The Living River introduces one species each week from the St. George River watershed: its life, its role, and its place in the long human story of this land.

Browse all posts by month

May · The River at Peak

The series begins. The river hits its peak. Everything is moving.

  1. The River's Silver Messenger: The AlewifeA keystone fish that delivers marine nutrients deep into the forest.
  2. The River's Black Diver: Double-crested CormorantA prehistoric-looking bird that arrives with the alewife run.
  3. First Bloom, First Fruit: The ShadbushWhite flowers against bare gray branches, and a name tied to the fish running below.
  4. The Leap of Faith: The Wood DuckDucklings that jump 50 feet on their first day of life, and shake it off.

June · Long Days, Quiet Water

The water is warm, the days are long, and the river is full of secrets.

  1. FiddleheadsThe St. George River's springtime scrollwork.
  2. Older Than the AtlanticThe sea lamprey of the St. George.
  3. The MayflyBorn in the river, gone in a day.
  4. Sun, Shell, and Stillwater: The Painted TurtleA living artifact basking on Maine's logs for millions of years.
  5. Before the Dinosaurs: Horsetail on the Banks of the St. George350 million years at the water's edge.

July · Look Closer Than You Usually Do

Summer on the quiet water. Look closer than you usually do.

  1. Life in the Fast Lane: The Blacknose DaceA small native fish that monitors water quality for free, every day.
  2. The Stream's Silver Currency: The Common ShinerLoose schools that scatter like thrown coins in clean water.
  3. Ancient and Unhurried: The Snapping TurtleOlder than the people who share their shoreline.
  4. Architects of the Streambed: CaddisfliesLarvae that build tiny houses out of sand and pebbles.
  5. Jewels at the Water's Edge: DamselfliesMetallic blue-green ebony jewelwings along a shaded reach.
  6. Spinning in Circles and Loving It: The Whirligig BeetleTwo pairs of eyes, one for above water, one for below.
  7. Walking on Water: The Water StriderA creature that lives on the film between air and water.
  8. A Floating World: Water Lilies of the St. George WatershedNative lilies that shelter turtles, frogs, and bass.
  9. Bronze and Beautiful: The Smallmouth BassThe river's most celebrated sport fish, and an introduced predator.

August · The Hidden and the Slow

Late summer: the hidden, the slow, the overlooked.

  1. The Moss That Built the Bog: SphagnumAn ancient moss that makes the very bogs it lives in.
  2. The Marsh's General Store: The CattailA wetland plant the Wabanaki used in every season.
  3. Hidden Gems of the River Bottom: Freshwater MusselsThree threatened species filtering the river quietly for a century.
  4. The Quiet Workhorse Beneath the Surface: Common WaterweedUnderwater meadows that oxygenate the watershed's slow water.
  5. Upside Down and Dangerous: BackswimmersAn apex invertebrate predator with a sting like a bee.
  6. The Rowboat of the Pond: Water BoatmenPound-for-pound the loudest animals on Earth.
  7. More Than a Nuisance: The MosquitoA pollinator of orchids and essential food for bats.

September · The Year Begins to Turn

The year begins to turn. Pay attention.

  1. The Long Way Home: The American EelA fish that began life in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
  2. The Ancient Fisherman: The Great Blue HeronThe river's most visible large predator, hunting on patience alone.
  3. The Engineer Next Door: The American BeaverThe animal that reshapes the watershed more than any other.
  4. Thorns, Berries, and Centuries of Story: HawthornsSmall, thorny trees that feed cedar waxwings and robins in fall.
  5. The Apex Ambusher: The Northern PikeA formidable invasive, and a species to understand honestly.

October · Autumn Comes to the River

Autumn comes with cold water and brilliant color.

  1. The Jewel of Cold Water: Wild Brook TroutOctober spawning colors: the most spectacular sight on any tributary.
  2. A Beloved Stranger: The Brown TroutA European guest now thriving in the lower river.
  3. A Glacier's Gift: The Landlocked Salmon of Lake St. GeorgeAtlantic salmon that never got the memo about going to sea.
  4. Wax, Warblers, and Good Fortune: The Northern BayberryA winter-candle tradition.

November 2026 · The Woods Let Go

The leaves are down and the woods open up. Look for what holds on.

