Vacationing: Part 2

Our campsite looks like a computer desktop background that the computer always comes with... The forest was thick with these awesome coniferous trees.

     The second part of our Maine adventure took us to Acadia National Park, where we camped at the Seawall Campground. We were close to the ocean but surrounded by forest. The campground is away from the main area of the park where all the tourists are, so it made for a quiet place away from the crowds, it felt more secluded. The mosquitoes were large and relentless, we took great care to not let them into our tent at night, but I still woke up with welts on my face.
     I was hoping to be hear owls at night and see bats and other nocturnal creatures, but the first night it rained, and the second night, nothing. We did though wake up to the melodies call of the hermit thrush and when the sun set, we got an encore. The hermit thrush song gives the forest that "enchanted" feeling, like you are in a fairy tale.
     On our first evening in Acadia we hiked the Wonderland Trail:

Walking down the main road took us past the natural sea wall, an active beaver pond full of vocalizing green frogs, and curious squirrels.

Here is one of those curious squirrels now. This is a red squirrel, they were all over because there were lots of pine trees around. These squirrels feed on their cones, getting to the seeds within.

Some pretty flowers along Wonderland Trail.

So. Much. Lichen. EVERYWHERE! Lichen is a symbiotic partnership between a fungi and algae. The fungal friend protects the algae, and the algal friend makes food for itself and the fungi. BFFL = Lichen.

Another pretty flower getting pollinated by a friend.

I'm likin' all this lichen.

Reached the end of the trail. We are really good at getting to places at low tide.

We found more common eiders... and a chick!

A dark eyed Junco claims his tree. These guys are super common in NY during the winter. They have some pretty nice summer digs up here in Maine.

I spy a tadpole! We heard many of his potential parents, he was about 3" long, a larger tadpole scooted away quickly, this guys stuck around. Good thing I'm not a hungry heron.

Saw many of the warblers I saw here in May up here! This is a yellow throated warbler, also saw yellow-rumped warblers, and black-throated green warblers around our camping area and redstarts in the park. Same ones I saw here, here, and here.

     Our first full day in Acadia was spent driving up Cadillac Mountain, driving the loop road and stopped to hike the Jessup Trail, check out Thunder Hole, hike up to Gorham Mountain, and stop whenever we saw anything interesting:

Eagle Lake, I presume, from Cadillac Mountain.

The rest of Eagle Lake.

An interesting caterpillar chugging along over the tundra-like environment of the upper elevations of Cadillac Mountain. The rock faces were covered in lichen with small coniferous trees, spread out in sparse patches.

Looking down and out, so beautiful! Found out, the visibility can be fairly cruddy as pollution from the coastal cities, as far away as New York make their way up the coast to Maine, and here it is, making the far off areas hard to see. 

This type of environment is technically called an alpine tundra.

Bar Harbor from Cadillac Mountain. 

More postcard photos...

A green frog suns itself on Jessup trail. Jessup trail is supposed to take you through a meadow although on the way back we took a trail that runs right next to it and it was more like a flooded meadow... you'll find out why.

A skipper butterfly unrolls its proboscis in preparation to feed.

We turned off Jessup to walk through this very cool trail.

A hermit thrush, this brown bird may look boring and plain, but it was awesome to wake up to its songs every morning and cook at our site at night to it later.

Hmmm. Two large rodents live in this area, beaver AND porcupine. This was not very close to water, and there was more of this up the tree, so I want to say a porcupine did this. I wanted to see a porcupine very badly, the only ones I saw were roadkill and that makes me sad. 

On the porcupine tree, this guy landed in front of me (and kind of scared the heck out of me - I am not good with bee-like creatures). This crazy looking thing is an ichneumon wasp. They are parasitic and lay their eggs on a host insect. Their larvae hatch and feed on it. This is a female--- that "stinger" is what she uses to lay her eggs with. This thing was crazy and looks so alien, you have to kind of appreciate how crazy this creature is!

Hiking the trail adjacent to Jessup was soooooooooo flooded. We had on waterproof hiking shoes and boots, so it was pretty fun and we saw lots of green frogs.

We also saw evidence of why the trail might be flooded.... Beavers.

