The Wrack

It felt great to be back at the Wells NERR after being away for four months, especially since I had spent much of that time wading through reams of data on dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll-a, and dissolved organic nitrogen from our four System Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) sites in the Webhannet and Little River estuaries.

The NERR system just released a 10th anniversary report on the activities, achievements, and growth of the System-Wide Monitoring Program. You can download the PDF at the NERRS website. You can learn more about the program by following the links under Monitoring on that site. Visit our Monitoring page …

For several years, the Wells Reserve has participated in the Maine Dragonfly and Damselfly Survey, a project initiated by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Sue Smith Bickford, our main odonate enthusiast, was away for most of the 2005 flight season, but today shipped off 14 specimens for identification. They will be inspected and entered into the …

Sixty-six second graders from South Berwick are out on the trails today, split into groups with six Wells Reserve docents. It's cool and gray, but most of them are prepared for their couple of hours in the woods, along the salt marsh, and on the beach.

On Friday, November 4, the House and Senate conferees agreed to legislation setting the FY 06 funding levels for science-related agencies and the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce. The $57.85 billion spending bill that was approved included $3.9 billion for NOAA, splitting the difference between the Senate mark of $4.5 billion and the House mark of $3.38 billion. The final figure for NOAA is…

Laudholm Trust is adding features to our website that will help members stay abreast of our work on behalf of coastal environments, as well as the latest information about activities at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. Please let us know what you think, either by commenting here or by communicating with us in person, by phone, or by email. This was the first blog entry at laudholm.o…

History, pumpkins, and fiddles were the conceptual underpinnings for the first Punkinfiddle festival in 2003. Fiddle music remains a key part of the festival.

It is probably a rare coastal beachfront property owner who is not aware that beaches are dynamic systems that erode and accrete in response to storms, sediment supply, rising sea level, and the proximity of sea walls, jetties, and other forms of coastal "armor." Many beachfront owners are also aware that "natural" barrier beaches and their dune systems are able to persist in the face of sea level rise by transgressing, or migrating shoreward.

Some say it's a copper beech, but the family that planted it and watched it grow for decades called it a purple beech. Who's right?

Appearing as wide as it is tall, the Wells Reserve's copper beech tree is a dominant presence. As befits a tree with such stature, the Reserve's beech has an interesting cultural and natural history.