Day 19.201: Shore; birds

Here are some of the birds we saw on the boat trip on Sunday while we were close to shore.

Double-crested cormorants

Osprey

Osprey

Two young bald eagles

Bald eagle

Common eiders

I'd never have known, but this is a rare summer sight - a long-tailed duck. She has decided to spend the summer in Boothbay Harbor rather than traveling north 

Day 19.200: Tori Amos

Exile #2 and I went to see Tori Amos on her In Times of Dragons tour this evening at the Merrill Auditorium in Portland. I remembered writing the story of how she played a part in our origin story after a previous concert but was surprised to discover it was nearly 19 years ago during the first year of the Exile!

In any case she was on great form tonight with a drummer and bass player and a trio of backing singers that really transformed the vibe compared with last time we saw her a couple of years ago. She seemed relaxed and like she was having fun again as she wandered through some hits and deep cuts from every phase of her career. 

Day 19.199: More birds at sea

Here are some more birds we saw at Eastern Egg Rock or further out at sea on Sunday.

Laughing gulls

Laughing gull

Laughing gull

Various birds at Eastern Egg Rock

Double-crested cormorants

Common eiders

Black guillemots 

Black guillemot

Common eiders with chicks

Roseate tern

Roseate tern

Arctic tern

Red-necked phalarope (L) and Wilson’s storm petrel (R)

Common terns

Northern gannet

Wilson’s storm petrel 

Common tern

Laughing gull

I also caught a few brief glimpses of a great shearwater as it passed on the other side of the boat. The one photo I attempted was taken as it dipped below the wake waves of the boat. 

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.