Any clue on what this is? I don't... closest I got was a Tennessee warbler. What do you think? Feel free to submit a comment. 

After driving away from Jessup trail I got a blurry photo of a white-tail buck growing in its antlers.

Beaver lodge on pond. The lodge is where the beavers actually live. The dam is what they use to flood a river and create suitable habitat for themselves AND many other organisms reliant on a steady body of water. This makes beavers a keystone species, many other organisms rely on them, especially.

We hiked alllllllllllll the way up to the top of Gorham Mountain. This herring gull took the easy way up.

A cedar waxing. We are above it on the mountain peak. We had a birds-eye view of the birds.

     We arrived back at our campsite and my husband went to read his book, I couldn't not resist the temptation to walk around...

In the parking area at the campground I heard all this tapping only to find a Junco very mad at his reflection...

...And then he would claim victory.

A snowshoe hare was a regular visitor to the parking lot every evening. I saw him the first night after picking up firewood at a general store and pulled right up to him in the car and he just nibbled away. One thing I did not notice till I got home and viewed the pictures on the computer is the ticks lining his ears. Glad none of those made it onto me.

Hares, rabbits, and pikas are a part of the lagomorph family, not the rodent family.

Also, rabbits and hares do not eat copious amounts of carrots. They prefer grasses. 

The first day we saw the sun and a full sky of stars!

     The next day, which was the 4th of July, we wanted to make a stop to check out the falcons nesting on the cliffside at Precipice trail:

Do you see the fledging falcon testing its wings dead center? The two youngsters just began flying and plying in the air, which allows them to practice flying and hone their skills. 

These are peregrine falcons and they were way high up on the mountainside. We could hear them vocalize from below. At this trail's parking lot, rangers were stationed with a spotting scope and were wonderful about answering questions and knowledgeable about birds in general.

The two young falcons engaged in the bird version of tag. While viewing these guys we also saw a turkey vulture, which the falcons don't care much for and ignore and a bald eagle which flew strategically low past the falcons till it got away and began to soar higher. The falcons go after the eagles as they are a threat to their nests and young. Eagles are opportunistic and will steal prey and anything they can get their talons on.

     Our trip to Maine was super awesome. It was a long drive, but well worth it. It was wonderful to wake up in nature, especially while camping in Acadia. We could have done without the ravenous mosquitoes though. I highly recommend a visit if you can, camping was very inexpensive costing us $14/nt for our campsite and $20 for the park pass. Check out Acadia here and the camping options here. Happy trails!

Vacationing: Part 1

Fog rolls into the harbor over the golf course where the Breakwater to the lighthouse begins.

     So, I've been a bit slow on posting anything new because my husband and I took a road trip to the gorgeous state of Maine. We did two days in Rockland, ME, two days in Acadia National Park, and one day in Dover, NH on the way back. What a nice couple of days it was and what a great time we had. I ate lobster 3 days straight and loved every minute of it, including a lobster at our campsite (high class camping)!
     Our stay in Rockland was with the Old Granite Inn, a lovely bed and breakfast. It provided the perfect home base for us, we opted for a very small room, but that is all we need, a place to sleep! The breakfasts were fantastic and a huge thank you to Ed, the Inn Keeper who cooked us for breakfast wild Maine blueberry Johnny cakes, egg fritattas, delicious ginger scones (huge fan of those!), baked eggs with lobster (HUGE yummers to that!), lemon crepes with wild blueberry sauce, and a great cup of coffee from a local roaster in town. I very much recommend this B&B, great location and very wonderful food!
     Our first full day in Maine included walking to the Rockland Harbor lighthouse on the harbor via the breakwater, a walk through Owl's Head State Park, and a Puffin Watch to East Egg Rock! I'll let the pictures do the 'splaining...

Barnacles at low tide. Barnacles are animals. Actually they are Arthropods (like insects and crustaceans!). After floating around as a larvae, they become sessile adults (that means they do not move). Often barnacles attach to rocks, docks, ship hulls, and even living things like whales and sea turtles. Barnacles filter food from the water for food with a feathery apparatus called cirri. Barnacles are more than just a bump on a rock.

