweed in their buttonhole. Are unmarried persons more apt to have unstayed fluxes of the belly?
Deer Mouse Family – Pembroke (Map 27)
At a Pathfinder’s walk at Morong Cove on Sept 11, we found Momma Deer mouse and four of her nearly full grown offspring setting up shop in the sign-in box. By the size of her one could guess that there will be more youngsters soon.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Meat
As I write this, the calendar says summer is still with us, but a few cool, brisk days signal the coming of autumn here in the Quoddy region. This also signals the start of hunting season in Maine. Check the rule book for the dates, as they are often staggered for methods, areas and species. Hunting is now largely a sport around here, but it wasn’t too long ago that hunting was deemed a necessity for some rural families. I like to hunt, even though I don’t do much anymore, but I also like to ponder the evolution, preparation and prejudices of food, with no apologies that I’m a carnivore.
The oldest reference that I can find for meat preparation is the bible in the book of Exodus. In the first Passover, the Israelites were commanded to slaughter a one year old male lamb (sheep or goat) at twilight, roast it over a fire with its head, legs and inner organs, and consume it that night with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, and, likely washed down with some local drink. Reading between the lines, the Israelites were admonished not to eat any of the meat raw, so they probably did so at times. A roast that size would take 3-6 hours. Did they leave the skin on? Were there any preparations whatever of the lamb?
Moving ahead to the mid 1600’s, and Nicholas Denys wrote his memoirs of life with the Native Americans in what is now New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In describing the porcupine, Denys wrote, “…It is very good to eat. It is placed on the fire to be grilled like a Pig… Being singed, well roasted, washed, and placed on the spit it is as good as suckling Pig.” I can’t follow his description very well. Did they leave the skin on (and inner organs) and singe the porcupine and then roast it? What is ‘washed’? Is that another term for ‘basted’? I would think that it was on the spit during the roasting.
My next reference, ‘Indian New England Before the Mayflower’ by Howard Russell, I find very informative. He writes that Native Americans were known to waste little, and their consumption of any animal was almost complete. “…Raccoon, beaver, otter, turtle, skunk, rabbit, woodchuck, rattlesnake, seal, whale, frog -the meat of every kind of mammal except flesh eaters like the wolf- the natives cooked and ate.” I think that Russell snuck in a little bit of European slant when he wrote of the exception, as the Native Americans were known to consider dog meat as fit for any guest. The Indians often roasted their meat but liked it boiled if time permitted. Certainly drying and smoking were standard ways of preserving meats and fish, but interestingly enough the Native Americans, even along the coast, apparently never used salt. Many early writers noted this, and surmised that various herbs and ”… the digestive parts of animals were likely to contain concentrated flavors and food salts.” Even after European contact, Native Americans used little if any salt in their diet but did adopt the use of salt for preserving meats.
The famed mountain men of the American west generally roasted their meat, and apparently ate lots of it, at 5 to 7 pounds at a sitting. With their very active lifestyle they needed many calories to survive, and wild game is very lean. These outdoorsmen almost always depended on large game, as a single rabbit or grouse would definitely not suffice for a single meal.
Good or bad, our present consideration for the type and preparation of meat is heavily influenced by a lot of fads and prejudices. Lots of these are regional, as in the South it is definitely more common to see ‘Chitterlings’ (chitlins) on the menu. I’ve never seen that on a menu in the Quoddy region, but I can readily get steamed clams and eat the WHOLE thing except for the shells and ‘skin’ on the neck. And I can get, and enjoy, calamari. Squid! You ate a SQUID!
Camporee at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge
Gate to the 49th International Camporee at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge. The Maine Flag is for the US with the lighthouse symbol for West Quoddy Head; The New Brunswick flag is for Canada with the symbol for East Quoddy Head (Head Harbor). Built primarily by Alba Briggs of Lubec and lashed together by his son Ezra. The lighthouses were built at the Pembroke Library.
