Sunday, June 14th 2026

Pemaquid River, Bristol, ME

We started the day with a canoe up Pemaquid River to Biscay Pond and back. It was hot and sunny, temps right around 80°F again. We saw lots of red-winged black birds (Agelaius phoeniceus), great blue herons (Ardea herodias), osprey (Pandion haliaetus), canada geese (Branta canadensis), double-crested cormorants (Nannopterum auritum) and various ducks that we couldn’t see well enough to identify. We watched a male red-winged black bird chasing a great blue heron and later saw a pair of male red-winged black birds chasing an off an osprey. We saw many yellow pond lilies (Nuphar lutea) and lots of pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata). The pickerel weed was not flowering. I saw one blue flag iris (Iris versicolor) blooming on the edge of the river. I’m sure we missed a lot as the sun was intense and reflected brightly off the water causing deep shadows. At the boat launch there was a group of eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies (Papilio glaucus) hanging around - occasionally “puddling” on the ground to get minerals from the wet ground.

Upper left: Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), Lower left: Serviceberry spp., Upper right: Pots of nursery seedlings waiting to get up potted, Lower right: Yellow pond lily (Nuphar lutea) flower

The late afternoon was spent up-potting nursery plants. Things are coming up well - it’s good to see the nursery filling up again. I checked on the serviceberry to see if the fruits were ripe yet so I could collect some seed, but they are still not fully ripe yet. I also looked around at the common milkweed to see if I could find any signs of monarchs (Danaus plexippus), I didn’t see any signs yet. We’ve only started seeing monarchs flying around in the last week or so.