Herring gulls perch on old pilings in the channel between Kent and Hay Island. The distant poles used to compose a herring weir, but it was abandoned long ago and they now provide a trail through the fog for adventurous but lost students.

A black-capped chickadee chips on its perch, which also plays host to Usnea sp. lichen, colloquially known as Old Man’s Beard. This lichen hangs from most branches throughout the forest on Kent Island and, like the name suggests, gives the trees an ancient and sage look.

Another male yellow warbler portrait. Some of the adults who have lost nests or are no longer feeding fledglings have moved off of the island and will begin foraging in preparation for their winter migration in a the coming month.

As a little side project, and completely for my own enjoyment, I’ve been following the progress of a great blue heron nest that I found. Today was the first time I saw the young after watching the ring of excrement under the nest grow expansively for the last month and a half.

More photos going back to the Black-throated Green Warbler male feeding its fledgling. Most warbler fledglings on the island have moved from the undergrowth to the canopy by now, which makes photographing them devilishly difficult.

Female Eiders and their ducklings flock in the fog. 

 I asked this fly to pose on a spruce sapling. It obliged. 

A Gray Catbird sings one song or another. Catbirds are not named for their striking resemblance to cats, but instead, I think, for the striking resemblance their mewing call has to the meow of their feline foe. Catbirds are also in the family Mimidae, which is comprised of vocal mimics. Birds in this family, such as catbirds and mockingbirds, mimic the songs of other species and develop extensive, and confusing, vocal repertoires. 

 

Despite being Maine’s state bird, Black-capped Chickadees still frequent the forests Kent Island, a decidedly Canadian stretch of land.

Greater Shearwaters. These birds are part of the order Procellariiformes, which is distinguished by the nasal salt glands on top of the birds’ bills. Colloquially dubbed tube noses, Procellariiformes drink salt water at sea and then excrete excess salt through their glands. To get these two pictures, we chummed with herring on a whale watching trip, which caused every gull in the Bay of Fundy, along with a couple shearwaters, to pay us a visit.