Quoddy Nature Notes – Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice

Showy Lady's Slippers

We all know that the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere is when the earth, in its orbit around the sun, makes a maximum tilt toward the sun so that we get the longest day in the northern hemisphere, and the sun rises the highest over the horizon, blah, blah, blah.  But have other things changed over the years, like the weather or any other things of nature?  I don’t know, but I do know I have kept a journal of our time in Maine, and I did record some stuff, and these are the happenings on my Summer Solstices over the years:

1988  Mostly sunny, 80’s.  We were working on our house. Lots of midges out.  Saw a seal sneezing and hacking.  We lived in the barn and our demon screamed at us in the middle of the night. This must have been a Barred owl.

1989 Sunny, 86. Worked in the house and tiled the family room

1990 Cloudy, humid, 70’s.  Worked on the sun space.  Went foraging and picked up a few ‘wrinkles and mussels

1991 Partly cloudy, 90’s.  Fishing up to Moosehorn stream, but no luck.  Cut some firewood, finished the bulkhead, and got some oxygen for my acetylene torch from Eastern surplus.

1992 Cloudy, foggy 64. Fishing up to Hobart stream.  Caught a couple

1993 Showers, 61. Fishing up to Hobart, and caught one and got soaked.  Mosquitoes out good.

1994 Sprinkles, 67.  Audubon meeting in Calais with Jack Swedberg as speaker.

1995 Sunny, 46-87.  Saw a Long-tailed weasel on our driveway.  Lingonberries and Bearberries blooming.

1996 Cloudy, foggy showers 52. Took apart the water pump to see why it failed.  Lightning.

1997 Thunderstorm, 80. Hospice concert in Machias

1998 Partly cloudy 81. Canoeing with Pathfinders at Sunken Lake.  Heard two bullfrogs

1999 Mostly sunny, 52-90 My brother, wife and two pre-teen children visited.  Activity increased noticeably

2000 Partly cloudy 55, rain 81.  Robin family foraging in the backyard

2001 Partly cloudy, 64 humid 94. Started cleaning the old grange hall and also cleaned out a spot to build my woodshed.

2002 Mostly sunny, 55, 87.  Robins feeding youngsters on the ledge of the barn

2003 Mostly sunny, 51, 90. Lots of shrimp in the bay (Probably Meganyctiphanes norvegica). The crows eat them and then their poop is pinkish.  Tried to find out the life cycle of the shrimp as they seem to spawn in the bay.

2004 Partly cloudy 56, 84. Kayaked out to Falls Island and toured Schooner cove and Long cove.  Lots of little fish

2005 Sunny, 46, 90. Worked on the house, then Audubon meeting in PM.

2006 Sunny, 60, 90. Found an injured little snapping turtle near the end of Leighton Point road and brought it down to Susanne Kynast in Whiting.  She worked on it but it was futile.  Found a dead rabbit by the woodshed and I couldn’t understand the circumstances.  Its right rear leg had been shredded and there was a spot on its head. It was still loaded with ticks.

2007 Mostly sunny with an energetic little T-storm. 58, 87.  To Calais and saw 4 snappers on the Charlotte road and 2 deer on Leighton Point road.

2008 Cool and damp in the AM and warm and humid in the PM.  Camping with the Boy Scouts at Cobscook Bay State Park.  Quite a few ticks.

2009 Cloudy, 55, drizzle 61. Inside paperwork

2010 Partly cloudy 59, 89. Library Consortium meeting in Jonesport, then worked at the Head of the Tide park.

2011 Sunny 51 then partly cloudy 85.  Worked at the library then worked in the woods cleaning up blowdowns for firewood.

2012 cloudy 60, mostly sunny, hot humid 97.  Worked on ‘Le Chateau de Poop’ in AM.  Butterfly survey on the Hersey side and found lots of Ornate Ringlets and Peck’s  skippers.

2013 Mostly sunny 54, then partly cloudy 90, humid.  Went to Calais with a naturalist friend.  Found some Showy ladyslippers and walked the abandoned rail line off of route 1. Lots of Red-winged blackbirds, yellow warblers and dragon flies. Saw a few other birds but heard no rails and saw few bumblebees or anything else in the purple vetch and other flowers.

So that’s my report for the last 26 years of Summer Solstices for the Quoddy region.  If we don’t mess things up too badly it looks like we can safely continue.