Mike Heath, Forester at Moosehorn, explaining some of the secrets of the forest to some Boy Scouts at the Camporee.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Dogbane
Dogbane
by Fred Gralenski
We have two types of Dogbane here in the Quoddy region; Spreading Dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium) and Indian Hemp Dogbane (Apocynum cannabium). Both are very widespread, and can be found over most of the US and Canada. It is a little difficult to tell them apart, especially since they are closely enough related that they readily hybridize, but I’ve noticed more of the Spreading Dogbane. They both like dry, well drained soils and are a distinct nuisance to crops like wild blueberries, as they propagate by seed and underground runners. The dogbanes are winding down their growing season, and the flowers are past their prime, but still handsome with the delicate pinks. The genus name, Apocynum, means ‘poisonous to dogs’ which it is, and also to us and all livestock, but fortunately dogbane is very bitter and most animals shy away from eating sufficient quantities that may be toxic. The sap of dogbane is a white, sticky latex similar to the sap of milkweed, which is in the dogbane family. Both types of plants furnish food and habitat for the Monarch butterfly, especially in the larval stage. The Monarchs assimilate the toxins in the plant and are well known throughout the animal world as being unpalatable and are avoided on sight. Some moths, like the Dogbane Tiger Moth and the Milkweed Tussock Moth, also feed on Dogbane and assimilate the toxins and, since they mostly fly at night, reportedly have developed sonar defenses against bats to announce their bad taste. The flowers of dogbane are visited by honeybees and butterflies, as they are a good source of nectar, but unsuspecting flies may become trapped in the flowers, hence another common name is ‘Flybane’.
The latex sap may have some qualities to be processed into a substance like natural rubber, but so far no commercial ventures seem to be forthcoming. The roots, bark and sap, however, do have some interesting medicinal qualities. Most references list dogbanes as being poisonous with many cautions, as diarrhea, vomiting, slowing of the pulse, excessive perspiration, dizziness, mechanical instability, skin irritation and coughing could be induced, however dogbane does have a large (and hopefully careful) following of herbalists. A mild concoction of dogbane juice applied to the scalp is supposed to provide the proper irritation to stimulate hair growth. The fresh juice of dogbane root mixed with alcohol has been used for the treatment of syphilis. (I guess this is better than the mercury compounds that were once prescribed.) A drop of fresh latex sap on a wart applied 3 times daily was guaranteed to get rid of the offending wart. For birth control a decoction of two roots of dogbane and one quart of water brought to a boil and allowed to simmer on the back of a wood stove for an hour and drinking a small dose of the liquid was recommended to prevent conception. Now I’m pretty much of a skeptic when it comes to herbal medications but I can see some wisdom in that. I would think that a good case of diarrhea and some vomiting, often precipitated by ingesting dogbane, would calm down even the most passionate romance. Native Americans had known about dogbane for thousands of years, and utilized not only the chemicals but also the plant itself. In late summer , when the seedpods were forming, the fibers in the bark, especially Indian Hemp Dogbane, could be stripped off and made into a fine, strong thread, and this they used for sewing and making bowstrings and snares. They found that dogbane fibers also retained their strength when wet, and were therefore extensively used in fishnets.
I find it very interesting that dogbane has so many potential uses. Some of those listed are in error; either by percentage, or mixture, or just basically incorrect, but I firmly believe that there are a myriad of uses yet to be discovered, as some preliminary studies indicate tumor lessening qualities. And there are a myriad of plants like dogbane.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Seasonal Foods
Seasonal Foods
by Fred Gralenski
With the summer winding down here in the Quoddy region it’s interesting to note the changing diet of the critters as some their foodstuff items have gone by, others are still available and some are just starting to ripen. From my perspective this year was not a good year for Service berries. The blossoms were outstanding in the spring, but I guess some hiccup in the weather must have hindered the development of the fruit. Pin cherries were pretty good, but were all gone by the end of July. A small tree out back of the house was an attraction for the local robins for only a few days before it was cleaned out. Choke cherries, a very common small tree along the roadsides, last longer, and there is always a little competition between the birds and four footed critters like chipmunks and red squirrels as to who gets the most. The Mountain Ash looks like it’s going to produce heavily. And so it goes.
