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.

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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

Water Strider

Every calm pool and slow backwater of the St. George River hosts a community living in a place most animals cannot access: the surface of the water itself. Water striders skate across the film between air and water with effortless speed, leaving only tiny dimples where their legs touch — and not breaking through. Children notice them immediately. The physics is remarkable.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Whirligig Beetle

If you've ever paused on a riverbank and watched a cluster of small, shiny beetles zipping around each other in tight, erratic loops on the water's surface, you've already met one of the watershed's most endearing residents: the whirligig beetle. Part bumper car, part radar dish — and one of the river's most watchable summer inhabitants.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Damselflies

On a warm July afternoon along a shaded reach of the St. George River, where sunlight breaks through the canopy in shifting pools, watch for something that stops you mid-step: a small, iridescent creature with dark wings flickering above the surface, its body flashing metallic blue-green. This is the ebony jewelwing, one of the most beautiful insects in the watershed.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Caddisflies

Turn over a smooth rock in any clean riffle of the St. George River and look at what clings to the underside. Among the algae and mayfly nymphs you will almost certainly find something that looks like a small piece of the streambed itself — a tidy cylinder of sand grains, moving with quiet determination. Inside is a caddisfly larva in a house it built by itself.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Snapping Turtle

Ancient, unhurried, and often misunderstood, the snapping turtle is one of the St. George watershed's most important ecological players — a scavenger, predator, and quiet sanitation engineer of the pond floor. Large adults may be older than many of the people who share their shoreline. In June, females cross roads to nest — please slow down and give them space.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Common Shiner

Wade into any clean, clear tributary of the St. George River on a summer morning and look down. Flashes of silver dart through the current — common shiners, moving in loose schools that catch the light and scatter like thrown coins. Modest in appearance most of the year, the males transform in late May and June into something genuinely beautiful.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Blacknose Dace

Barely three inches long and built for the fastest water in the stream, the blacknose dace is one of the most abundant native fish in the St. George watershed's tributaries — and one of the least celebrated. In late May and June, breeding males flush with orange-red color along the sunlit riffles. As a bioassessment indicator species, the dace is monitoring our water quality for free, every day.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Horsetail

Pull on your rubber boots and walk the muddy margin where the St. George River meets a quiet marsh, and you will almost certainly encounter a plant that was standing in wet soil at water's edge three hundred and fifty million years ago. Horsetail is one of the oldest living plant lineages on Earth — and it is quietly remarkable.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Painted Turtle

On any warm spring day along the St. George River, move quietly and scan the logs: painted turtles, lined up in a row, soaking in the sun with an air of complete contentment. The most widespread native turtle in North America, the painted turtle has been doing exactly this along Maine's waterways for millions of years. It is a living artifact.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Mayflies

On a warm May evening, you might notice something that looks like a light snowfall rising from the St. George River — thousands of delicate winged insects drifting upward in spiraling columns. If you're a fly fisher, your heart quickens. If you're a brook trout, you're already moving. Mayflies have been doing this for 350 million years.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Sea Lamprey

The sea lamprey has an image problem. Most people picture the invasive pest of the Great Lakes — not the native fish that has been swimming Maine's rivers for 360 million years, predating the Atlantic Ocean itself. In the St. George watershed, lamprey are ecological partners, building gravel nests that salmon and trout also depend on. It deserves a second look.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Fiddleheads

In Midcoast Maine, fiddlehead season is fast and fleeting — typically the last week of April through mid-May, depending on the year. Watch the riverbanks once the daytime temperatures consistently reach the 50s. Within a week or two of emerging, the coils unfurl and the season is over until next spring.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Wood Duck

It is a reasonable argument that the male wood duck is the most beautiful bird in North America. A bird of the beaver pond and forested wetland, the wood duck nests in hollow trees along the St. George watershed — and within 24 hours of hatching, its ducklings must climb to the entrance and jump, sometimes 50 feet to the forest floor. They shake it off.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Flowering Shad

Every spring, before the leaves have opened and while the hillsides are still brown and bare, shadbush lights up in white — clusters of delicate, star-shaped blossoms catching the April light. It is easy to overlook in summer. But in April it stops you in your tracks, and its name ties it directly to the fish running below.

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Stuart Rich Stuart Rich

Alewives

Every spring, one of the great spectacles of the natural world happens quietly in Maine's coastal rivers — and most people drive right past it. Alewives, small silvery fish that spent years at sea, return in great shimmering schools to the streams where they were born. When they run, nearly every predator in the St. George watershed takes notice.

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