The Wrack

Last week, the Reserve hosted twelve middle and high school teachers from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and Louisiana for Teachers on the Estuary (TOTE) II, a field-based workshop focused on estuary and watershed education. This is the third TOTE workshop held at the Reserve, but unlike the first two, this year's TOTE was only open to teachers who had already participated in a New England TOTE workshop at either the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), the Waquoit Bay NERR in Massachusetts, or the Narragansett Bay NERR in Rhode Island.

Some rotting wood on the outside of the cow barn needed attention, so John was pulling off the beadboard siding this forenoon. At first, he thought he was seeing things, but soon a clear picture emerged. What appeared behind the boards?

WELLS, Maine, July 25, 2012  A 34-acre woodlot in Wells is seen as a testing ground for managing timber for long-term gain while maintaining its value for wildlife, clean water, and recreation. The Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve will complete a partial harvest of its Yankee Woodlot this fall while hosting a series of four workshops that will encourage participants to get involved in the process.

This summer the Wells Reserve's Interpretive Education Associate, Paige Rutherford, revamped and restructured the Guided Tours program for the season. Paige prepared all the docent training materials, organized outlines, templates, scripts, and resources, and held training sessions in late June.

The newly trained volunteers will be leading History of a Saltwater Farm, Life Between the Tides, Secrets of the Salt Marsh, and Nature Walk tours as well as other guided tours throughout the summer!

Shaza and I were really excited about our first week long camp!

The campers arrived and moved into their new classroom for the week in the barn.?We started out by determining what a researcher was and talking about the different types of research we would do throughout the week. Each camper got their own research journal to record and draw their data and discoveries throughout the week. Each day started with a weather log and then proceeded into the specific habitat for the day.

The facilities manager and caretaker of the Wells Reserve is also a member of the family that purchased the farm in 1881. Charles Lord is moving to Germany, so I joined his last history program of the season.

Fellow Research Intern Tim Dubay and I have been working with Jeremy Miller this summer to expand the Wells Reserves ongoing larval fish project. We're "Team Larval Fish!"

The Shoreys Brook dam came out in November 2011, and since then the brook has been steadily carving its way through the sediment that has collected for over a century in the impoundment. Vegetation is starting to take hold in places, but it will be a few years before it begins to look like anything but a large mud pit. As old sediment flushes away, older substrates begin to emerge along the stream bottom, showing signs of what the brook once looked like. Gravel, cobble stones, and even boulders can now be seen littering the stream, which is a positive sign for the restoration team. Rainbow smelt are looking for just this type of stream bottom to lay their eggs on in the early spring.

A big congratulations to Stephanie, Suzanne, Sue, and Nancy for passing the Registered Maine Guide Sea Kayak exam. Maine is one of the few states that requires outdoor guides to be licensed to maintain a quality of outdoor recreation for visitors, as well as to protect our natural resources when visiting wild spaces. It is one of the most difficult guide exams to pass. Usually, half of the people taking the test fail on their first try. Not these ladies! They will continue to hone their guide skills this summer during our kayaking programs.

Have you ever wondered what watershed conservation is all about?? Do you often consider where the water in your local river travels, and how its care affects your community and others down the river?? Here at the Wells Reserve we work with watershed conservation on a day-to-day basis.? Watersheds are areas of land which share a common featureall water that flows above or underground drains to the same place.? The Saco River watershed connects diverse areas such as North Conway, NH, and Biddeford, ME.? The lives of the people who live within these areas are affected by the healthconservationof their watershed.