Chunky. He got his name by the chunk taken out of his ear by something or somebody.
All animals need protein to grow, and the easiest way to get protein is from other animals. Hummingbirds supply their young with mostly tiny insects and spiders until they fend for themselves. The youngsters somehow learn to catch tiny insects to finish their development, and are now buzzing each other, primarily around the flowers and hummingbird feeders. All summer, wasps and yellow jackets combed the area vegetation for grubs and caterpillars to feed their young, but after the young have reached their adult stage these insects change their diet and now search for nectar from flowers, stealing from the hummingbird feeders, spilled jam on a picnic table and decayed or overripe apples. The apple crop seems to be pretty good this year, with some heavily ladened trees already dropping their production. Many critters like rabbits, squirrels, porcupines, coyotes, bear and deer will use apples in their diet, as well as birds like Robins, Blue jays, Pine Grosbeaks, Ruffed grouse and turkeys. Other fruits that are ripening are blackberries (lots of berries, but all pretty small size), bunchberries (good production), Lingonberries (good production) but my favorite little patches of blueberries seem to have been overtaken by bears and raccoons, leaving me with slim pickings. Around the house my cultivated fruit trees have been harassed greatly by porcupines, so my dream of a harvest of Asian pears, peaches, plums and apples is essentially zilch. My garden provided extra sustenance to a big crop of rabbits that found our yard to their liking. Smutty Nose, Ginger and Chunky (some of the rabbits that we could recognize) and their progeny saw to it that we wouldn’t over indulge in lettuce, beans or peas. They even ate the sunflowers, but didn’t touch the beets or carrots. I guess I can use the carrots in a rabbit stew.
Smutty Nose and Ginger, named for their colors.
Our squirrels have been pretty well behaved, and are switching from mooching under the bird feeders to their normal diet of cones.
Balsam Fir cones. Notice how they point up.
The cone crop is pretty good this year, with all spruces and Balsam firs around the house producing pitch-oozing cones. I don’t know why the fir cones point up instead of down like the spruces. Intuitively, it would seem that the cones should be built to shed the rain and dust. I know bananas are sort of the same way, but I don’t think bananas are very closely related to the firs. Our cedar ‘cones’ point upwards also. It might have something to do with pollination, or maybe Mother Nature just gave us something else to ponder. I wonder if the squirrels ponder that when they get their faces all pitch from eating the green cones.
Spruce cones dripping with pitch.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Eels
Eels
Eels are slimy, sinister looking things that are in our rivers and lakes. Although eels are claimed to be edible by people from some weird cultures, most folks from the Quoddy region despise them and wish they would be elsewhere. I heard of one lady who tried to please her husband by preparing a dish of sautéed Eel Risotto. She got so far as to cut the eel into 3 inch pieces, lightly floured, then was carefully sautéing the pieces in a large cast iron frying pan in some olive oil when she got so thoroughly disgusted with the whole process that she threw everything out, pan and all. What is it about this critter that generates such emotion?