  1. The Conifer That Lets Go: TamarackMaine's only native conifer that drops all its needles every fall.
  2. Fattening Up for Winter: Black BearA late-fall race to pack on fat before the winter den.
  3. Smooth Gray Giant Under Siege: American BeechPapery leaves that hang on all winter, and a tree facing two serious diseases.
  4. The Acorn Planter: Blue JayThe noisy, clever bird that helped plant the oak forests.

December 2026 · Green and Red in the Gray

Evergreens, red berries, and red stems light up the darkest month.

  1. A Living Fossil Underfoot: Running ClubmossAn ancient spore plant with a hidden underground partnership with fungi.
  2. The Scent of a Maine Winter: Balsam FirThe smell of wreaths, balsam pillows and the winter woods.
  3. Red Lanterns in the Swamp: WinterberryBrilliant red berries glowing in bare wet thickets.
  4. A Spark of Red in Winter: Northern CardinalA scarlet bird glowing against the snow at the backyard feeder.
  5. Red Stems in the Snow: Red Osier DogwoodA riverside shrub whose stems glow deep red all winter.

January 2027 · Under the Ice

The river is alive under the ice. Winter is a good time to look.

  1. Small Bird, Big Heart: Black-capped ChickadeeMaine's state bird, cheerfully calling its own name on the coldest days.
  2. The Humble Foundation: MidgesThe only insects keeping trout fed under the ice.
  3. The Winter Yodeler: Long-tailed DuckA chorus of yodels drifting across the cold water off Port Clyde.
  4. The River's Expert Fisher: The Common MerganserA year-round diving duck built to catch fish.

February 2027 · Stirring Before Spring

Something is stirring before anyone expects it.

  1. Written in the Snow: StonefliesTiny insects walking across the snow in mid-winter.
  2. Who Cooks for You: The Barred OwlCaterwauling courtship duets in the deep winter woods.
  3. The Pulse of the Northern Forest: The Snowshoe HareA white coat on a brown landscape, Maine's clearest climate story.
  4. Pure Joy with Webbed Feet: The River OtterSnow slides, crayfish, and the watershed's most charismatic predator.

March 2027 · Spring Under the Ice

Spring is arriving in the dark, before you can see it.

  1. The Forest's Master Builder: The Pileated WoodpeckerThe architect of the forest's entire cavity-housing economy.
  2. The Owl You've Never Seen: The Northern Saw-whet OwlA robin-sized owl hunting deer mice in the hemlocks.
  3. The Shrub That Feeds the Whole River: Speckled AlderThe shrub that shades the river and feeds the insects that feed the trout.
  4. The Midnight Run: The Rainbow SmeltCucumber-scented fish, lanterns, and a beloved Maine rite of spring.
  5. The Quacking of the Vernal Pool: The Wood FrogFrozen solid all winter, thawed and singing in March.

April 2027 · The Watershed Wakes Up

The watershed wakes up fast. Don't miss it.

  1. The Sound of Spring: The Spring PeeperA shrill chorus from the wetland edges that carries half a mile.
  2. Here Before You Knew It Was Spring: The Trout LilyMaine's first wildflower, in colonies older than the Revolution.
  3. A River-Bound Tree: Black Willow on the Banks of the St. GeorgeA tree that lives with its roots in the river.
  4. The River's Watchman: Belted Kingfisher of the St. GeorgeA rattling, crested fisher patrolling the riverbanks.

May 2027 · Blooms and Bites

Wildflowers open, fish build their nests, and the black flies arrive.

  1. The Forest's Three-Petaled Promise: Trillium of the St. George WatershedThree-petaled wildflowers of the spring forest floor.
  2. Maine's Most Notorious Neighbor: The Black FlyThe joke says it's the state bird. The river says it's essential.
  3. The Tiny Dogwood with a Catapult: BunchberryA tiny dogwood whose flowers fling pollen faster than almost anything in nature.
  4. The Stone-Pile Builder: FallfishA native minnow that builds pebble mounds as wide as a kitchen table.

June 2027 · Where River Meets Sea

Long days, low tides, and the life of the estuary.

  1. Royal Purple in the Wet Meadow: Blue Flag IrisOur native wild iris, flashing purple along the river in June.
  2. The Voice of the Lake: The Common LoonThe sound that defines a Maine summer night.
  3. The Forest Between the Tides: RockweedOlive-brown curtains of seaweed hiding a world at low tide.
  4. Holding On Together: Blue MusselBlue-black shells packed into a living carpet on the rocks.
  5. The Underwater Meadow: EelgrassRibbon-like meadows swaying beneath quiet Midcoast coves.

