Snow, Snow, and more Snow! And a walk down Starbird Corner Rd.

I think that I am officially tired of snow! (Shhh...did I just say that???) We have had quite a bit of snow lately, followed by thawing, followed by more snow. We cannot go into the forest at this time as there are a lot of icy patches under the snow that we cannot detect.  At present, we have had 80 inches of gorgeous, frozen, white stuff for this winter season. I think we have a bit more to go.

Even though it was a bit of an icy start to the day, we got out for a walk on Starbird Corner. The temperature rose to 32.8F for the high, and it was cloudy and spitting snow on and off all day. Beech trees have lots of buds ready to burst when springtime gets into full swing.

The scene was so pretty today as this last storm gave us some very wet and heavy snow.

Tree limbs were over burdened and were touching the ground in many places.

I rather like this same view but in portrait mode.

Lastly, fresh snow brings fresh animal tracks. I think these are from a squirrel who was crossing the road this morning.

2026 Maine Big Night # 1

 Maine Big Night # 1. The daytime temperature rose to 50F and we had rain that started Monday morning and rained all day long. We had a break in the rain and Paul went out to check on amphibian movement.

LH1Bowd (This year's participants are me, Paul, and Caroline. Kathy will join us periodically.) Actually, as of the writing of this entry, we aren't sure who has adopted the Lewis Hill Rd. site and we are trying to find out. We may not be allowed to survey there as whoever adopted it did so as a closed site with no additional participants. Curious...

May 16, 2026.  Start time 7:20pm.  End time 8:20pm

Certified Volunteers - 1 (Paul)

Uncertified Volunteers - 0

Starting Temp: 50F.   Ending Temp.:  49.5F

Precipitation: Very light drizzle

The road is wet.

Traffic Tally:  6 vehicles

Species Live:  2 Spring Peepers

Species Dead:  0

Species Injured: 0

NOTES: Paul saw eyes glowing on the downstream side of the road. The animal crossed in front of Paul and slipped into the pond. It was too small to be an otter and Paul surmised that it must have been a mink.

Owl prints in the snow

I went out for a snow shoe in the woods behind our house and found three different areas where an owl had been desperately hunting for prey. Even though owls can hear rodents under the snow, when the snowpack deepens it is more difficult for owls to secure their meal. I made this video to show to the local kindergarten students (who I volunteer with) and anyone else who ventures out into a winter wonderland. (By the way, the first owl print with complete wing prints and body print was one that we found out on Caesar Pond after a heavy snowfall quite a few years ago.)

The kindergarten students are currently studying owls. They have been reading and analyzing several works of fiction. Next, they will transition to nonfiction, and that is where this video will come in. We will analyze and learn about owl prints which will really excite the kids to go out to their forest classroom, and even into the woods at home, to investigate.

Aurora Borealis is crazy awesome tonight

Tonight the aurora borealis is super active all over Maine. For me, it was not visible to the naked eye, but I could see it on the cell phone camera. It started out green (the most common color) from excited oxygen atoms from 60-150 miles in altitude.

I went outside from 6pm-7pm to photograph it from the front yard again. Had I been over at Caesar Pond, it would have been magnificent. I attached my cell phone to a tripod to get clear photos.

We had such a great light show with curtains of light shifting to and fro.

The sky was so clear and cold at 10F. My fingers nearly froze! I have the best neighbors who all turned their outside lights off so that I could have as dark a setting as possible.

I had a difficult time choosing which photos I liked best. Even though they are similar, you can see the shift of color over time. 

I took 3 second exposures often seconds apart.

I couldn't be more pleased with the iPhone 16 pro camera. It did a magnificent job with night sky photos.

Carrying a cell phone is so much easier than hauling around my DSLR cameras, especially for nighttime photography in winter.

Aurora Borealis

There was promise of the strongest aurora since the 2003 "knock your socks off experience". However, it did not materialize for us in our location of Maine. 

But, I did get to practice some nighttime photography with my iPhone 16 pro. And, I was totally pleased that my photos were in focus! Note: I did not get over to the south end of the pond to photograph the aurora looking north as I couldn't safely walk down the snowy side of the street in the dark. Nor could I break trail and tromp through the snow to the pond in the dark while carrying the tripod. So, I tromped a short trail to the middle of our front yard. Not optimal, but at least I got a few photos.

Geesh! It was windy out. I was thinking that I would need to sandbag my tripod legs, but they were stuck so far into the snow that I had good stabilization. We started out with a bit of cloud cover and a slight tint of red in the night sky. See the Pleiades star cluster at the top of the photo!

I was able to capture a bit of aurora activity looking northwest. I didn't last too long outside as it was so cold! My fingers were freezing and my knees were knocking!

Phone settings: I activated "Night Mode" by tapping on the moon icon. I tried to set the exposure time to 10 seconds, but it set itself to 3 seconds. That's okay... I tapped on the screen to set the focus lock. Then, I tried to set the timer for 3 seconds to avoid camera shake when touching the shutter button.

