Nantucket has experienced an uncommonly wet growing season so far this year. The abundance of rain has produced lush and verdant vegetation across the island that is persisting into the recent hot and dry weather conditions more typical of summertime on the island. Take a walk on any of the Foundation’s beautiful conservation lands and…
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Stand outside on the warm nights of June, as spring folds into summer, and turn on a light. Soon enough you will hear the engine-like thrum and eventual collision of a June Beetle (sub family Melolonthinae) clumsily seeking the source of illumination. Keep the light on and hang a sheet to attract the multitudes of…
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Over the last few years, homeowners and land managers have been watching the increasing insect damage to the island’s black oak trees. Last year, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation and the Nantucket Land Council teamed up to fund a student research project to study the oak gall wasp and parasitoids – tiny beneficial insects that prey…
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*Please note, this blog post was originally published in The Inquirer and Mirror on July 28th, 2016 on pg 11B in the article series called Island Ecology. The Foundation’s Science staff will be regularly contributing to our local newspaper and reprinting articles here the following week.* Every year in midsummer, Nantucket’s conservation lands and roadside…
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