Narration: production of South Carolina ETV Jim: Nature Scene is made possible in part by grants from the close foundation incorporated helping sustain Nature Scene for the past four years.

Santee Cooper wear protection and improvement of our environment are equal in importance to providing electric energy.

And by viewers like you, members of the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

♪ Jim: This is Acadia National Park on the rugged Atlantic coastline of Maine.

It's one of New England's most popular tourist destinations with its many islands, lakes, mountains, dense forests and rocky seashore.

Hello, and welcome to Nature Scene.

I'm Jim Welch with naturalist Rudy Mancke.

It's late August and we're on Cadillac Mountain, the highest point of land between Labrador Canada and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

And it's about 47 degrees out here with the wind chill right now.

Rudy: It is a windy Cadillac Mountain today 1,530 feet above sea level.

And we want to talk a little bit about the geology of this area as we go along.

But we're going to start at the top and notice Jim how plants and animals change.

As you go down from the top of this mountain great deal of diversity here and Acadia National Park is so widespread that we'll be sort of hopping and skipping and jumping from one place to another.

This is a beautiful place to start though because of that beautiful view behind us of Frenchmans Bay and the town of Bar Harbor below all the sailing vessels in the harbor there.

Frenchmans Bay reminds us of the history of this place.

Of course.

Jim: Well some people call it mount desert, but the French of course in 1604, Champlain called it the Isle of Bear Mountain.

So it's Mount Desert.

desert deserted rocks, I would suppose off in the distance there the Schoodic Peninsula that we'll be visiting a little bit later.

A story of glacial activity.

Well, there's a lot of yeah, there's a lot of geology here that we want to talk about.

And I guess we ought to begin really first with the fact that the rocky coast of Maine for the most part is rocky because of granite material and look all around us here.

This is granite.

You can see kind of an orange or pinkish look to it, caused by the large feldspar crystals inside.

Granite is liquid rock.

Probably this granite formed as a magma chamber under a volcano.

That's one of the guesses anyway, it's relatively young granite compared to most of the grand it's just west of here and rather strange is not fully understood what happened, but came in as liquid deep underground, solidified.

And that was 360 to 400 million years ago.

Then more recently, as you said glaciers were here.

And I'm not talking about little glaciers.

I'm talking about continental glaciers that were maybe a mile thick over where we're standing today and glaciers rearranged the world.

They pluck up rocks and move them and carry them very slowly, slowly but surely, and use those rocks often to abrade beat down other rocks.

And so everything here is basically rounded off by a glacier.

What happened to the plants at that time?

Well, the plants they were scraped right off of here.

They went south and then finally the glacier stopped moving and began to retreat and melt, leaving behind some of those big rocks by the way.

Look at the glacial erratic that was left behind now by a glacier over 10,000 or so years ago would be a good guess that when they were last here, that rock is different from the rock here.

Let's just know that it's been transported from somewhere else.

And of course when the glaciers moved away then those plants that were pushed South began to come back and occupy those spaces that they once occupied earlier.

You can imagine what happened to this rock when all that weight of a mile thick of ice crystals pressed down at first of all when it melted what happened can the rocks expand and moved up and formed lots of cracks and you see all these cracks here that are left behind today again, glaciers left their mark here and look what happened in a lot of the cracks, their little gardens, little bits of Earth, and right in those little cracks, that's where you get started soil builds up there is this rock slowly breaks down the first plants to come back I'm sure where the lichens and you see them all over the rock here they produce acids that break the rock down to some degree.

And then once the soil is formed, take a look at all the plants that come in the three tooth sync foil over there that low growing plant if you look carefully on the the leaves there you see three little teeth on the ends of those leaflets very common here already flowered.

You see a little bit of fruit I guess on there.

And also see over there one of the laurels.

Sheep Laurel is one name for it lambs kill is another name.

You can see the fruit coming off kind of not at the tip of the branch but a little lower on the branch.

It is poisonous to livestock.

So the name makes makes pretty good sense.

Rudy: is that fruit on the ash?

Is that a tree?

Yeah, that's yeah, mountain ash is here.

Not really a true ash.