July 2027 · Summer on the Water

Hunters on the water and treasures in the mud.

  1. Sentinels of Summer Water: Dragonflies of the St. George WatershedAerial hunters patrolling the summer water.
  2. The River's Apex Predator in Miniature: The Giant Water BugNorth America's largest aquatic insect, lurking in the backwaters.
  3. Treasure in the Mud: Softshell ClamLittle jets of water on the mudflats, and the clams below.
  4. The River's Comeback Kid: Eastern OysterAn ancient Midcoast shellfish making a remarkable return.

August 2027 · The Late-Summer Bloom

Red spikes, gold fields, and orange shelves on old oaks.

  1. The Forest's Orange Engineer: Chicken of the WoodsBright orange shelves on old oaks, and the hollows they help create.
  2. Scarlet by the Stream: Cardinal FlowerSpikes of startling red along late-summer streams.
  3. Boneset: The Riverbank Healer with Leaves That Pass Through the StemA late-summer riverbank wildflower with a long medicinal history.
  4. Golden Fields and Hidden Galls: GoldenrodGolden fields, busy pollinators, and the insects hiding in its galls.
  5. The Fish Hawk of the St. George: OspreyThe fish hawk that plunges feet-first into the river.

September 2027 · On the Move

Hawks overhead, berries ripening, and the first chestnuts falling.

  1. The Hawk That Rides the Wind: Broad-winged HawkA secretive forest hawk that heads south en masse in September.
  2. Silky Wanderers: Cedar WaxwingMasked, silky-feathered flocks that follow the ripening fruit.
  3. The Giant That Fell, and Maine's Role in Its Return: American ChestnutOnce a quarter of eastern hardwoods, and Maine is key to its comeback.
  4. The Marsh Engineer: MuskratA busy marsh builder often mistaken for a beaver.

October 2027 · The Color Turns

Brilliant color, and the last bright fungi of the year.

  1. A Jewel on the Wing: Ruby-throated HummingbirdSummer's tiny jewel, now far to the south.
  2. Rainbows on a Rotting Log: Turkey TailRainbow-banded shelves that recycle the forest's fallen logs.
  3. The Roadside Runaway: Wild AsparagusA garden escapee glowing gold along fall roadsides.
  4. Red in Every Season: Red MapleA tree that's red in some way nearly all year.

November 2027 · Settling In

Ducks arrive, feeders fill, and the woods get ready for winter.

  1. The Sweetest Tree in the Woods: Sugar MapleThe tree behind maple syrup and a long Wabanaki tradition.
  2. Ghosts of the Forest Edge: White-tailed DeerThe watershed's most familiar wild animal.
  3. The Original Snowbird: Dark-eyed JuncoSlate-gray birds that arrive under the feeders as winter nears.
  4. The Jewel of the Winter River: The BuffleheadSmall, bright diving ducks that arrive on the lower river as the cold sets in.
  5. The Soft Voice of the Dooryard: Mourning DoveA gentle-voiced newcomer that learned to stay for the Maine winter.

December 2027 · Feeder Season

Small birds, small mammals, and the tall pines of winter.

  1. The Upside-Down Bird: White-breasted NuthatchThe little gray bird that walks headfirst down tree trunks.
  2. The Little Gray Newcomer: Tufted TitmouseA crested feeder regular that's a relative newcomer to Maine.
  3. Small Paws, Big Story: White-footed MouseA tiny forest mouse that moves in when the nights turn cold.
  4. The Tree That Named a State: Eastern White PineThe tall, feathery crowns that gave Maine its nickname.

January 2028 · Hunters in the Snow

Tracks in fresh snow tell the stories of winter's hunters.

  1. The Comeback Over the River: Bald EagleA conservation success story soaring over the St. George.
  2. The Carpenter of the Watershed: The Downy WoodpeckerThe smallest woodpecker, and one of the most ecologically generous.
  3. The Forest's Shadow Hunter: FisherA shy, bounding predator of the deep woods.
  4. The Restless Hunter of the Riverbank: American MinkA sleek, curious predator slipping into the water without a ripple.

