Nature Notes: Beech Leaf Disease on Fishers Island by Jack Schneider Beech tree groves are mystical places, the source of legend, poetry, and metaphor.1 The green canopy creates a deep shade, the open understory interrupted by the sturdy, gray elephantine trunks, the forgiving fallen leaves laced by serpentine roots. These groves are evocative and
by Steve Young, Chief Botanist, New York Natural Heritage Program If you happen to be in New London, Connecticut and look to the south, you will see Fishers Island, a mysterious and unknown place to many people and before last summer that included me. It is an extension of the Harbor Hill glacial moraine
by Terry McNamara Dock Beach. It is July and the sky is a bright baby blue. You are wading out toward the swimming rafts, chatting with a friend. Suddenly, you feel the touch of something on the topside of your foot, breaking your idyll. Some underwater menace with several pointy legs scurries across your foot. After a good shriek,
Nature Notes: House-hunting Ospreys by Rob Bierregaard The decade of the 1980s was a buyers’ market for househunting Ospreys. Two decades before, our widespread application of DDT on coastal marshes caused Osprey population numbers to plummet. New England Ospreys were decimated (literally) to about 10% of their pre-DDT levels because breeding Ospreys couldn’t raise
The term ‘predator’ may bring to mind images of a muscled mountain lion ready to pounce in an isolated gully or a muddied crocodile lying in wait at a quiet Saharan watering hole. Fishers Island hosts its own murderer’s row of predators, no less fascinating though decidedly less threatening (to humans, at least), and they each have a vital role in keeping the island’s ecosystem healthy, diverse and robust.
A pair from a drone with the remains of dinner. Photo by Todd McCormack Osprey Fledglings Report 2020 by Ken Edwards, Sr. We had 42 fledglings on 18 sites, a new high for Fishers Island. The past high was in 2018 with 34 on 17 sites. This year we had great
NATURE NOTES “Sleuthing for Rare Plants on Fishers Island, Suffolk County, N.Y.” Edwin H. Horning outside the second Museum building. Photograph by Ethan Kibbe, circa 1997. Mr. Horning (1919-2008) was the curator of the HLFM from 1970 until 2002. by the late Edwin H. Horning, former curator, Henry L. Ferguson Museum Originally
Nature Notes Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) by Terry McNamara Muskrat swimming. Photo by Justine Kibbe. The muskrat may be the most common semi-aquatic mammal on Fishers Island, yet it is rarely observed. The first reaction you may have when encountering a muskrat is to identify it as a large rat. A well-fed mature
Pool Party for Spring Peepers Museum April 2020 Spring Peeper The wonders of nature never cease, and in our current circumstances time spent focusing on the natural world provides a welcome relief from the news. Spring has arrived and with it comes the nighttime sound that heralds the change in seasons: the
Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS. (Lontra canadensis) by Terry McNamara The sight of a group, or “romp,” of otters crossing the bank of a pond with their playful, loping gait can’t fail to elicit a smile. Sleek and weasel-like, these carnivorous mammals have rich brown fur and grow to between three and four feet
