Ice Out on Caesar Pond

Oh my goodness...this is the earliest ice out in the last 24 years of living next to Caesar Pond.

2024 Maine Big Night #1

     This is a very early in the season survey since the weather has been so warm.

March 6 - Start time 7:22pm.  End time 8:45pm.

Certified Volunteers - 2: Laurie and Kathy

Uncertified Volunteer - 1: Paul

Starting Temp: 45F.   Ending Temp: 42F

Precipitation - Light Rain

The road is wet

Traffic Tally - 13

Species Live - 1 Spring Peeper

Pine cones make tracks in the snow!

We were walking along both Starbird Corner Road and Hix Small Cemetery Road, and saw some 'new to us' tracks in the snow.

Looking around we noticed a pine cone at the end of each track.

It has been quite windy and the snow is powdery. The pine cone must have dropped from a White Pine tree, hit the snow, and got blown around. Mother Nature is quite the artist isn't she?

First Measurable Snow of the Season

We had a nice little snowstorm overnight and into today that left us with 4.5" of snow. The snow was super wet and heavy so it stuck to the trees and piled up on the bird feeders and benches. 

The pine boughs were heavily laden with snow causing them to bend dramatically and sometimes to just break off. We heard many sharp cracks of sound as this happened in many directions throughout the storm. 

The leaves of beech trees even held onto the snow...

As did the oaks. These trees hold onto their leaves into next year in a process called marcescence. But, that is a topic for another post. 

We enjoyed looking into the forest and seeing the contrasting brown of the tree trunks and branches with the white of the snow. So much intricacy in patterning with all the interwoven branches at every level and depth into the forest.

Over at Caesar Pond, I watched as the wind began to increase and some of the snow was shaken from branches. What a gorgeous sight!

It is so pretty on the pond with everything snow covered; even the sides of the trees got plastered! The white of the snow in contrast with the different colors of lichens always catches my eye.

Wandering and Pondering over at Caesar Pond

Today was a great day to poke around over at Caesar Pond. First, I went to our deeded access put-in to check out the state of the ice on the pond. There is a very thin layer of ice which covers the entire south end of the pond.

I love seeing the feathery ice crystals forming in new ice. If you look closely, you can even see lots of tiny air bubbles throughout.

Then, I went to the south end of the pond as that is where I generally find icicles hanging from the plants that are found at the water's edge. This shows evidence of wind blown water and quick freezing as we did have a good bit of wind from the north and temps down in the upper teens overnight.

Later in the afternoon, we did a family walk at the wildlife management's public put-in to see what was happening at the north end of the pond. And, it sure is different here! Look at the open water along the eastern shore of the pond.

Drew was thinking that the shoreline looked more open than it had since yesterday. Then, he spied why! A beaver was hard at work last night. There were lots of tiny branches and stems of tiny trees that were gnawed on besides this large tree!

Lastly, we came upon this pine cone attached to a branch on the ground. I had a few ideas of what it was in looking at the rough pattern of the wood on the branch. And, one of my guesses was correct. It is an old, and weathered, Pitch Pine cone attached to the branch with the tiniest of stalks. Did you know that these trees produce pitch and turpentine that used to be used as resin materials to maintain wooden sailing ships? Cool...

First Snow of the Season!

Yay! We've got snow! A teeny, tiny bit of snow that did not stay around long, but it was pretty nonetheless. 

On our morning walk, I found some snow still in evidence in shady parts of the forest. Here is snow on Northern Red Oak leaves.

Partial Solar Eclipse-October 14, 2023

Today was a success in viewing the partial solar eclipse. In Bowdoin, Maine we had about 16% of the sun covered by the moon and even though there were lots of clouds, the sun was able to present itself often enough for me to get photos up to the maximum coverage and beyond. Note that I used my Nikon P-1000 camera with a solar filter to take my photos. 

Here is a picture from time and date.com that shows the timing of the partial solar eclipse in Bowdoin, Maine.

And, here is my first photo of the event showing the Sun before the eclipse begins, at 12:25pm. Note the three sunspots on the surface of the sun.

The beginning of the eclipse became visible in this photo at 12:57pm. The first little nibble by the moon!

The moon is getting more bold and thinks that the sun is super tasty at 1:01:54pm. As you can see, the clouds are starting to move in, and in fact the sun played peek-a-boo for the entire event.

At 1:05:19pm, the sun was again displayed in a clear sky. The bite is expanding.

Five minutes later, at 1:10:28pm, the moon is starting to get more bold and the bite is bigger due to Cookie Monster joining in on the fun!

At 1:20:53pm the clouds parted enough for me to grab this shot and we are getting closer to the maximum.

And, finally maximum eclipse has occurred at around 1:28pm.

Here is one of my favorite photos of the Sun and clouds at 2:02:45pm. So much of the later part of the eclipse was cloud covered for large portions of time.

As we neared the end of the eclipse, the clouds gave me so many chances to snap some dramatic shots. Here is one of my favorites at 2:30:19pm. By the way, I did not rotate the photo. The moon kept moving and changing position during the partial eclipse.

Here is the sun nearly at the end of the eclipse event, at 2:35pm, before getting totally obscured by cloud cover. I couldn't get a focus lock on the Sun as it was just too cloudy at this time.

Loon Update

We ended up with three loons on Caesar Pond and no mating activity. A neighbor alerted me to the fact that her daughter saw a dead loon. I went out to check and could not find it. It may have been eaten by a predator of some sort as I did wait several days to check (too much wind for my boat to run up against.)

Barred Owls Yackety Yacking for a good hour

 The Barred Owl... aka Hootie Owl...aka Yackety Yackety Owl... This mated pair put on quite the show tonight. They called back and forth to each other for at least an hour. One was in the trees at the south edge of our yard and the other was just across the street. Then, after about 30 minutes, one flew to the north side of the yard while the other flew into the back woods. They started out with a version of the typical "Who, Who, Who Cooks For You!" call and then proceeded to do what I call their wild chatter. It is crazy awesome to listen to! Enjoy this tiny snippet of their conversation.

Two new forest plants for my life list!

 

We have been taking weekly walks at Center Point Preserve, in Bowdoinham, and have been following the changes in the springtime plants as the season unfolds. On May 10th, eagle-eyed Drew spotted the closed flower bud of a species that we hadn't seen before. I photographed the plant and identified it using two apps on my phone; Leaf Snap and Seek. Both apps told me that the plant was Polygala paucifolia, also known as Fringed Polygala. This flowering plant is in the Milkwort family.

One week later, on May 17th, we noticed Fringed Polygala all along the side of the trail in sunny spots. This time, the flowers were open. We could see how appropriate another common name for this flower is: Bird-on-the-wing. Doesn't it look like a bird is flying? So gorgeous!

The other flower that is new to us is in the lily family of plants, the Painted Trillium, Trillium undulatum. What an incredibly stunning flower! We only saw this one on May 17th. What are the characteristics that you look for to find a trillium? How many petals? 3. How many big leaves? 3. And, the stem is 8"-20" tall.

Then, on May 23rd (today) we saw them everywhere in the woods! Some were near the side of the trail while others were further off the trail. I counted around 60 trilliums during a quarter mile of our walk. Once you know what to look for, you see so many more! They live in cool, moist woods. How many do you see in this small section of the forest? Note that they don't all have flowers yet. I count 7.