Two More Fish

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Not sure if goldfish and carp are countable. I remembered that a pond on the estate grounds of a local private club has some in them about 20-years ago. This was my goal, and at daybreak Saturday morning,  once I got to the pond via the adjacent estate now turned into an apartment complex, I realized that in the subsequent decades, the estate is not as visitor-friendly as it once was. The pond was also bigger than I had remembered and if were still any goldfish or carp in the pond, they were going to have to be dipnetted. And this was not the time or place to go dipnetting for goldfish, broad daylight dressed like a cat-burgler, so I hastily retreated.

Now if I don’t find another goldfish pond, I’m just going have to go back in on some forsaken rainy night.

After being foiled on the estate, I went to the Hazard Road marshes and then scoured the downtown docks for any signs of fish and found only one silversides that was mortally wounded swimming in circles.

After sunset I went to the Hazard Road marshes to set the minnow trap. Afterwards, I looked around the culvert that earlier was devoid of fish. Now that it was dark, the same area was alive with fish.
  


                                                                           In this photo, the presumed mummichogs (Fish #5) are in three separate spots

 I also saw but was unable to photgraph a small American eel (Fish #6) swimming against the outgoing tide.   

Predawn Sunday, I retrieved the minnow trap with this sole occupant.

                                                                                    Mummichog



     The rocks on the far bank were where the mummys were photographed the previous night

                                                                                              

                                                                                  Habitat shot

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                   

Finally, while mucking around in the marsh, I sank once deeply into the mire. Here were my socks later after I got back.

Two More Fish on Sunday

Sunday I bicycled around Easton’s and Green End Ponds. After yesterday’s 60-degree weather, today was sunny and only a little less balmy. Remarkable for this time of year. I forget it is early January.

                                                                                                   Easton's Pond

Surrounding the pond is a dike. In it, I found this school of fish.

                                                                                  Banded killifish (Fish #3)

Continuing around the ponds, at the Green End Pond inflow from Bailey’s Brook, there is an overpass. At this overpass, a few years ago during a Christmas Bird Count, I saw a school of fish, however I couldn’t identify them. Yesterday I investigated once more. This is what I found.

                                                                                   White suckers (Fish #4)                                          
Later I took a picture of this bird.

                                                                                  Male hooded merganser

First Fish of the Year

First Fish of the Year

                
                    While bird watching Saturday morning, I saw these guys fishing at Fort Adams. 

                                            So I approached them. They were Portuguese.

                                    

                            They were catching mackerel.  So that is Fish #1 on the year.

                                         

                                                     Then I looked into the water.

                                     

                         …and there, you can barely see them- Atlantic silversides (Fish #2).

                      Then one of the fishermen caught a silverside and sheepishly posed it for me. The other fishermen laughed.      

                                            That’s the silverside dangling on the fishing line.

First Week of the New Year

No fish yet.

Plenty of great birds and mammals however.

I was in Maine for the New Year and particpated in the Forks/Misery Township Christmas Bird Count on Christmas Day. Despite the northern setting, it was very warm with about 4" of snow cover. Ten species of birds total including two pine grosbeaks, 50 pine siskins, ravens and  for mammals; antlered deer, red squirrel, and red fox. I had tried to get to Cold Stream waterfall, however never could find it despite approaching from two seperate directions and bushwacking.

The rest of the time in Maine was highligted by a snowy owl seen in a stack of auto tires at the Flood Farm in Clinton, a Northern hawk-owl in West Palmyra, rough-legged hawk in Benton, and four eagles at Unity pond. Two of the eagles locked talons in mid-air and plunged to the earth, somersaulting over one another repeatedly. For mammals, at Eva's house on the Sebasticook River, watched a mink run across the ice and disappear into a hole on the riverbank 's edge. Also saw a porcupine along the side of the highway in
Bowdoinham.

I looked for fish into the water at a few spots along the Sebasticook and Kennebec Rivers, the 25-Mile Stream, Unity Pond, and smaller stream to no avail. Hadn't really expected to see any.

Once back in Newport, saw another snowy owl with Greg Carter at Sachuest Point NWR. Also a Cooper's hawk and common mergansers.

At dusk yesterday, I looked unsuccessfully for silversides and cuunners down on the docks.