We are rounding out Pollinator Week, and what a week it has been! June is always an incredibly busy month here at NCF with field work keeping us moving in all directions. I can’t stress this enough: Junes on Nantucket are beautiful. They are filled to the brim with blooms of all sizes, colors, &…
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This year, everyone’s favorite dream job on island went to an enthusiastic young ecologist, Rachel Brubaker! Hear her tell the story that brought her here this season. By Rachel Brubaker I genuinely wish I had a warm backstory about how I was always interested in the natural world when I was a child and spent…
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Moonlight, warm waters, and high tides are the perfect conditions to bring in the one of the most mysterious marine animals to Nantucket shores. In late May through June, horseshoe crabs will start their journey from the the ocean floor to shoreline to lay their eggs. The females are noticeably larger in diameter as compared…
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When most people think of earthworms, they probably picture them tunneling through compost or garden soil, turning old banana peels and yard waste into rich, dark soil. One such species is the nightcrawler, Lumbricus terrestris, often found on the surface of the lawn at night or coming up for air after a soaking rain. While…
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In many conservation and restoration projects, ecologists work hard to protect native things or bring native things back to a place. But this last year, Nantucket Conservation Foundation Staff acted as predators and aggressively removed a native crab from a few salt marshes in Polpis Harbor. Our prey? The purple marsh crab (Sesarma reticulatum). The…
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Written by: Danielle O’Dell, Ecologist/Field Supervisor Ordinarily, at this time of year as we begin preparing for the upcoming field season, I like to share a summary of the bat-related work that we at the Nantucket Conservation Foundation have conducted, what we’ve learned and what our plans are for the year ahead. However, 2020 has…
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The era of quarantine has us cooped up and dreaming of sunny days with loved ones, gatherings to celebrate the change of season, and times when accidentally bumping into a stranger in Stop & Shop didn’t fill us with existential dread. Cabin fever is real and the best way to combat it is to responsibly…
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There are different ways to go about enjoying mosses: from a distance they form a richly textured background in a forest, or a carpet across an abandoned sandy area, mixed with reindeer lichen. The color spectrum of mosses is heavy in the greens, but you can also find red or coral tinged mosses, or ones…
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These days, it seems like everything we took for granted as normal is getting cancelled, closed or postponed due to COVID-19. From a socio-economic perspective, it is apparent that this coming summer will be nothing like recent seasons here on Nantucket. For those of us who love nature and the outdoors, the ongoing rhythm of…
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This weeks blog comes from our local School-to-Career Intern, Lily Bartlett! Lily has been an incredible help and has been working hard on a wide variety of projects since she started with us in September . Thank you again, Lily! As coronavirus has taken over our usual routines, we can turn to nature as a…
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