The American eel, Anguilla rostrata, was once thought to be the only catadromous fish in North America, that is, the only fish that would breed in salt water and live in fresh water. However, scientists have determined that the clever eel really has the option of living a catadromous life if it so chooses, and can happily survive in the briny and thumb its nose at our messed up rivers. I don’t know the use of this quality as the eel can survive in very polluted waters. When I was growing up in the 40’s and 50’s, some of our entertainment and foodstuffs came from the Connecticut River. A typical summer evening, after chores and supper and with weather permitting, was down to the confluence of the Millers River and the Connecticut River and hope no one had usurped our favorite fishing ledge. If not we would slather up in 6-12 bug repellent, get out our old telescoping metal poles and bait (generally worms) and start fishing. Our quarry was mostly panfish like rockbass, but a half hour after sundown we would switch to heavy hand lines with big hooks and sinkers and fish parts for bait, with the intention of getting bullhead and eels. This was when the rivers were at their peak of pollution. The many paper mills spewed out all sorts of waste pulp and the chemicals involved, and each day the river smelled and looked differently, with different scum and foam. I never fully realized that a medium sized 2½ foot eel was probably hatched out 30 years prior in the depths of the Sargasso sea a few hundred miles east of Bermuda and drifted with the Gulf Stream and came up the toxic Connecticut river as an elver and negotiated a half dozen dams in Connecticut and another half dozen in Massachusetts before approaching adulthood when I caught him for my supper. Maybe the toxicity of my ingesting these critters twisted my system so that I viewed them with tolerance, but it would seem that after over twenty years of detox in Vacationland I should be relatively detoxified, and I still think eels are pretty neat. Eels have gills but can breathe through their skin, like amphibians, and can live out of water indefinitely if kept moist. Eels seem to mature by size, and those in salt or brackish water (usually the males) grow faster because of more available food, and mature quicker. Normally, after becoming an adult in 8 to 40 years, eels put on fat in preparation for spawning, and since they do not eat during their spawning and they are programmed to expire soon afterwards, their digestive system degenerates. If they are prevented from spawning their digestive system regenerates, and a caged eel has been recorded as living over 80 years. Adult eels were harvested commercially in the Quoddy Region, but by the 1980’s the industry appears to have died out. I have a slip from F.R.Neal, a fish dealer in Eastport, who bought 270 lbs of eels for $35.10 in 9/14/1944. Native Americans harvested eels, especially in the fall when they were migrating and plump, and relished them smoked. Squanto apparently brought many eels to the Pilgrims of the Mayflower for the first Thanksgiving celebration. The European acceptance of eels is varied, and some countries consume them enthusiastically, while others, like here, almost completely reject the thought of eating an eel. The solution for having a hatchery for eels has been tried unsuccessfully for many years, and there are rumors of success, but as of this writing I have heard nothing certain. Just think, with the right publicity, maybe eels could be the new fashion for Thanksgiving Dinner. I doubt that even the most fashion conscious folks here in the Quoddy region will ever abandon turkey.
Quoddy Nature Notes – 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.
Quoddy Nature Notes – Earwigs
Emily’s Secret
Earwigs are not talked about in genteel company. Earwigs are associated with garbage and trash, and because of their ugly, dark countenance and menacing pincers they are feared and despised. An ancient myth was that earwigs would sneak into a person’s ear, bore into the brain and set up housekeeping. In modern times if you google ‘earwig’ you will find a lot web sites of exterminators and pest management companies willing to sell you the latest chemical to eradicate these dastardly earwigs, but in among these are some sites with a little scientific bent that have conflicting information about earwigs. I dug into a lot of these and much other literature and even acquired an earwig, and named her ‘Emily’, and tried to find out more. Even though Emily’s secrets may not be as flashy as Victoria’s, I think Emily is pretty neat.
Here in the Quoddy region we probably have three species of earwigs: the European, Forficula auricularia; the Spinetailed, Doru aculeate; and the Seaside, Anisolabris maritime. Of these the rarest is the Spinetailed, which is the only native earwig in the group and is found primarily in swamps; the largest is the Seaside, which may grow over an inch long and is wingless; and the commonest is the European. Emily is a female European earwig, and I can tell the gender by her relatively straight pincers (cerci). Guy earwigs have curved pincers. Her ancestors were first recorded in the state of Washington in 1907, and probably were brought here to the new world in some shipping crates or something associated with agricultural products. Emily probably started her life in Perry, where I got her. Her mother, after hibernating, laid about 30 eggs in a nest a few inches down in the dirt in April or May of this year and carefully watched over the eggs keeping them clean of any infectious fungi and protecting them from all predators. Emily and her siblings hatched in about a month depending on the temperature, and her mother continued to look after them. This type of maternal care is very rare in insects. Little by little the young earwigs foraged further from the nest until finally they were on their own, and Emily’s mom finished her programmed lifespan. Earwigs can eat almost any type of plant, from pollen to lichens to rotten fruit, but they are also carnivorous and will eat things like aphids, fleas, ants and cinch bugs, but not ear wax. By August Emily was full grown, possibly mated in September and, according to the literature, should have started thinking about hibernating before October and following her mother’s footsteps for a new generation.