February 2028 · The Long Watch

Waiting out the last of winter, and the survivors who do it well.

  1. The Sentinel on the Pole: Red-tailed HawkThe big hawk watching Midcoast fields from the telephone poles.
  2. The Ghost of the Ledges: BobcatMaine's most common wild cat, and one you'll rarely see.
  3. The Little Engine of the Meadow: Meadow VoleA tiny, overlooked rodent that feeds half the predators in the meadow.
  4. The Spire of the Coastal Forest: Red SpruceThe signature tree of Maine's foggy coastal forest.
  5. The Survivor on the Riverbank: American ElmThe street tree a fungus nearly erased, still holding on along the river.
Read the introduction The watershed, its history, and our partners

A Land Acknowledgement

The lands and waters of the St. George River watershed are the unceded territory of the Wawenock people, one of the Wabanaki nations whose deep roots in this landscape stretch back thousands of years. The Wawenock lived, fished, hunted, gathered, and built their communities along these rivers and shores long before European names were placed on maps. We offer this acknowledgement with respect for their enduring presence and their ongoing relationship with this land.

A Landscape Born of Ice

The St. George River watershed looks the way it does today because of events that began roughly 20,000 years ago, when a continental ice sheet more than a mile thick covered all of what is now Maine. That glacier scoured the bedrock, rounded the hills, deepened the lake basins, and deposited the jumbled mix of clay, sand, and gravel that underlies our soils today.

By around 14,000 years ago, the ice had begun its long retreat northward. As it melted, the land — compressed for millennia under unimaginable weight — sat low, and the sea flooded far inland. Marine clays were deposited across what are now valley fields and farmland throughout the watershed. Over thousands of years, the land slowly rebounded, streams carved their channels, and forests advanced northward behind the retreating ice: first tundra, then spruce and fir, then gradually the mixed hardwood-softwood forest we know today.

The St. George River itself rises near Montville in the hills of Waldo County and flows roughly 50 miles south through a chain of lakes and wetlands — including Lake St. George, Seven Tree Pond, and Crawford Pond — before reaching its tidal estuary at Thomaston and opening to the sea on the storied St. George Peninsula. Its watershed drains approximately 350 square miles of forest, farmland, wetland, and village, emptying ultimately into the Gulf of Maine.

Thousands of Years of Human Life

The first people arrived in what is now Maine not long after the glaciers withdrew — perhaps 12,000 to 13,000 years ago — following the retreating ice edge into a landscape of tundra, meltwater lakes, and abundant game. These Paleo-Indian peoples were the ancestors of the Wabanaki nations, and their descendants have maintained a continuous relationship with this landscape ever since.

Over thousands of years, that relationship deepened and elaborated. The Archaic and Woodland periods saw increasingly settled patterns of life along the river: seasonal camps at fish runs, shellfish harvests along the coast, burial sites, trade networks, and a rich material and ceremonial culture tied closely to the rhythms of the watershed. Salmon, eels, and alewives ran the river in numbers difficult to imagine today. The forests provided deer, moose, beaver, and bear. The marsh edges gave cattail, berries, and medicinal plants. The Wawenock people knew this place in a completeness that no map has ever captured.

European contact came in 1605, when English captain George Weymouth sailed his vessel into the river mouth and, in a moment that darkened what might have been a peaceful encounter, seized five Wawenock people and took them back to England. The river has carried his name ever since. English settlement followed fitfully through the 1700s — interrupted by wars and conflict with Wabanaki peoples defending their territory — and by the early 19th century the watershed had been transformed: forests cleared, mills built at every fall, and the distinctive lime industry of Knox County underway, fueled by the region's abundant limestone bedrock.

The Watershed Today

The St. George River watershed today is home to roughly 35,000 people living in a collection of towns that reflect the full range of Maine's Midcoast character. From the farming communities of the upper watershed — Montville, Liberty, Searsmont, Appleton, and Washington — to the mill and village towns of the middle river — Union and Warren — to the working waterfront communities of the lower watershed and peninsula — Thomaston, Cushing, South Thomaston, and St. George — the watershed is a landscape of remarkable variety. It is farmed and fished, hiked and paddled, painted and written about. It is, in the fullest sense, a living place.

