The Wrack
The Wrack is the Wells Reserve blog.
The Wrack is the Wells Reserve blog.
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.
Rick Chase from Chase Farm in Wells brought Bud and Bill to plow the Punkinfiddle corn and pumpkin patch, which is doubling in size this year.
It's a 20-year tradition: In each season of every year since 1989, birders from the York County Audubon Society have scoured the forests and fields, marshes and beach of the Wells Reserve, intent on counting all the birds they can see or hear in 3 hours. Teams spread out to cover four routes, never knowing what they'll encounter.
At yesterday's post-survey compilation, it was clear that the Muskie and Pilger trails were the hot spot. That's where most of the 127 warblers of 15 species were found.
Survey coordinator Joanne Stevens and data handler Nancy McReel have shared the full results from one of the birdiest quarterly surveys the Audubon team has done75 species.&
Here are a few faces from the reception we held in the Laudholm barn before our screening of A Chemical Reaction on May 6, 2010.
Wood Frog Friend
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Frog Pond Reflections
With the impressive amounts of rain in the last month or so, and some unusually warm temperatures in March and early April, I thought I would share some of the more interesting weather trends we recorded through our System Wide Monitoring Program here at the reserve. March was the wettest and warmest on record for the state of Maine!
Sanford, the town with York County's largest population, contains the headwaters of these five rivers:
It is the first warm spring day and just as the sun starts to set, the air comes alive with?high pitched peeping and what sounds like ducks quacking in the woods. That is when you know spring has officially arrived. The sounds are coming from two types of small frogs:?spring peepers and wood frogs.