North American Porcupines in Maine

As we often see porcupines in the woods and crossing the trail in autumn and during years with little snow in winter, I thought I'd write about them now. By the way, for more information see this interesting Northern Woodlands article.

We saw this one while on a walk through a nearby woodland. Porcupines prefer mixed or coniferous forests. Their winter range is about 6 acres in our area. They are generally solitary animals but might den together in wintertime.

Porcupines are the third largest rodent in the world, behind the capybara and the beaver. The North American porcupine has an average body length of 24"-36" and body weights between 7.7 lbs to 39.7 lbs.

What surprised us was the dirt mound he was standing on.  

We don't know what the purpose of it was, but I have read that porcupines bury the bones of other animals that they find in the woods, so maybe this is a burial mound??? It seems rather bizarre to me and I don't remember the source of the article.

Den sites, especially long-used sites, are recognized by piles of droppings, and may include a rocky cavern of ledge, a hollow log, an abandoned fox or beaver den, and even abandoned buildings.  Source: DeGraaf, Richard M., and Mariko Yamasaki. New England Wildlife: Habitat, Natural History, and Distribution. Hanover, NH: University of New England, 2001.

Porcupines eat wood vegetation in winter, particularly inner cambium, buds, and needles of white pine and especially hemlock in the northeast, and the bark of sugar maple and birch trees. In summertime, they add fruits, seeds, nuts and the leaves of aspen, elm, basswood, and birch to their diet. Source: DeGraaf, Richard M., and Mariko Yamasaki. New England Wildlife: Habitat, Natural History, and Distribution. Hanover, NH: University of New England, 2001.

The quills are modified hairs coated with thick plates of Keratin, and they are embedded in the skin. Quills are released by contact with them, or they may drop out when the porcupine shakes its body. Porcupines cannot shoot attackers with quills (like projectiles) as many people think. They will loosen the quills then swing their tail toward their attacker. There are tiny barbs on the tip of the quill that allow the quill to be embedded into the attacker's skin and are difficult to remove.

This is a riveting 16 second clip of the porcupine chewing on some vegetation. All you can really see are his quills quivering during the super slow chewing action. I was quivering as well as it was about 30F outside;-)

African Crested porcupine quill collected by Gary Haines
North American porcupine quills collected by Laurie Haines

And here is a photo of the difference between the quill length of the North American porcupine quills (3.5" long) versus an African Crested porcupine quill (10.5" long.) The crested porcupine has an average body length of 24"-33", and weights from between 29 lbs to 60 lbs. They tend to charge their disturber back end first trying to stab them with their thicker, shorter quills.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crested_porcupine

Gee...so how do you remove a quill from your skin if you happen upon an angry porcupine? Pull the quill out very carefully with pliers (regular and needle-nosed.) Firmly grasp the base of the quill near the skin, but be careful not to break the quill. Pull the quill straight out in a rapid motion, at the same angle as the quill went in. Disinfect with hydrogen peroxide, then put antibiotic ointment on the wounds. See a doctor and get a rabies shot if necessary.

NOTE: DO NOT CUT THE END OF THE QUILL BEFORE REMOVAL. THIS MIGHT SPLINTER THE QUILL AND MAKE REMOVAL MORE DIFFICULT. AND, NEVER USE YOUR HANDS TO REMOVE THE QUILLS AS THE BARBS MAY IRRITATE YOUR SKIN.

The first measurable snowfall of the 2025-2026 season

We got 7.5" of light, somewhat fluffy snow yesterday and into the early morning hours today. Here is our snow measuring table within the vegetable garden area in the front yard.

And, here is the snow covered bird feeding area on the south side of the house.

Kindergarten Blue Trail and deer tracks in the snow

After 7.5 inches of snow, the trees and trail were so pretty today, on Woods Wednesday. 

The pine boughs are heavily laden with snow which makes the trail even more picturesque.

The kids had lots of fun following the Blue Trail to the forest classroom.

On my way back to the school parking lot, I decided to blaze my own trail along the top of the athletic fields next to the forest. There I found numerous white-tailed deer trails crisscrossing each other and then continuing on the other side of the fence.

This is such a busy deer highway! We are thinking of setting up a game camera some weekend to see how many deer travel out in the open at night.

Who's Using Our Trail? A Kindergarten Forest Classroom Investigation

Our local elementary kindergarten classes have a forest classroom and we have a blue-blazed trail that runs through the woods to it. The trail we created is an active game trail which we modified a tiny bit for our weekly trek on Woods Wednesday. The trail is covered by leaves and also has many ancient rotting stumps under the surface. This makes for a slightly soft feel underfoot and is not conducive to animal tracks being visible. And, since many of the animals that use the trail use it at night, we set out a game camera to capture Who's Using Our Trail! Volunteering is fun!

Drought Update

This is from Meteorologist Ryan Breton of WCSH6. 

We are still in extreme drought. UGH! We just cannot seem to get more that a few hundredths of an inch of rain at a time, anymore.