The Georges River Land Trust

Since its founding, the Georges River Land Trust has worked to ensure this landscape remains wild, connected, and accessible for the people and wildlife that depend on it. The Land Trust's mission states it plainly:

"Conserve and care for the diverse ecosystems and wildlife habitats of the St. George River watershed, expand access to nature for all people, and collaborate with partners through education and the arts to inspire lasting kinship with the natural world."

Through conservation easements, land acquisition, stewardship, and community partnership, the Land Trust protects the working farms, forested ridges, wetland corridors, and riverside habitats that make this watershed what it is. Every acre protected is a decision made on behalf of the brook trout in the headwaters, the osprey on the river bend, and the children who haven't yet had the chance to discover this place.

The Maine Council of Trout Unlimited

Trout Unlimited Maine is the state council of Trout Unlimited, America's oldest and largest cold-water conservation organization. In Maine, TU chapters work to protect and restore the brook trout streams, landlocked salmon lakes, and wild Atlantic salmon rivers that define the state's watersheds. Their work includes stream habitat improvement, dam removal advocacy, riparian buffer protection, and water quality monitoring — often in direct partnership with land trusts, state agencies, and tribal communities. Maine holds the largest remaining wild brook trout population in the eastern United States, and TU Maine's mission is to keep it that way. Learn more at tumaine.org.

An Invitation

This blog series — The Living River — is an invitation to meet your neighbors. Not the ones on your street, but the ones in the marsh, under the ice, in the canopy overhead, and in the leaf litter at your feet: the beaver and the otter, the trout lily and the cattail, the whirligig beetle and the American eel. Each week we'll introduce one species from the St. George River watershed — its life, its role, its story, and its place in the long human relationship with this land.

The watershed is not a backdrop. It is a community, ancient and intricate, and we are part of it. We hope these stories remind you of that — and send you outside to look.

Want to Learn More?

The Living River blog series is published by St. George Consulting in support of the Georges River Land Trust and the Maine Council of Trout Unlimited. To explore the important work these organizations are doing to conserve and restore Maine's landscapes, visit georgesriver.org and tumaine.org.

Living River Series

Welcome to the Living River: An Introduction to the St. George River Watershed

St. George Consulting — Living River Series

A Land Acknowledgement

The lands and waters of the St. George River watershed are the unceded territory of the Wawenock people, one of the Wabanaki nations whose deep roots in this landscape stretch back thousands of years. The Wawenock lived, fished, hunted, gathered, and built their communities along these rivers and shores long before European names were placed on maps. We offer this acknowledgement with respect for their enduring presence and their ongoing relationship with this land.

A Landscape Born of Ice

The St. George River watershed looks the way it does today because of events that began roughly 20,000 years ago, when a continental ice sheet more than a mile thick covered all of what is now Maine. That glacier scoured the bedrock, rounded the hills, deepened the lake basins, and deposited the jumbled mix of clay, sand, and gravel that underlies our soils today.

By around 14,000 years ago, the ice had begun its long retreat northward. As it melted, the land — compressed for millennia under unimaginable weight — sat low, and the sea flooded far inland. Marine clays were deposited across what are now valley fields and farmland throughout the watershed. Over thousands of years, the land slowly rebounded, streams carved their channels, and forests advanced northward behind the retreating ice: first tundra, then spruce and fir, then gradually the mixed hardwood-softwood forest we know today.

The St. George River itself rises near Montville in the hills of Waldo County and flows roughly 50 miles south through a chain of lakes and wetlands — including Lake St. George, Seven Tree Pond, and Crawford Pond — before reaching its tidal estuary at Thomaston and opening to the sea on the storied St. George Peninsula. Its watershed drains approximately 350 square miles of forest, farmland, wetland, and village, emptying ultimately into the Gulf of Maine.

Thousands of Years of Human Life

The first people arrived in what is now Maine not long after the glaciers withdrew — perhaps 12,000 to 13,000 years ago — following the retreating ice edge into a landscape of tundra, meltwater lakes, and abundant game. These Paleo-Indian peoples were the ancestors of the Wabanaki nations, and their descendants have maintained a continuous relationship with this landscape ever since.

Over thousands of years, that relationship deepened and elaborated. The Archaic and Woodland periods saw increasingly settled patterns of life along the river: seasonal camps at fish runs, shellfish harvests along the coast, burial sites, trade networks, and a rich material and ceremonial culture tied closely to the rhythms of the watershed. Salmon, eels, and alewives ran the river in numbers difficult to imagine today. The forests provided deer, moose, beaver, and bear. The marsh edges gave cattail, berries, and medicinal plants. The Wawenock people knew this place in a completeness that no map has ever captured.

