Day 19.198: Whales?

No, despite the near-perfect conditions, we didn’t see any whales, but we did see some sea life other than birds:

Lots of brief sightings of harbor porpoises

At least three ocean sunfish (mola mola)

Weird-looking but we won’t hold that against them

Day 19.197: Puffins

Early this morning I headed over to Boothbay Harbor with my friend J to take a 9 am boat trip. The trip is a double-header promising both puffins and whales. 

For the former, we headed to Eastern Egg Rock, one of the handful of islands where Atlantic puffins regularly nest in Maine, and we were not disappointed. 

We saw several puffins carrying fish back to young in burrows on the island. 

Immature

Day 19.196: Stumped

The stump of the red oak tree we had taken down earlier this year was demonstrating its thirst for life but today we tidied it up again. 

While we were doing that, I had a go at counting the rings. If my reckoning is correct (and it may well not be), it seems to have been about 80 years old but between the ages of 10 and 50 or so, it seems to have grown very slowly.

The house was built around 30 years ago, so I suspect its access to light got much better around then when the surrounding trees were removed and it was able to grow much faster for the years since then. 

Day 19.195: Weekend; chicory

It’s the weekend. Here’s a chicory flower:

And - as a bonus - the silvery leaves of autumn olive:

Day 19.194: More marsh birds

Some other sightings from the marsh on Saturday morning starting with a belted kingfisher:

Great egret

House sparrow

Snowy egret

Snowy egret

Saltmarsh or Nelson’s sparrow

Saltmarsh or Nelson’s sparrow

Double-crested cormorant 

Song sparrow

Glossy ibis

Day 19.193: Breakfast with waxwings

Our second stop on Saturday morning was where the Eastern Trail crosses Scarborough Marsh. At one point our group paused to admire and sample the ripe fruit of a shadbush by the trail. We were soon joined by some cedar waxwings with a similar idea.

Day 19.192: Mystery heron (solved)

Well, it was a mystery when I first saw it on my way back to work after lunch.

Best I could do with my phone

I worked out it must be an immature great blue heron.