The Wrack

Its that time of year& fall is in the air and (if youre a brook trout) love is in the air too! October and November is prime spawning time for Eastern Brook Trout. Theyve been fattening up all summer on aquatic insects. Now the mature females have bellies full of eggs and are looking for a spots with cold, clear water and loose, clean gravel where they can make their nests, called redds.

Doing a butterfly sit instead of a bird walk.

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!"

I was out on the salt marsh this morning  the sun-baked, no-shade Little River marsh  to learn a bit about Jenn Dijkstra's research and couldn't help but notice a number of winged creatures. The mosquitoes weren't too bad (they were worse in the woods on the walk down), but as soon as I reached the research transect an early green-headed horse fly sortied to my left shin. The menacing tabanid maneuvered around my counter-strikes, making several quick attacks before succumbing to an overwhelming force. I usually think of greenheads as a July annoyance, so I was unpleasantly surprised to have to battle this one.

Our International Migratory Bird Day celebration on May 12 offered myriad activities for visitors of all ages. The event kicked off with a bird walk. Many warbler species were observed, including the rare Worm-eating Warbler.?June Ficker and her faithful team of volunteers demonstrated their bird-banding process all morning, allowing visitors to carefully release the captured birds once the data collection was complete. Special guests Allison and Jeffrey Wells, authors of the new book Maine's Favorite Birds, gave a presentation about migratory birds followed by a book signing.

When birder Brian Harris photographed a Barnacle Goose on the Moody marsh, he documented a new species for both the Rachel Carson refuge and the reserve. For the reserve, this would be species number 265.

For years now, we've been handing out Seafood Watch pocket guides so people can make more careful decisions about what fish and shellfish to buy or avoid. The Monterey Bay Aquarium publishes regional guides, so the information is tailored to residents of the northeast, for example.

Now the aquarium has made ocean-friendly seafood recommendations even more convenient for smartphone users with its Seafood Watch app for iPhone or Android. At our house, the printed "pocket guide" often lived under a magnet on the refrigerator or got pierced by a thumbtack on the bulletin board, rarely making the trip to market. Now we will have the critical data in hand, as our mobile devices don't get left behind.

I noted 132 species during 2011, but only 92 of the ones on our "99 common birds" checklist. These are the ones I missed:

1. Lesser Yellowlegs
2. Spotted Sandpiper
3. American Woodcock
4. Eastern Wood-Pewee
5. Great Crested Flycatcher
6. Red-breasted Nuthatch
7. Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Charles, Mark, and Frank installed seven bat houses within four of the Reserve's fields today, in an effort to provide habitat for the local population of these insectivorous flying mammals who eat up to 1,000 insects per hour. Below are pictures taken during one of the installations. We are hoping that bats will move in to this new real estate in the spring!