But it does have compound leaves like Ashes is would.

That is fruits in the rose family just like that little sink foil is in the rose family.

One other one that's common here.

And this the name makes sense.

Mountain Holly, see that shrubby looking plant with the red Holly like fruit on it long stalk on that fruit.

And mountain Holly is really typical of the Northern mountain expanses.

And that's certainly where we are now.

And boy, it feels like we're at the top of a mountain here.

Very, very cool.

Let's head on from here and get another view of how those glaciers have been working.

♪ Rudy: We've been talking about the activity of glaciers, I think it's pretty clear that something has scooped out a lake here.

And this is also the work Jim of glaciers in this area.

Eagle Lake is the name of this place and bald eagles do frequent it.

Lot of Gulls get here fresh water now.

And probably what might best be called a tongue of a glacier as it was moving down from the north heading toward the ocean and beyond, scooped out that little section.

And others here.

Jim: Rocks embedded in the ice acting like a scraper.

Rudy: Absolutely just scraping it away.

abrading it moving on.

And then once the glaciers melted, that melt water filled it and of course rainwater gets in here too.

And now we've got these marvelous lakes that run almost like fingers along the island here and you can also see in the distance there the way the glaciers just smoothed off that surface.

Now you really get a good perspective on how the glaciers smooth things down.

You don't see any jagged peaks over there at all.

Jim: And the forest coming back a mixed forest.

Rudy: Yeah, this is an interesting forest because many of the species here are usually called pioneer species.

They come in to open areas when there's an opportunity, maybe after fire or natural disaster.

Whenever there's an open area.

They seem to be the first to show up and the one that comes to light very quickly are all the little gray birches, see all the small birches here we'll probably see some of their relatives and get a good deal larger, sort of a whitish stem on the tree trunk on the tree and then those leaves it see the narrow down a little more to a point and then most other birch leaves in gray Birch is one of those trees that comes in here very rapidly and takes over.

I see another one down here.

A little extra moisture here.

That's one of the alders.

Again, not gigantic but coming in is almost a shrubby plant here, and it's got cones on it.

See those little green cones this year's and then those brown ones.

Last year, it's really not true cones but they look so much like you're ah, Jim: True cone cones on the conifer.

Rudy:There are the Conifers two conifer groups that do very well here the Balsam firs and spruces and look over here and you see the cones stand up on the balsam fir see them sticking up there in the distance at trees just beginning here, and then on spruce down here, kind of hidden from us, but you see that the cones are hanging down and red spruce and white spruce found here.

That tree in front of the spruce is red maple, and there's another one that comes in very, very quickly in these open areas.

Jim: And again, Rudy, most of them a harsh environment so they don't grow as big.

Yeah, that limits the tree size.

All these white flowers now are pinkish white flowers in front of us is plant in the rose family known as meadowsweet spirea.

And it does have a sweet smell if you get close to it when they are fresh, but again, open areas, especially with a little bit of moisture really, really caused those plants to do well.

And you can see as we saw on the top, there are lots of plants that come along in the cracks and Goldenrod Goldenrod all over the place and it does so well this time of year golden yellow flowers typical of the fall, and then I see a fruit down and look at that dark fruit on that plant.

A lot of people would think that was Huckleberry and pick it and it just doesn't taste like huckle berry is supposed to taste.

Black choke berry is the common name for that.

It does often get bigger but again that plant seems to be to some degree dwarfed here and then right up here talking about fruit.

See the lighter colored fruit on that shrub opposite leaves on it.

Jim: What kind is it?

Rudy: Nanny Berry is the common name.

It's one of the viburnums quite a number of viburnums here, but again, a lot of diversity at this place.

I think it might be fun though to get into a little more of a big forest large forest.

And as you say it's a mixed forest here and then work our way down towards another freshwater pond.

Great.

♪ This mixed forest is really kind of interesting and pleasant place to hike dominated by a tree that just jumps out at you.

Paper birch paper birch or White Birch is another name for it.

So you getting to be a much larger tree than the gray birch that we saw earlier.

Jim: Caterpillar on the side.

