The Wrack

Its been 7 years since we started collecting larval fish and 3 years since our last update (See Team Larval Fish at the Wells Reserve) so its time for another look at the wonderful world of larval fish! Weve had some exciting developments over that time and attended some professional meetings where we have made connections with other researchers working on early life stages of fishes.

I have volunteered at environmental centers for most of my life. The most popular question by far is some variation on "Where is everything? We didn't see anything!" They probably saw lots of things — but just didn't notice them.

Tonight's full moon is the first of two full moons this month. Modern convention will label it a blue moon.

On one of my first days here at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm, I was given a very simple task by my supervisor: familiarize yourself with the exhibit areas. ?As the sunlight illuminated the office floor and the cool breeze rushed through my window, as if beckoning me to go outside for a walk, staying indoors was the exact opposite of the interesting afternoon I had in mind. ?Reading displays and interpretive signs for hours seemed incredibly boring.

Thankfully, I was wrong.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco?Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 6/21/2015.

As I stood in the kitchen of my New York apartment coming to grips with the news of my fathers sudden death, something spooky happened. One of my fathers favorite tunes, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from the Monty Python film The Life of Brian, began playing. My father had been found dead only hours before, and now a clear reminder of him was spontaneously emanating from some luggage in the corner.

I assumed it was a cell phone ringtone, but standing there, in that most alone moment of my life, I had no explanation for why someone would be phoning a suitcase, or why my fathers song was suddenly playing.

This course, launched in 2013, provides guidance in collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing qualitative data and using the results to improve the quality of meetings, foster effective project management, and facilitate collaborative research projects.

Thirteen Head Start preschools from across York County visited the Reserve on numerous occasions this past year to experience the great outdoors and make exciting wildlife discoveries. They came in the fall, winter, and spring seasons to hear a nature-based story, meet a variety of animal puppets, create a related craft to take home, and walk the trails while engaged in scavenger hunts and sensory adventures.

Last week, we wrapped up one of the busiest school program seasons to date. Beginning the last week of April, school kids and teachers from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont (!) explored the trails here at the Wells Reserve. Some came for self-guided discovery, but many more learned from our team of volunteer docents a wealth of information about estuaries, wildlife, habitats, water quality, and much more. Today we celebrated their hard work leading these students in temperatures that ranged from 45F to 85F, in drizzle and shining sun, and learned just how big their impact was with a candy guessing game during our end-of-season potluck!

Last week the Salmon Falls Watershed Collaborative hosted 65 attendees at its 5 year anniversary workshop Protecting the Source at Springhill. The collaborative, facilitated by our Coastal Training Program,?coordinates long-term source water protection efforts among planning commissions, land trusts, watershed associations, water systems, and town, state, and federal agencies in New Hampshire and Maine.The collaboratives goal is to protect and sustain high quality drinking water in the Salmon Falls River watershed.The workshop was designed to highlight achievements made in the past five years for protecting water quality in the watershed and to generate and prioritize ideas for future work by the Collaborative. Pictures and workshop materials below, read about the workshop on Fosters.com.

Stellar interns in spring 2015 helped with camps, events, digitizing records, fish research, and program promotion.