Herring gulls perch on exposed rocks during low tide. Low tide also exposed lots of algae, sea weed, barnacles, and TONS of snails.

A ring billed gull reflects.

A herring gull reflects on his inner sea duck.

Our walk out to the light house. The breakwater protects the harbor from waves. Also apparently provides a great place to put out lobster traps. All the buoys are marking what I think are traps, as I did see a few with traps below them.

A double crested cormorant leaps into flight...

Pushes off the water...

A hop and a strong flap...

Departing the water...

Pull up the landing gear and off he goes!

We got to the lighthouse and both my husband and I noticed it was COVERED in these gorgeous spiders and their amazing webs.

Spiders are arachnids- that means they have 8 legs, two body segments, and they are awesome. What a beautiful pattern!

Credit goes to my husband for the spider pictures!

     At Owl's Head State Park, there was another light house. We also walked over the rocky shore investigating rocks, snails, and dodging the monstrous mosquitoes. We did see many Common Eider, a sea duck. These ducks pluck mussels off the sea floor and swallow them whole, shell and all. Their powerful gizzard can grind that mussel up so it may be digested. The male is white, with the black head. The females are brown, which helps them when nesting. Their camouflage seems to have worked well, take note of the adorable duckling eiders in tow!

Adorable eider families!

After stopping for a delicious lunch in Owl's Head, my husband went into the car and like any easily distracted by nature person, I ran across the street to check out the pond and this was staring back at me.

This is a green frog, looks like a bull frog except much smaller and makes a noise that sounds like you are plucking a rubber band pulled tight.  

     After a short rest from our morning activities, we drove down to New Harbor, ME and got on a puffin watch boat with Hardy Boat Tours. Their tours are endorsed by Audubon's Project Puffin and Audubon staff and puffin researchers were onboard to point out cool animals and tell us about the sea birds of East Egg Island and the amazing recovery effort that worked and resulted in the current population of Atlantic Puffins in this area.

     Our tour was rainy and foggy. Visibility was so poor and made it challenging in not wanting to hurl my lunch over the side of the boat. I was able to keep my bearings straight and did alright on the boat. The waves did make the boat move about and made picture taking a challenge and a half, but it was well worth it all.

Puffins are small and the waves are large. These birds, in the auk family are only about 10 inches tall but tough as nails. Their bright beaks give them their nickname, "parrots of the sea." Their beaks are brightest now, during breeding season. In winter months, puffins take on a more drab appearance and head out to sea. Breeding is the only time you see these birds hanging out on or around the rocky islands.

This island, East Egg Island is home to not only puffins but guillimots, laughing gulls, cormorants, three tern species, and eiders who also nest here.

That shack is actually a bird blind, where a person can sit and observe birds without causing too much disruption. People take 2-3 hour shifts sitting and making observations about the birds including the breeding puffins. The orange flag marks a burrow, puffins lay their eggs and rear their chicks in a burrow or rocky crevice. A project Puffin researcher spends a whole summer on this island with other researchers coming and going, making observations and gathering important data on these birds. This island was pretty much wiped out of puffins, project puffin began repopulating this island and others by bringing in chicks from Canada and attracting them back for breeding by using decoys. When puffins see other puffins it makes a place more inviting.

Common Eiders just offshore of East Egg Island.

Four Atlantic Puffins. I wish the water was actually that calm, don't let this zoomed in photo deceive you. 

Puffins have similar adaptations to penguins - that black and white color helps them camouflage, especially when under water - this camouflage is called counter shading. If a predator is below, they see light colors and if above the puffin, it blends in with the deep. They have the ability to dive and appear to fly underwater as they use their wings to propel themselves, but unlike penguins... 

...They can fly.

A black guillimot with it's catch. This bird is closely related to puffins.

How amazing is this little bird?! 

We also saw some marine mammals like the harbor seal. We saw some harbor porpoises as well.

Harbor seals breed here in the summer. In the winter, many migrate down to places like New York.

A female eider blends in while the male is very visible. There are also two cormorants to his left.

This one puffin flew in and landed right next to the boat just before we left. Isn't he just adorable?!

