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The Wrack

The Wrack is the Wells Reserve blog, our collective logbook on the web.

Why "The Wrack"? In its cycles of ebb and flow, the sea transports a melange of weed, shell, bone, feather, wood, rope, and trash from place to place, then deposits it at the furthest reach of spent surf. This former flotsam is full of interesting stuff for anybody who cares to kneel and take a look. Now and then, the line of wrack reveals a treasure.

  • Energy Initiative: The Sun is Shining Brightly

    | October 3, 2013 | Filed under: Culture

    At the start of 2012, the reserve embarked on a multi-year, ambitious energy conservation and conversion initiative.

  • Two Decades of Saw-whet Owl Banding

    | October 1, 2013

    Bird bander June Ficker recalls how she got started netting saw-whet owls, shares some details about the birds she has banded, and explains a few precautions taken during the autumn saw-whet season&

    Northern Saw-whet Owl in the hand with wing spread

  • Thank You, Troop 356!

    | September 24, 2013

    BirdhouseThanks to the aspiring Eagle Scouts of Troop 356, the Wells Reserve now has new real estate options for its nesting avian neighbors! This group of generous and hard-working scouts crafted and installed five new bluebird houses at the Reserve this month, and we have already had at least one bluebird fly in for a closer look. An additional ten birdhouses were donated by the Troop, to be used for a community birdhouse workshop at the Reserve in the spring of 2014. Many thanks to Troop 356 for your kind gift!

  • Leafing It All Behind

    | September 17, 2013 | Filed under: Observations

    Punkinfiddle is our last big event of The Busy Season and it always makes the fourth week of September feel like a the turning point  exit summer, enter fall. Frost threatens, jackets are located, the kids are ensconced once more in school.

  • Crafts Festival Recap and Thank You

    | September 10, 2013

    Crafts Festival crowd on Saturday morningWe enjoyed a fantastic 26th crafts festival. Take a look at these stats:

    • 2nd largest attendance this century (~3,500)
    • most crafters ever (109)
    • largest gross profit ever (maybe net profit too? we're still counting)
    • oodles of member renewals, new members, and rejoining-after-many-years members
    • 219 high-fiving volunteers
    • 30 businesses donating goods
    • 104 raffle items donated, valued at $8,324

    Valerie McCaffrey poses with a number of her garden guardiansWe tried something new this year  awarding three People's Choice awards based on the number of raffle tickets entered into each donated piece's box.

    Congratulations to these inaugural winners:

  • The Food & Climate Change Connection

    | September 9, 2013

    Over 85 people filled the Mather Auditorium a couple of weeks ago for "You, Your Food, & the Survival of the Planet" with panelists Mort Mather, John Piotti, and Representative Chellie Pingree. The panelists answered a variety of moderated questions, and then the audience had the opportunity to ask some of their own. Following are some highlights from the notes I took during this most exciting evening!

  • Monarch Rescue 2013

    | September 9, 2013

    Several weeks ago, a dedicated group of volunteers set out into the milkweed fields to rescue monarch eggs and caterpillars, just before the Reserve's annual mowing. This is the third annual Monarch Rescue effort, and this year the results were sobering. After nearly three hours of searching the undersides of milkweed leaves, our team of fourteen only came up with two caterpillars (and one already empty monarch egg case). In 2010, 37 eggs and 25 caterpillars were rescued by our team, and in 2012 we rescued 90 eggs and 22 caterpillars (we didn't have a Rescue in 2011).

    monarch rescue

    Scientists in the monarch's wintering grounds in Mexico documented a 59 percent decrease in butterflies last year. Loss of habitat, drought, the use of pesticides, and climate change are all thought to play a role.

  • The King of Annual Family Migrations

    | September 4, 2013

    The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 9/8/13:

    Monarch on milkweed leavesFor the past 34 years, my mother has thrown a family reunion on Labor Day weekend. Thirty to fifty of us arrive from all over the Northeast and Canada for four days of feasting, toasting, singing, dancing, even a Geezers vs. Young Bucks softball game. Its an annual weekend devoted to celebrating, shoulder to shoulder, our lifelong ties and the continuity of our families and traditions.

    Meanwhile, for those who devote themselves to the monarch butterfly, there has been no celebration yet. This month, on this side of the Rockies, monarch adults from Maine to Alberta should be flying 2,500 miles back to a few square acres within the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a World Heritage Site sixty miles northwest of Mexico City, where they overwinter from October to March. They should be, but they arent.

  • Tracking Songbirds Over the Gulf of Maine

    | September 4, 2013

    Goal

    To improve understanding of spatial and temporal patterns of migratory land bird movement in coastal and offshore regions of the northeast, in order to assess vulnerability to offshore wind development and guide responsible siting of turbines.

  • Building a Hoop House

    | September 3, 2013

    We're setting the stage for growing vegetables throughout our Maine winter with the installation of a hoop house alongside our existing garden. Thanks to York County Master Gardeners for constructing it as part of our joint workshop series.

    Hoop house under construction during York County Master Gardener workshopThis hoop house is a modified Gothic-arch high-tunnel design oriented roughly east/west and is light weight and movable (a movable greenhouse allows soil to be restored by sun, rain, and deep-rooted cover crops). Row covers of translucent fabric, such as Agribon or Remay, will be laid over a wire armature to offer an additional layer of cold weather protection.