Canada Day, Grand Manan, and the Greasy Pole

Some traditions should never be broken.  That's how we feel about spending Canada Day over on Grand Manan.  For Kent Islanders, the holiday falls squarely in the middle of our season, when island fever is setting in and we all just need a break from our work.  Plus heading over to Grand Manan allows us to take part in all the celebrations you find in a small town (one surrounded by the Bay of Fundy at that!).

Anticipation built all week here on the island, with students anxiously watching the weather and asking about departure times, schedules, and where to get the best ice cream.  So it was a relief when the day finally arrived, and at the crack of dawn, our caretaker, Russ Ingalls, came to get us aboard Island Bound.  Not surprisingly, it was a gray, foggy day, and the boat dripped with condensation as we headed over to the big island.

Heading over to Grand Manan in the foggy light of dawn.

Can you tell who the real Canadian is?

Once we arrived on Grand Manan, we had to get ready for the festivities.  Red face paint from the dollar store is always a good choice!

We tried to disguise ourselves (pictured here is a Frenchwoman and an American)!

But there wasn't much time to dawdle; the main event was before lunch:  the greasy pole competition.  The greasy pole is just about the funniest sport I can imagine.  It's held in the village of Seal Cove, and can only happen at high tide, as the creek is dry at low tide.  A long, tapered pole is suspended out over the water, and a barrel is pushed over it.  The pole is "greased" with dish detergent.  Competitors launch themselves off the wharf on the barrel, trying to ride it all the way to the end and grab the tiny Canadian flag at the end.  If you don't get the flag, you fall into the (bracingly cold) water; if you do get the flag, you also fall into the (bracingly cold) water -- but you win $5. 

Three generations of the Ingalls family set up the pole.

Soaping up the pole.

And adding the tiny flag to the end.

The greasy pole always draws a crowd.  Young and old try to get their hands on that flag; and young and old also like to watch as the competitors are dumped into the frigid water. 

The crowd starting to arrive.

A brave competitor!

He looks determined!

Our student Katie; a fierce young lady.

She came close to getting it!

There was a lot of this going on!

Some people needed a little help.

That flag looks pretty far away from this perspective!

Of course, it wasn't all fun and games.  After the Greasy Pole, our students got down to the real business of the day.  They ate ice cream (twice), hiked, had lunch at a greasy spoon (not the same as the Greasy Pole), took in a baseball game, and had a grand time all around. 

Eating breakfast; a bagel and ice cream.

Dulsing dories on the beach at the Whistle lighthouse.

It was a long day.  Luckily, one of our students had baked a cake the night before, and when we got back, everyone tucked right into it.  We were tired, but well fed.  And we'd had a great break from the every day grind here on the island.  With only three weeks until the end of the season, we're refreshed and ready for whatever the Bay of Fundy throws at us (good thing, because the fog has come back with a vengeance here on our island!)

Pond Cove, some big things, and a blogging hiatus

Headed to Kent Island on our caretaker's boat, Island Bound

So I've been a little busy lately.  And it shows in the number of blog posts I've been making.  But as can happen, life has gotten a little crazy.

Damon and  I are embroiled in the midst of our normal annual craziness -- getting ourselves, a dozen undergraduates, all our gear, and most of our food out to Kent Island in New Brunswick.  This involves finding a dog-sitter, stopping the mail (although I am realizing just as I write this that I forgot to do that!), packing two giant bins of ratty field clothes, cleaning the house as spotless as possible, reassuring parents, getting our office work done, and then herding cats all the way across the border, onto boats, and over to the island.

Since this regular brand of craziness hasn't pushed us over the top (yet), we decided to add a little more into our lives:  we are selling our house in order to downsize to a smaller home (and life).  I'll write a bit more about it when the ink is dry, but in essence, we had too much house, not enough warm weather to work on it, and a hankering for "less".  In the meantime, it's meant lots of home repairs and staging, paperwork to be signed, and extra stress added to our spring.

That hasn't stopped me from getting out and exploring, but has dug into my writing time by quite a lot.  So I'm going to take a little blogging break, in order to get through the next month.  We (hopefully, if all goes as planned) pass papers to sell our wonderful house AND buy a little condo on June 19, and after that I feel like I'll be able to breathe again.

Before I go, I wanted to share a terrific visit I had to Pond Cove in Cape Elizabeth with a Meetup group called "Southern Maine Tide Poolers."  This awesome group is the brainchild of Megan McCuller, a young biologist from Portland. It's just a bunch of people who like to look at cool stuff in the ocean, who meet up at dig around in tidepools.  Brilliant.  

Tiny barnacles that have just settled out of the plankton and onto rocks.  They love rough surfaces best, so you tend to find them all lined up in the cracks of rocks.  Note you can see this pattern in the big ones too.

We met this month at Pond Cove in Cape Elizabeth.  I'd never been there, so it was really exciting to find a new spot to tidepool.  This is a great place -- parking at the land trust lot, good rocky tidepools full of cool stuff, and a terrific shallow cobble pool perfect for kids to get into.  If you'll forgive me, I'm going to just post some pics and get onto the work I have to do on the island today.  But if you like tidepooling, check out the Meetup group -- it was really fun!

A tidepool out in the breaking waves

This green crab was carrying eggs -- but was dead.  Interestingly, we found TONS of Asian shore crabs and no green crabs.  This is a trend I've heard others mention this spring too.  What's up with that?