Rudy: It is a caterpillar stuck right to the side probably going up eventually the summer leaves there tussock moth caterpillar is the common name for that.

Seals little white bristles on the back that are in tussocks like standing out grass.

Yeah.

Mildly poisonous little bristles in the middle of those tussocks, but usually no problem.

But again, going up looking for leaves to change and in the caterpillar.

The birches do kind of jump out at you a lot of conifers in here though too these are spruces these basically look like red spruce is But now here's another deciduous tree.

It is really a big one.

And that's that red maple much larger tree now than we saw a few moments ago.

Typical leaves now for that tree they'll turn brilliant red, usually in the fall a little later in the fall, which gives us an A look at the lichens there though.

Flat on the rock on the top of Cadillac Mountain.

But here's another species doing well on the tree Lung works common Harrison, no taking nothing from the tree, just finding a nice place to attach.

Now the trees that conifers here that seem to dominate are the spruces that looks like red spruce from here.

If you touch the ends of those, needles, they're really a little sharp feeling to the touch.

And that lets you know it's a spruce and that one of the Boston firs that we also looked at a little while ago.

And then another maple look at that and that again, typical maple leaf right typical Maple Leaf but much bigger leaf striped Maple is one name for another name has an interesting connection in me Moosewood another common name for it again Rudy: Mixture of deciduous trees conifers.

I see a white pine over here.

State tree I believe of of Maine.

Small one but doing well.

The needles in bundles of five and then there's a strange looking plant looking at it down on the bottom with compound leaves coming in at the same point.

Wild sarsaparilla is the common name for that.

It's in the Jin sang family edible, of usable, usable plant to some degree, but slow growing herbaceous plant on the bottom here even with all of this shade, lots of noises to out in here.

So many things to see let's head down toward the water next.

Really a clear, crisp day today nice to be out walking.

Jim: and beautiful Jordan pond here as we approach Rudy: Yeah, this is a beautiful place you can almost hear the water being blown by that wind lapping up against the rocks, again, formed by glacial activity.

And the thing that makes this so special of course is the view of aquatic all the bubbles over there.

South bubble and North bubble must have been a little more solid rock there because it's the glacier came down it was it was diverted to the sides to some degree and look at that beautiful U shaped Valley cut on each side and of course smoothing the bubbles as it came across and then eventually scooping out this area.

Remember we said the glaciers carried material you were talking about that all these rounded rocks here were carried by glacier and as it stopped moving it dropped these rocks back away and some of them actually formed a little dam here, forming Jordan pond way back in the in the past and another beautiful part of Acadia National Park see the way the rocks are piled up around the side too.

Yes, this pond freezes when it freezes the ice pushes see modern day ice now that glacial ice modern day ice pushes those up on the side looks as if man has arranged them nature has been at work here and look at that beautiful paper birch or white birch that's fallen in the water.

That's a nice view.

A nice home for this dragon.

Well, you expect dragon flies when you come down by fresh water and winds blowing a little bit so he's not able to fly away from us.

The toper dragon flies one name it's brilliant red so you know it's a male right away.

The scientific name is Sympetrum which means with the rock and they love to get on these boulders when it's warm and flattened out.

Not too windy and warm up in the sunlight a lot of insect activity on the way to butterfly so if we look at this the butterfly on the white ah, I guess that's one of the astor's there's one of the fritillary butterflies coming to get nectar even though the breezes blowing doing well and that one looks so fresh, Jim look at that not a scale lost on those wings.

And then then a little lower looks like on another one of the Golden rods is one of the Painted Ladies.

I think that is an American Painted Lady little more age on it.

Yeah, wings are a little more tattered on rolling the tongue going in and getting nectar from every one of those Goldenrod flowers of course they're clusters of flowers there.

Jim: So much insect activity but so much else to see here at Acadiea.

Rudy:A very very diverse place and spread out you know all over there's one other tree that we want to look at before we leave this one look is another one of the conifers, one of the cedars.

Yeah, the cones are way up at the top there.

They're not really so obvious yet but I think you can tell them distinctly from the leaves.

Leaves are flattened on this.

