Rambling New England Nature

Oven Mouth, Boothbay Harbor, ME
Boothbay Harbor Land Trust
July 17, 2015

 On July 17, 2015, I visited Oven Mouth Property in Boothbay Harbor, one of several beautiful properties managed by the Boothbay Harbor Land Trust. It was 6:00 am and the air was cool, about 50 degrees. I entered the property from the parking area off Dover Cross Road and immediately entered a dark pine/hemlock woods.

   The pines and hemlocks were mixed with maples, oaks and black birch. Striped maple grew at the shrub layer. Though I’ve seen striped maple grow to about fifteen feet, I didn’t see any over six feet tall here. Because the three-pointed leaves are large, the tree’s trunk appears stunted. With those large leaves, it reminds me of a puppy with large feet.

   Before long, I noticed a bird flying to a low branch, about ten feet up. I followed it with my eyes, and when it landed, I saw small mottled-brown bird. I walked closer and saw the attractive chestnut and brown colored feathers and its very short tail. It was quiet, but actively looking about. I immediately recognized it as a winter wren, but its tail appeared stunted; typically, a winter wren will perch with its tail tilted upward. This bird seemed to be missing its tail.

   Either way, this bird belongs in these rich and wild, moss-covered hemlock woods of the north, and that fact makes it a more appealing sighting. To find a scarlet tanager in a deciduous woods, to see a yellowthroat warbler appear in an alder beside a marsh or to listen to a white-throated sparrow from a white mountain summit; the bird – or plant – in just the right place, adds depth and appropriateness to an experience; the correctness of bird and place offers a piece of mind, an archetype that we subconsciously recognize and with which we feel emotionally aligned. 

   I moved closer to the wren, but it didn’t fly off. I walked around the tree and looked this diminutive bird in the eye. It seemed to stare directly at me, but it wasn’t afraid. It was a young bird and probably didn’t know enough to be afraid of me.  

   Still farther ahead, another bird flew to a low perch, this time about ten feet up an oak. I noticed the brown spotting on its breast, more than a veery, but fewer spots than a wood thrush. Though the bird was facing me, I could see its chestnut-colored tail feathers as just enough sun light shined upon it through the dense canopy. This was a hermit thrush, another bird that I would predict I’d find in a place like this.

   The familiar old gang is here with me. What other birds might I find here? This thrush wasn’t singing its lovely song, but instead it was chirping single calls. It also didn’t seem afraid of me either. I would imagine that only a few people travel through these woods, and so perhaps the wildlife here feels less threatened by humans.

   This place is enchanting: the deep green of the cushy moss on the glacial boulders and trees, the gray lichen-covered ragged outcrops rising from the earth, the dimness of the place from the tight hemlock canopy, locking in the early morning fog without sunlight to burn it off, the dew-glistened leaves of starflower and Canada mayflower and stiff, erect clubmoss and fan-like ferns adorning the path-side; some of the bracken ferns stand to four feet, suggesting primordial forests when ferns were tall trees.

  It all lends a mystical appearance to this salt-marsh-lined forest. An ovenbird was singing along with a pine warbler. Then the hermit thrush I saw earlier began to sing its ethereal, ringing song; so fitting for this place! “Ee-oh-lee-oh-lee-oh.”

   I continued ahead, passed striped maple and faded lady’s slippers. Wood ferns formed attractive patches at the edge of the path while polypody ferns grew from the many outcrops that seemed to sprout from the hillsides like mushrooms. A downy woodpecker flew to the upper section of a birch and began to ascend and a nuthatch called out – “yank-yank” – from somewhere in this dense woods. Suddenly, a blue heron squawked from the water well below the path to my right. It seemed out of place until I came to a view of the salt marsh.

   An opening to the right of the path allowed me a view of the tide pool well below the path; stretching the length of this property, it was mostly mud with small pools of water. It was low-tide and the brown, empty serpentine trenches that would be filled with water at high tide were visible throughout.

   As I looked outward, over the water, hoping to see the heron or maybe an American bittern, or please! Maybe even a bald eagle. I noticed a gray squirrel instead, moving carefully along the trees that hung out over the cliff. It was entertaining to see it cautiously finding its way along this treacherous aerial pathway. So, I wasn’t disappointed. I turned when I heard a noise toward the woods and noticed a red squirrel scampering over the moss-covered rocks. In our forests, these common mammals bring life to the ground while birds bring life to the trees.

   I left the opening and continued along the path. A junco flew from a tree to my right and flew across the path in front of me and deeper into the woods. This junco’s might have spent the winter at my feeder, but here, he’s home; and, there’s something beautiful about that thought; I’ve come to visit an old friend. Cucumber root, Canada mayflower grow hear, along with Clintonia or blue-bead, some with stems and some with fruits, covered in the ground in patches, in some places crowding around the base of a tree, or on open ground. I passed over a dried brook where the path moved deeper into the woods. It was overhung with cinnamon ferns.

   Star flower with its tiny baby-blue beads and in places partridgeberry also adorned the pretty woodland path side. At another opening, the fruits of a tall huckleberry shrub were still green; but promise a clutch of delicious fruit for some later lucky passer-by interested in wild fruits. According to Victorian naturalist, Wilson Flagg, when this fruit is found in the marketplace, it’s huckleberry; but, when it’s found in the wild, he prefers the more poetical name whortleberry.

   From this spot, I could see a large wooden bridge that crosses the salt marsh. And, nearby, the dam that years ago, created an ice pond, back when this woods was a bare sheep pasture. Imagine that! This place, once a sheep pasture, now grown back to a semi-mature enchanted forest inhabited by goblins and warlocks rather than so recently bared by a human hand.

  The path circles the end of the peninsula at Back River, where a river flows and seems unaffected by the low-tide. I saw two large birds, crows, perhaps, flying from a tree, across the water to the far woods. It was a beautiful section of these woods with views out toward the larger bodies of water. A seagull flies from the deeper water into this tide-pool. I believe the seagull is the most natural in flight of all other birds; the seagull seems to enjoy flying, and it makes it seem effortless.

    Unfortunately, I was unable to linger in these woods: “the woods are lovely, dark and deep/ But, I have promises to keep….”

   From here it returns to the parking area off Dover Cross Road.