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,
by Bob Miller The section of Middle Farms that is just south of the road was burned on March 22nd by the Fishers Island Fire Department, led by Chief Jeff Edwards, as part of HLFM’s rotational burning program to maintain the maritime grassland. Prescribed burn of Land Trust grassland at Middle Farms
Elizabeth McCance From the President I’m not the only one preparing for an exciting summer at Fishers – so are the ospreys! Watching an osprey lay an egg at night courtesy of an Osprey Cam recording is a treat to behold, and one that was unimaginable a few decades ago. Technology aside, this year promises to
Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) Have you noticed the bizarrely-twisted trunks of so many of the Black Cherry trees on the Island? Their distorted shape is a result of natural pruning caused by a fungus, Apiosporina morbosa, known, quite descriptively, as Black knot. Black Cherry tree with Black knot disease taken along Treasure Pond
Horsetails (Equisetum sp.) Species in the genus Equisetum are living members of a group of plants, the sphenophytes, that dominated the landscape during the age of dinosaurs. Some grew up to 100 feet tall but today's plants of the Equisetum family are much smaller, even though some species in South America may reach 15
These century-old beech trees are dying. (But there is hope for a remedy.) Beech leaf disease (BLD) was first recognized in Ohio in 2012. American and European beech trees in the areas around New York City, western Connecticut, and Long Island, including Suffolk County, were showing the symptoms of BLD as early as 2019.
Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana) As described by its scientific name, Epifagus lives exclusively on the roots of beech trees, specifically American beeches. Beechdrops found on the eastern leg of Island Pond Trail. Photo by Jack Schneider Beechdrops are an annual plant that lacks leaves and chlorophyll, relying on energy derived
Tracking Avian Activity on Fishers Island, Month by Month The Henry L. Ferguson Museum holds intermittent bird observation data for Fishers Island that date back to the 1920s, initially recorded by Alfred L. and Henry L. Ferguson, Sr. and later in the 1950s and 1960s by Museum Curator H. Lee Ferguson, Jr. The scope
2022 Reported Bird Sightings on Fishers Island (There were 181 different species reported by observers this year. Of those, seven were new and added to our overall list of historic sightings. That list now contains 252 species.) The data are collected by a group of knowledgeable Fishers Islanders. eBird reports and Audubon Seasonal Bird
The third osprey egg was laid at Middle Farms nest shortly before midnight on May 2, 2022 – three days after the second egg.
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F.I. Sketchbook 2005
