by: Libby Buck, Ecological Stewardship & Research Technician The National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count just celebrated its 120th birthday, making it one of one of the longest running citizen science projects. Up until 1900, it was a Christmas tradition for hunters to go out on Christmas Day and hunt as many birds as they…
As we get ready to celebrate the holidays and close out 2019, we would like to take a moment to commemorate the Foundation’s upcoming 56th anniversary. On December 28th in 1963, a group of Nantucketers met at the home of W. Ripley Nelson, who was then the President of the Nantucket Civic League. They came…
Since beginning to work on the Nantucket Flora Update project, we have discovered more than 60 plants that are established on Nantucket, but were not included in the most recent island flora, Sorrie and Dunwiddie’s The Vascular and Non-Vascular Flora of Nantucket, Tuckernuck, and Muskeget Islands, published in 1996. While many of these “new to…
by Dr. Jennifer Karberg, Research Program Supervisor The impacts of climate change: increased sea level rise, increased occurrence of strong storm events, increased and more variable temperature and rainfall, temporal ecological disjuncts (ie plants flowering before their pollinators are around), and changes to natural communities (to name just a few impacts) all feel very immediate…
The Nantucket Biodiversity Initiative (NBI) just held its 8th Biennial Biodiversity Research Conference from November 1-3, and the Foundation’s Science and Stewardship Department staff ecologists were active participants in this collaborative effort. The NBI is a partnership of nonprofit organizations (including the Foundation), academic institutions, government agencies, businesses and individuals that formed in 2005 with…
We are very excited to have a Nantucket High School (NHS) senior, Lily Bartlett, volunteering for us approximately 8 hours per week for the entire school year as part of the School-to-Career program. This is the first time that the Foundation has mentored a student in this capacity. School-to-Career is part of a national program…
by: Danielle O’Dell, Ecologist/Field Supervisor The Science and Stewardship staff have continued to delve deeper and deeper in to the Northern long-eared Bat world! This season, we added a new member to our bat crew! Neil Foley, our long-time Coatue Ranger and Shorebird Monitor, got his rabies vaccination, and with all of his experience removing…
by: Karen Beattie, NCF Director of Science and Stewardship The Nantucket Conservation Foundation’s Board of Trustees recently decided to retire cranberry cultivation on our Windswept Bog property (on Polpis Road) in order to pursue a watershed level wetland restoration project. These plans were covered in the Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror (our local newspaper on Nantucket,…
by: Libby Buck, Ecological Stewardship & Research Technician It is August and the days are slowly growing shorter and the end of summer is approaching. The shorebirds on Nantucket are getting ready to start their long journey south. I am happy to report our efforts to protect the endangered & threatened species this year have yielded some…
by: Karen Beattie, NCF Science and Stewardship Department Director 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…