Welcome to the “Summer of a Seasonal Wildlife Assistant”! My name is Meredith and I was lucky enough to work with NCF three mornings a week last summer, and am back again for four full days a week this time around! There are many different species of wildlife on Nantucket, but our day-to-day routine mainly revolves around a select few.
Turtles
Last summer, I spent a lot of time on the Spotted Turtle project out at Windswept Cranberry Bogs (now undergoing the Wetland Restoration). I got to learn how we trap, ID, and track turtles using telemetry equipment. With this experience under my belt, I was confident to return to the bogs this summer and get right to work, except, the Windswept Bogs underwent “Phase One” of the Wetland Restoration over the winter and I came back to something very new. Half of the bogs looked completely different and we were setting traps in locations I had never ventured before. All of a sudden, I was given waders and was thrown in the deep end (pun intended) with another seasonal wildlife field assistant, Jordan. Although the landscape was quite different, the process was all the same, so once it came to seeing the turtles, my confidence was restored and we fell into a routine.
This season we caught over 100 Spotted turtles, 44 of those being “new” turtles that had not yet been ID’ed. There are a total of 8 turtles that have trackers on them, and although we have recently stopped trapping due to the hot temperatures and low water levels (both of which lead the turtles to move), we continue to track those eight turtles to see their patterns and movements. Tracking these turtles has shown us that they are using the bogs that have been restored! This is very exciting as it shows how quickly they can acclimate to the new wetland environment and that once all of Windswept is restored, the turtles will still utilize the habitat.
Birds
One of the highlights of last summer was going out and banding oystercatchers, however, this year I learned so much more about all shorebirds. The Colonial Waterbird Survey was completed earlier this summer (reported on in a recent blog post) and this was an experience like no other! I got to see new waterbirds up close that I had not seen before, as well as their nests and chicks. Outside of the Colonial Waterbird Survey (which only happens every five years), our attention was focused on endangered shorebirds like the Piping Plover, American Oystercatcher, and Terns. I saw the nesting process, and was able to learn how to find the nests and differentiate between them, which made it all so much more rewarding when they hatched as baby chicks!
A new project this year was the Tree Swallow Bird Boxes out at Milestone Cranberry Bogs. These were put up in the hopes that they would supply habitats for Tree Swallows as they tended to nest in the old pipes used for the bogs. We assumed it was unlikely that they would acclimate to these new boxes so quickly but we were proven wrong in the best way possible! Four out of the sixteen boxes had complete nests, each with chicks that fledged. Most of the other boxes still had signs of birds using them even if the nests were not complete.
Beetles
Both the American Burying Beetle and the Southern Pine Beetle are important projects to NCF but for VERY different reasons. American Burying Beetles are being reintroduced to Nantucket with the help of the Roger Williams Zoo and the Nature Conservancy – Block Island Office, as they were once native to the island. They lay their larva in the carcasses of dead quail and pheasants, but without the high populations of those birds (due to hunting), the beetles have died off. This year, we had over 200 beetle pairs placed into dug out holes, each with their own bird carcass. As the summer finishes, we will do periodic checks to make sure they are laying larva and then take population counts to see the success of the project. Then, at the beginning of next summer, we will set traps again and see how many survived the winter. We are very hopeful for next year because we released so many pairs.
The Southern Pine Beetle on the other hand, although strong in population size, is not a beetle we want present on island. Throughout the summer, we went out weekly to check our properties, now twice a week, as it is the prime time for them to infest Pitch Pines. We check for signs of an infestation and keep a close eye on the trees’ health. Some signs include pitch tubes that look like popcorn balls all up and down the tree, needles turning a rusted-red color, and sawdust at the bottom of the trunk.
Along with all of these field projects, there are always tasks to be done in the office such as data entry, summary reports, photo sorting, and others that change from day-to-day. One of my favorite parts of this job is that I get to explore so many places on island that I have never seen before, even though I have grown up coming here. Each property has its own unique character, plant life, wildlife, and beautiful views. As the season comes to an end, the chicks have fledged, the turtles start to bury themselves in the mud, and it is time for me to return to school. I look forward to being back here next summer to see all that has changed as well as all that stays wonderfully the same.
Written by Meredith Broadus, Seasonal Wildlife Assistant