Category: Mainely Phenology

Mainely Phenology 5/12/18

Producers/Hosts: Hazel Stark and Joe Horn

Fiddleheads

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at mainelyphenology.wordpress.com

You haven’t experienced mud season in Maine if you haven’t seen someone selling fiddleheads on the roadside next to a hand-painted sign. This native, wild vegetable provides an earthy, green addition to quiches, omelettes, pizza, or all on their own as a cooked side dish. They freeze well and are easy to pick, process, and prepare. These young ostrich ferns provide our only reliably edible fiddlehead in Maine.

Mainely Phenology 5/5/18

Producers/Hosts: Hazel Stark and Joe Horn

Spring Runoff

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at mainelyphenology.wordpress.com

Supporting all living things are a whole host of what scientists consider abiotic factors, or nonliving things, without which life would not exist. These unsung heroes of the wilds include air, water, and stone—the very canvas of our planet’s vast wilderness masterpiece. One of these vital abiotic factors is the feature of today’s program: spring runoff.

Mainely Phenology 4/28/18

Producers/Hosts: Hazel Stark and Joe Horn

Ticks

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at mainelyphenology.wordpress.com

Imagine being the size of a sesame seed and trying to survive in the great outdoors. Just about everything seems bigger than you, you lack wings, so it takes forever to get around, too much sun can make you dry out and die, and your only source of food is trapped inside mammals and birds that are much larger and faster than you are. To adapt to this intimidating situation, you spend most of your time waiting—perhaps on the tip of a blade of grass on the border between forest and field—for what might feel like a once in a lifetime chance that some creature might brush by you and offer a long-awaited meal. It sounds like a tough life, doesn’t it?

Mainely Phenology 4/21/18

Producers/Hosts: Hazel Stark and Joe Horn

Smelts

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at mainelyphenology.wordpress.com

While we humans spent the last month shaking off the four Nor’easters that swept across New England week after week, the little silvery smelts were ponderously ascending tidal rivers across the state. By the third week in March, the tiny fish—often only six to twelve inches long—found themselves at the head of the tide in the larger rivers.

Mainely Phenology 4/14/18

Producers/Hosts: Hazel Stark and Joe Horn

Wood Frogs

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at mainelyphenology.wordpress.com

While winter helped us hone our sense of sight as we looked for the rare sign of lengthening days, once the snow has mostly melted, the ice on brooks and streams has melted and flowed away, and the mats of autumn’s dropped leaves have finally begun to yield to the new green life insisting on bursting through, our ears become piqued to the new sounds of the season. One of my favorite signs of spring is the not at all melodious sound of the wood frog’s vernal chorus.

Mainely Phenology 4/7/18

Producers/Hosts: Hazel Stark and Joe Horn

Poplar Buds

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at mainelyphenology.wordpress.com

Poplar, quaking aspen, popple… call them what you will. Long before the snow has completely melted out of the forests and fields of Maine, before the wood frogs wake up and sing their unmelodious tunes, and while other tree buds are just beginning to plump with verdant life, the fast growing poplar tree’s buds are swollen, fluffy, and will burst at any moment. They are one of the earliest trees in our Northern tier forests to shake off the cold and snow of winter and begin to take advantage of the increasing light, warmth and moisture of early spring.

Mainely Phenology 3/31/18

Producers/Hosts: Hazel Stark and Joe Horn

Ravens

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at mainelyphenology.wordpress.com

January and February had owls calling solemnly to mates in the deep freezes of winter nights and coyotes courting in secluded dens of forest and field. For ravens, this process takes months of congregating, pairing off, courting, rebuilding old nests, and then eventually laying and caring for a clutch of eggs and young. This time of year, ravens are revisiting their old haunts to spruce up their old nests and preparing for laying eggs.

Mainely Phenology 3/24/18

Producers/Hosts: Hazel Stark and Joe Horn

Early Stoneflies

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at mainelyphenology.wordpress.com

The young wiggle their twin tails, do a series of pushups with their many legs, and begin creeping over the stones and rocks of their watery domain. One by one they inch their way with grapnel-like claws up a sheer rock face and emerge into frigid air. Appearing to pause to catch their breath, their back begins to heave, stretch, and then bursts open. As the skin-like shell of this beast ruptures, out pops an eye, an antenna, a twisted damp wing, a leg… and then 5 more legs.