Northern white cedar common name for it, and again gets to be pretty big tree loves to have a little bit of extra moisture there.

Lots to see here.

Why don't we can really change pace now and go toward the edge where we can see the Atlantic.

♪ Gotta be kind of careful down here because the world really changes.

Jim: They call this Raven cliffs and as part of Schoodic Peninsula, across from Bar Harbor and Cadillac Mountain, part of Acadia National Park.

Isn't it amazing way the forest just goes right to the edge.

And then there's ocean off at the bottom.

Deep drop off here.

Jim: And it's carved by the title action.

Rudy: Yeah, slowly but surely wearing away the rocks here.

spectacular view, especially with all the vegetation around here.

Again that connection of forest and ocean is is very nice.

Look across the way at some of the plants.

And the colors are so nice berries over brilliant red on the bunch berry over there.

Clusters of red fruit right in the center that is one of the dogwoods and doing very well in this situation.

And further north and down south a little bit loves cool places like this with a little bit of moisture.

And then Black Crow Berry, it looks like it's just matted all over the place over there.

And all along this little projection of land living here low growing clinging to the rocks.

That's a good way to survive.

And then a juniper to the common Juniper dwarf Juniper flat against the ground.

You can even see fruit on there.

So much to see Jim: there is really just one of the very few places on the Atlantic with a forest literally comes to the edge of the ocean.

Rudy: And look at the trees here.

The trees that dominate here are another one of the spruce is white spruce is the Common name needles a little longer than the red spruce, and also a little more blue green color.

Spectacular views.

Of course, you got to be very careful to place like this.

Why don't we go to a place where we can get down just a little bit closer to the ocean itself.

♪ Rudy: The sights and sounds and even the smells as you get closer to the ocean changed and so does the rock.

Look at this.

Jim: Turning from gray to black.

Rudy: Totally different rock step across there and you've really taken a step back in time a little bit totally different rock here.

And just look behind us.

I mean it's it seems to be in a line and Black Rock known as diabase.

It's a variety of basalt, igneous rock that came in as liquid and cooled came up from underneath you when we were talking about continents colliding earlier to form mountain ranges and other things well every now and then after they collide they actually separate that cracks the crust of the earth and guess what's waiting below diabasen and basalt liquid rock to come in and fill those cracks This is known as a diabase dike and a volcanic like volcanic like material there was a split here just look on look well look down here.

I mean here it is beautiful look at the the clean line where hits against the rock that was already here.

Liquid squirting in filling those spaces that are left slowly cooling.

And we believe this stuff came in around 200 million years ago certainly rock that squirts into other rock must be younger than the rock it intrudes on wearing down or it must be so yeah, see the way it's pitted a little bit too.

Interesting rock a lot of iron in it.

Look at the color back there.

Goldenrod and some goldenrod flowering we saw goldenrod earlier up higher.

This one is by the sea.

So common name, seaside goldenrod.

Thicker stem.

Yeah a little more succulent feeling on the leaves and the stem.

And then over there near it.

Look at the look at the little blue flowers Jim.

You see the little bell shaped looks like a bell?

Harebell is one of the names or Blue Bell for that plant loves rocky places high or close to to the ocean.

And then the noises that we hear and the birds that we see moving around the hearing herring gulls coming in pretty big animal, aren't they?

Are they the same?

No, there's white and there's over there on the side.

Same gull.

same gull.

The darker ones are immature individuals and then as they get older a year or two, then they get that whitish color little gray on the back and they're scavengers picking up whatever the ocean offers or whatever people give them and changing it into herring gull.

Jim: Really expansive rock here at the end of the schoodic point.

One of the nice things now is to kind of be like the gull and do a little beach combing let's see what the ocean has brought in by getting a little closer, close to some tide pools.

This inter tidal zone is so interesting when the tide is out, and you can walk and look at all the living things do well here.

Look at this brown alga that covers the rock here Jim kind of seaweed.

Yeah.

Rock weed is the common name for it.

It attaches here and can live very well out of the water for short periods of time with the little bladders on it too that help it float up once the tide comes back in.

Jim: Rocks are also covered with barnacles in many places.