European contact came in 1605, when English captain George Weymouth sailed his vessel into the river mouth and, in a moment that darkened what might have been a peaceful encounter, seized five Wawenock people and took them back to England. The river has carried his name ever since. English settlement followed fitfully through the 1700s — interrupted by wars and conflict with Wabanaki peoples defending their territory — and by the early 19th century the watershed had been transformed: forests cleared, mills built at every fall, and the distinctive lime industry of Knox County underway, fueled by the region's abundant limestone bedrock.

The Watershed Today

The St. George River watershed today is home to roughly 35,000 people living in a collection of towns that reflect the full range of Maine's Midcoast character. From the farming communities of the upper watershed — Montville, Liberty, Searsmont, Appleton, and Washington — to the mill and village towns of the middle river — Union and Warren — to the working waterfront communities of the lower watershed and peninsula — Thomaston, Cushing, South Thomaston, and St. George — the watershed is a landscape of remarkable variety. It is farmed and fished, hiked and paddled, painted and written about. It is, in the fullest sense, a living place.

The Georges River Land Trust

Since its founding, the Georges River Land Trust has worked to ensure this landscape remains wild, connected, and accessible for the people and wildlife that depend on it. The Land Trust's mission states it plainly:

"Conserve and care for the diverse ecosystems and wildlife habitats of the St. George River watershed, expand access to nature for all people, and collaborate with partners through education and the arts to inspire lasting kinship with the natural world."

Through conservation easements, land acquisition, stewardship, and community partnership, the Land Trust protects the working farms, forested ridges, wetland corridors, and riverside habitats that make this watershed what it is. Every acre protected is a decision made on behalf of the brook trout in the headwaters, the osprey on the river bend, and the children who haven't yet had the chance to discover this place.

The Maine Council of Trout Unlimited

Trout Unlimited Maine is the state council of Trout Unlimited, America's oldest and largest cold-water conservation organization. In Maine, TU chapters work to protect and restore the brook trout streams, landlocked salmon lakes, and wild Atlantic salmon rivers that define the state's watersheds. Their work includes stream habitat improvement, dam removal advocacy, riparian buffer protection, and water quality monitoring — often in direct partnership with land trusts, state agencies, and tribal communities. Maine holds the largest remaining wild brook trout population in the eastern United States, and TU Maine's mission is to keep it that way. Learn more at tumaine.org.

An Invitation

This blog series — The Living River — is an invitation to meet your neighbors. Not the ones on your street, but the ones in the marsh, under the ice, in the canopy overhead, and in the leaf litter at your feet: the beaver and the otter, the trout lily and the cattail, the whirligig beetle and the American eel. Each week we'll introduce one species from the St. George River watershed — its life, its role, its story, and its place in the long human relationship with this land.

The watershed is not a backdrop. It is a community, ancient and intricate, and we are part of it. We hope these stories remind you of that — and send you outside to look.

Want to Learn More?

The Living River blog series is published by St. George Consulting in support of the Georges River Land Trust and the Maine Council of Trout Unlimited. To explore the important work these organizations are doing to conserve and restore Maine's landscapes, visit georgesriver.org and tumaine.org.

Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Black Bear

Right now, somewhere in the woods of the St. George watershed, a black bear may be crunching through a pile of beechnuts, eating as much as it possibly can. Late fall is a race against the calendar for bears. They need to pack on fat before they settle into their winter dens.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Tamarack

Late in the fall, after most trees have dropped their leaves, a few trees in Maine's swamps and bogs suddenly blaze gold. They look like evergreens, but they're turning color like hardwoods. These are tamaracks, Maine's only native conifer that drops all of its needles every autumn.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Northern Bayberry

Crush a single leaf of northern bayberry between your fingers. That warm, spicy-sweet scent — green and resinous and distinctly coastal — is one of the most distinctive in the Midcoast Maine landscape. In October and November, the waxy gray-blue berries ripen and yellow-rumped warblers arrive in numbers to find them. A fine way to end a year of watershed watching.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Landlocked Salmon