Even though she has wings, Emily does all of her long distant traveling by hitching a ride on something. She can fly, but not very well and needs to take off from a high place. The mechanics of an earwig’s flight procedure is pretty amazing. Emily would have to bend her cerci back and unfold her very fragile rear wings and actually cock them in place. Each fold on her wings (and there are upwards of 40 folds on each wing) is spring loaded with an elastic material called resilin and the unfolded wing is sort of stable so that she can fly. After her flight there is a little ‘flick’ and the wings fold up and hide under their little covers. Just a minute! Am I supposed to believe that this teeny bug with pincers on her butt can use these to unfold something on her back about seven times more complicated than and one ten-thousandth the size of the average road map? And after this is spread out the insect can use it for flight? And this miniature, complicated road map then magically folds up and stows away with no excess wrinkles, etc, controlled by no nerves, hooks or latches, with a ‘flick’? What is this ‘flick’?
Aw, come on Emily, don’t be shy. Tell me how you do this stuff. Whisper what really happens in my ear…No! Wait! Emily! EMILY!!!
Quoddy Nature Notes – Snowberry
The colors are fading fast in the Quoddy region. A few rugged Hawksbeards are still hanging onto their little yellow dandelion-like flowers, and the Winterberry adds a red hue to some of our swamps and roadsides, but mostly we have the dark grays of the trunks of trees and the greens of our mosses, ferns (most of them), conifers (all except the Hackmatack) and grass. One mysterious plant with berries that don’t have any color (or, more correctly, has all of them), and is showing its fruit now, is the Snowberry. The Snowberry (AKA Corpse Berry, Snake Berry, Wax Berry, White Coralberry) Symphoricarpos albus, is mysterious, especially to me, because of the confusion in the references. I saw a patch of Snowberry in Pembroke (I had driven by it for over 20 years and Linda finally pointed it out to me) and decided to find out more about this plant. According to most references our plants in this area are the introduced western variety S.albus var. laevigatus. Supposedly there is a Snowberry that was native to the Eastern slope of the Rockies S.albus var. albus. The USDA maps list that variety as being in New Brunswick and all of New England except for Maine and New Hampshire. I haven’t determined the Pembroke variety, but the owner of the patch said it was there before the old house on the site was torn down.
According to the literature, when Jefferson sent out the Lewis and Clark expedition on the journey of discovery to the west coast, one of the plants they sent back was the western Snowberry. Jefferson was pleased with the plant and sent some seeds and cuttings to friends and botanists in Europe. They apparently were impressed and by 1817 Snowberry was grown in England, France and many other parts of Europe. I can’t understand why. It is considered a nuisance in many of the western cattle ranches as it takes up space and nutrients destined for cattle feed. The flowers are cute and coral colored, hence one of the names, but not super exciting. The berries are sort of weird looking, not good eating, as they are very bitter, and birds will eat them only if nothing else is available. What’s the attraction? Snowberry apparently wasn’t common enough around here and I found no references of uses by the Native Americans on the East coast. In the Pacific Northwest, however, Native Americans would gather a bunch of Snowberries and squash them up in a big container and dump the juice in a pond or stream to stun or kill the fish for easier harvesting. A similar concoction, but very diluted, was used for an upset stomach, and a stronger dose was used to relieve constipation. Snowberry was also used, but not very effectively, in place of soap. I don’t know if the pioneers of Jefferson’s time used these characteristics of Snowberry or not. Maybe they used them as we do now, to stabilize a bank with their extensive root system or make a hedge with a tolerable plant with strange looking berries that was different from their neighbor’s hedge. That sounds like a good reason. People will probably remember the old ditty that goes something like: Berries red, have no dread/ Berries white, leave with fright! I think I’ll make a Corpse berry hedge.