Rudy: Every square inch it looks like over there.

It's covered with those barnacles that filter food out of the water once the tide comes in.

Jim: Because the principle industry of Maine has demonstrated by the floats out there different colors lobster floats.

Rudy: Booies yes down to the lobster pots.

That's one animal that does very well here loves rocky areas and cooler water and Maine lobsters, well known all over the world.

Each of those I guess is an individual color Jim: Assigned to a different party and there's a short rope called a warp that attaches to the trap and they come out and pull them up every few days to get those great tasty Maine lobsters.

Rudy: All sorts of interesting things here you know every now and then when the tide is out some of that water gets trapped in these pools.

This is a small but very nice tide pool with rock weeds all around it.

And see the bottom is not colored like the rest of the rock.

It's sort of a yellow or reddish color.

That's algae a film of algae that covers the rock and that's potential food and it is and what kind of light look in the animal that comes to take the Periwinkle there one of the marine snails, is coming along and scraping off that algae and changing it into periwinkle Jim: Life in the tide pool.

But on the rocks shells either brought in by waves of birds I guess.

Rudy: Yeah, I think the birds are brought some of them in hand.

We just grabbed them in our hands and then we can look at them one at a time and we a lot of material here.

Great time to come of course is when the tide is out and you got lots more exposed.

And lots of interesting stories to tell.

Jim: One on top Rudy I've seen coast to coast one of the sea urchins.

Rudy: One of the sea urchins and the common name for this one it gets because of the color of the spines on it.

The green sea urchin member of the same group with starfish and sand dollars and other things.

These cling to rocks in the water like this and are often seen changed into something else probably a gull broke that side open and ate the soft insides.

Something else associated with rocky areas that attaches to them.

Often this large muscle.

This one is called the horse muscle.

Not the edible muscle the blue muscle would be the one edible but you see the way they clump together oftentimes here, even with some algae looks like holding on to the to the top one of the bi valves here that is well known as an edible with the soft shell clam.

Sometimes just referred to as the clam everyone knows this one and when the tide is out.

Many people dig for them.

Look at this valve of the shell with that spoon like projection on it and the other one has a nice little receptacle for that and then one other thing down here.

That's interesting.

And this is the sea urchin again, once the spines are gone and it dries out this part called the test is left behind.

And you see how intricately designed that is.

Jim: Some of them make nice collectible, so I'll take those.

Oh yeah, Rudy: you got a pretty good group of things there too.

Some of the marine snails and also, carapace for really large crab.

Jim: I don't remember seeing one like this before.

Rudy: This is really typical of this area.

one of the rock crabs usually called Jonah, the Jonah crab, scavengers, again, working the rocks, trying to find some food.

I imagine something else, got it here, hold on to that one.

And here's a large really nice marine snail that you got.

The wave welk is one of the names for it.

See that opening there letting you know it's one of the snails it's also a scavenger and you're feeding on dead animals a lot.

And people with lobster pots can't stand this animal because it gets in and feeds on the bait in the lobster pot, so one of the scavengers and then one other snail really, you've given me two of them, Jim, some are blue, more banded than the other dog winkle is the common name for that and guess what they feed on the muscles that are here and also on those barnacles that we saw earlier.

So these are really predators, Jim: Picking up shells just another activity for Acadia National Park.

Rudy: This is a great place and it's close to so many people I'm sure lots of visitors come here each year.

And the splendid views I'm sure bring many of them here that the great diversity of plant and animal life also does top a Cadillac Mountain, totally different plants and animals there from what we find right here along the coast and yet this is a part of the same park and we've just scratched the surface.

Jim: This has become the second most visited national park in the nation you should come and see it for yourself.

Join us again on the next Nature Scene.

♪ Nature Scene is made possible in part by grants from the Close Foundation Incorporated.

Helping sustain Nature Scene for the past four years.

Santee Cooper, where protection and improvement of our environment are equal in importance to providing electric energy.

And by viewers like you, members of The ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

Narration: To purchase a copy of this program called 1-800-553-7752, visit our online store at www.scetvstore.org.

Or write to the address on your screen.