At the headwaters of the St. George River watershed sits a cold, clear lake that holds one of Maine's most prized fish. Lake St. George is home to landlocked salmon — sleek, powerful, cold-water predators that are, genetically speaking, Atlantic salmon that simply never got the memo about going to sea. They are a living relic of the last ice age.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Brown Trout

Walk the banks of the lower St. George River on a cool October evening and watch the surface carefully. A large, deliberate rise in a pool — a fish taking something with the unhurried confidence of an animal that knows it owns the water — is likely a brown trout. Beautiful, storied, and non-native, the brown trout is a beloved stranger in this watershed.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Northern Pike

There is no mistaking a northern pike (Esox lucius). Long, torpedo-shaped, and patterned in olive and gold like something that belongs in a deeper, older world, the pike is one of the most formidable freshwater predators on the continent. It is also, in the St. George watershed, a complicated presen

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Hawthornes

Few plants in the Maine landscape are as quietly generous — or as easily overlooked — as the hawthorns. Tucked along old stone walls, at the edges of fields, and threading through the shrubby corridors of streambanks, these thorny small trees have been feeding wildlife, sheltering birds, and sustain

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Beaver

No wild animal reshapes the landscape of the St. George River watershed quite like the American beaver (Castor canadensis). Where a beaver colony moves in, a stream becomes a pond, a pond becomes a wetland, and a wetland becomes one of the richest habitats in the entire watershed — alive with ducks,

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

American Eel

There is a creature living in the St. George River right now that was born in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, drifted thousands of miles on ocean currents as a transparent wisp of tissue, and then spent years — possibly decades — hunting in the dark beneath our riverbanks and lake bottoms. When it

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Mosquito

The mosquito needs no introduction to anyone who has stepped outside between May and September in the St. George watershed — and its reputation is harder to rehabilitate. But mosquitoes are pollinators of native orchids and food for bats in numbers that genuinely matter.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Water Boatmen

Barely the size of a watermelon seed and shaped like a tiny hull, water boatmen are among the most numerous aquatic insects in the St. George watershed's ponds — and among the most astonishing animals in the world, though you would never guess it by looking at them. Males produce a mating call of nearly 100 decibels. For a two-millimeter insect, that is extraordinary.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Backswimmers

If you've spent any time peering into a pond in the St. George watershed, you've probably seen them — small, torpedo-shaped insects rowing through the water, pale undersides catching the light. They look like water boatmen. They are not. Backswimmers swim upside down, and they hunt. A word of practical advice: if you scoop one into your hand, release it promptly.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Common Waterweed

Most of the plants we notice along the St. George River grow in plain sight. But some of the watershed's most important botanical work happens out of view, beneath the surface, in the slow-moving coves and ponds where common waterweed forms dense underwater meadows. Pull a stem from the water, hold it in the light, and you'll find something genuinely beautiful.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Freshwater Mussels

They don't sing, sprint, or bloom — but freshwater mussels may be the St. George River's most quietly extraordinary residents. Tucked into sandy and gravelly streambeds, these ancient bivalves have been filtering river water for millennia. Three species living right here are among the rarest in the entire Northeast. That makes this river genuinely special.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Cattails

There is no more recognizable wetland plant in Maine than the cattail — and most people have seen them their entire lives without thinking much about them. That's a shame, because the cattail is one of the most productive, useful, ecologically valuable, and genuinely fascinating plants in the entire watershed. Once you know what you're looking at, you'll never drive past a cattail marsh the same way again.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Spagnum Moss

Step carefully into one of the bogs tucked into the upper St. George watershed and the ground gives beneath your feet in a way that is unlike anything else in the Maine landscape — spongy, yielding, alive. Look down and you're standing on sphagnum moss, one of the most ecologically consequential plants on the planet. It doesn't just live in bogs. It makes them.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Smallmouth Bass

Pull a smallmouth bass from a sun-warmed pool on the lower St. George River and you are holding one of the most beautiful fish in fresh water. The flanks flash bronze and olive green. Anglers love them for good reason. The river's ecology has a more complicated relationship with them — and understanding both sides makes the fish more interesting, not less.

Read More
Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Water Lilies

On a still July morning, with mist sitting low over a quiet cove of the St. George River, there is nothing quite like a bed of water lilies in bloom. The broad, waxy pads spread across the surface in overlapping circles, each one a small world unto itself — and one of the most productive microhabitats in the entire watershed.

Read More