Horse mussels and coralline algae

Poking around in a tidepool

The cobbles are a great place for kids to turn over rocks and find cool stuff

TO GET THERE:  From US1 in Portland, take Rt 77 south; cross the bridge over Portland Harbor. In South Portland, Rt 77 turns right and becomes Ocean St -- do not turn with it but go straight on Broadway to Cottage Rd and turn right. This road becomes Shore Road.  After Fort Williams State Park, go another Mile and look for the parking lot for Robinson Woods (thanks Cape Elizabeth Land Trust).  Look just across the road; you'll see a path with a little "Pond Cove" sign.  Follow this and you're there!

The Egg Hunt -- Black Guillemots

Time is passing quickly on the island, and everyone is rushing to complete their research before we all head home.  Luckily, people are all willing to pitch in and help with collect data, especially if it involves a trip to the next island over and a hunt for black guillemot nests.

Black guillemots on Kent Island.

Guillemots (Cepphus grylle) are rather charming little seabirds, not too distantly related to puffins.  These little guys are black and white, with rather striking red feet and mouths (inside their beaks).  They forage along the shoreline, diving for up to two minutes at a time as they use their wings to push them through the water to hunt small fish and invertebrates.  Guillemots lay their eggs ashore, usually under boulders, but sometimes in piles of driftwood or simply in a crevice along the shore.  One of our students is studying the nesting behavior of these cute little birds, and last week a bunch of us went on an expedition to Sheep Island to search for eggs one afternoon.

Before we got started looking, Damon and I got a bit distracted.  A humpback whale washed up on the island last October, and I hadn't gotten a chance to see it yet.  This is a known humpback (they are identifiable from the markings on their tails, which are photographed and cataloged), who was called "Harmonic".  In the cool northern climate, it takes quite a while for a whale to decompose, so here he was more than half a year later, still looking quite intact, although some baleen had been washed further along shore.

Harmonic, decomposing on shore.  He's on his back with his ventral pleats visible in this photo.

A large section of baleen washed up in the bushes. The inside of the baleen, a rough hair-like tangle of keratin, can be seen here.  This is used to capture fish inside the mouth. 

Once we had a good look at the whale, we joined the students and got down to business.  Sheep Island's west side is boulder-strewn, so this was quite an Easter-egg hunt:

Ideal nesting habitat for black guillemots; loads of boulders to hide eggs under.

Any eggs under here?

What about here?

Success!  Two eggs sitting on the ground under this rock.

Collecting data after finding eggs.

Once we got into it, we found a bunch of nests -- too many to process in the time we had ashore.  The curse of success!

This egg was just sitting out in the open.  This is not a very good strategy -- crows and gulls love to eat eggs!

These two eggs (look carefully) were well hidden in a pile of rocks.

This little gal was sitting on her eggs, watching us with suspicion.

Another egg sitting out in the open.  Competition for nest sites must be keen, if some birds resort to this.

Close up of an egg that was preyed on.  The colors are amazing!

Hang on a second -- that's not a guillemot!  (We had to use caution to not step on hidden gull chicks.)

Damon getting the skiff, to take us back to Kent (and a hearty dinner!)

Babies Babies Everywhere

Sometimes in America, when we are embroiled in modern life, shrunk wrapped into our cars and entombed in our suburban houses and vacuum-sealed into air-conditioned offices, it's hard to tell that summer's about more than barbecues, fireworks, and a trip to the beach.  For the vast majority of species out there, summer's about babies -- putting forth heroic efforts during a very short window of time to pass on DNA to the next generation.  But here on Kent Island, it's in our face, all the time.

My favorite nest site on the island; in a fish tote that washed up above the beach.  Looks super cozy.

Mama came right back to sit on her eggs once we moved on.

The herring gull eggs are hatching.  We have thousands of nests on the island, most with three eggs in them. That means thousands of fluffy little chicks, thousands of begging mouths to fill, and thousands of angry moms and dads when we get too close to a nest or hatchling.

Gulls can get downright dangerous if you venture too close to their nests. They mob us, swoop down on us, rake us on the head, scream in your ear, and poop with surprising accuracy.  To protect ourselves, we move quickly, wear hats, hold up sticks above our heads (they go after the highest point of the intruder), and construct Gull Protection Devices.  It all makes going for a walk downright unpleasant, and trying to do any research on the beach seriously difficult.

Two eggs hatching.  The upper left one has a hole but it's hard to see.

What a herculean effort it must be to break free from the shell.

This chick was freshly hatched -- still wet.  Welcome to the world, little gull!

You really have to watch where you step.  Babies can be hiding anywhere.

 The adult gulls are rather pesky, as you might imagine.  However, the babies are really cute at this stage. Covered with grey fluff, hiding under bushes and behind their angry parents, whistling softly or begging loudly, baby gulls are pretty cute.  They'll have a hard life, and for most of them, it'll be short.  Especially for the third egg baby, chances are, you won't make it past September.  A hungry eagle will grab you, you'll die of exposure, you'll starve, or you just won't learn to take care of yourself.  In the back of my mind, I know for each of these cute little puff-balls, it'll be a desperate struggle to stay alive for a few years, until they're old enough to have their own chicks.  But it's hard to think life is so hard, when I'm surrounded by so much hope and life everyday.  Thank goodness for chicks, and pass the gull protection device, I'm going for a walk!

A black back gull trying to take my head off.  This is without magnification; he was dive bombing me!  Sorry it's not in focus; I feared for my life when this was taken.

A student wearing a Gull Protection Device.

Damon's head; a victim of a gull attack during a run.  Just another day at a seabird colony!

The only kind of gull I trust.  But he does look a little suspicious . . . .