Love those little orange feet!

Before leaving we also saw a common murre, a bird that is not so common to Maine, so this was cool sighting. We also saw a razorbill as well.

FIREFLIES!

Fireflies/lightning bugs- neither bug nor fly- they are part of the beetle family - Coleoptera, if you want to get fancy. They also produce neither fire or lightning. These are bioluminescent creatures, the light is cool, not warm and created through a chemical reaction. It's very neat stuff!

     Like a giddy 5 year old, I stepped out onto our (really) tiny terrace and noticed some glows happening down in my landlord's garden.... FIREFLIES! I literally went inside and out the front door to catch my first firefly of the year! I caught one very quickly and brought it in to hopefully put into a vessel, photograph, and let him go. Definitely a him- only the boys fly and light up, the ladies sit in grasses and bushes and glow. Anyway, of course, in typical 5-year old fashion he got away from me, he flew up and around my kitchen and I failed many times to capture him (you'd think this shouldn't be hard). I gave up and figured, oh well, he is out and hopefully the cat will not find him.
     When I was a kid, I always caught fireflies, rummaged through the recycling bin, grabbed a bottle, poked holes in the lid and filled it with some fireflies. Probably some very frustrated male fireflies who just got you-know-what-blocked by a little kid. Anyway, those frustrated fireflies escaped one night and I recall my mother saying that my jars were no longer permitted in the house, they'd have to stay outside. And this moment in my life is going through my head, as I am standing on chairs in the kitchen, trying to catch a firefly.
     Three hours later, I walk into the kitchen, and there he was, crawling up the wall. I caught him, got him into a tupperware, got my pictures and let him go. He gave me a glow as he went off into the night, perhaps a goodbye, or a firefly cuss of sorts for my failure in getting him stuck in my kitchen.
     Anyway, the fireflies are out here in the North East. Enjoy the show while it lasts, I absolutely love these little insects!

Male fireflies fly around signaling with their glow. Females wait and signal back to males. This is the firefly dating game. Although, there is another species of firefly that mimics the Eastern firefly, the guy above. The female of this other species mimics the light pattern of Eastern fireflies, lures the male in and turns him into dinner.

Fireflies themselves are predators of other insects. Fireflies themselves are actually toxic to most animals, as a keeper of reptiles, these guys can be deadly if people feed them to their pet lizards, turtles, and frogs.

If fireflies were not a part of your childhood, come on over to the New York and live it up!

One Happy Spider

If you look closely... reeeeally close, someone has taken residence between the basil and lavender.

     Not going to lie, I have been exhausted lately. Camp has started up at work and dang, those kids are full of energy! We also are doing a longer camp day than last year, so that also has been exhausting - this resulted in a weekend of napping and laying around, since the heat was on outside.
     I did walk out onto our (tiny) terrace, where I have all my herbs growing and noticed a perfect little orb web with a tiny spider smack in the middle. He appears very happy, the pattern on his-- or her-- abdomen looks like a happy grin. I hope this spider makes itself comfy, I do love them and hope he catches all the mosquitoes that try getting into our home.

Do you see the happy grin? It also looks kind of like a kitty face.

Spider silk is one of the strongest materials on Earth. Scientists are always experimenting with it or trying to create their own version of spider silk material. Spider silk is pretty awesome and our attempt to create our own version is known as biomimicry, trying to recreate things that occur naturally. Learn more here!

Many people fear spiders, and all spiders are venomous, but most are harmless and all have zero interest in people. They hang out near us because their food (insects) is attracted to our gardens and homes. I used to fear spiders growing up, but once you learn about them and meet a few... and if you're lucky, keep a giant furry one as a pet for a few years, you learn to appreciate them. I had a rose-hair tarantula for a few years and owe it to a tarantula for getting me over my fear of spiders. 

Spiders have the ability to produce many different types of silk and different species of spiders use the silk in different ways. Ain't s/he a cute little thing?

Spiders are awesome, I hope people appreciate them for what they are and what they do for us in terms of pest control. Spiders are always welcome in our home, although sometimes they need rescuing and a relocation to the outdoors as our cat has an appetite for them. They really are amazing little creatures, though.