Walking the Wrack Line

The Salt Marsh by Nicholas M.

The salt marsh is without a doubt a highlight of the field station. It has many different animals in it; some of the most notable are the crabs that live there. There is the fiddler crab that is small and makes holes in the sand for it to live in. The male fiddler crab has a small claw and a big claw while the female has two small claws. In the water you can find many decorator crabs also known as spider crabs. These crabs are masters of camouflage and decorate themselves with rocks and seaweed hence the name. The marsh is home to the blue crabs that can grow extremely big and have powerful claws. Being pinched by one of these would really hurt. The salt marsh has many different birds such as cormorants and egrets. There are two different egrets in the salt marsh. The great and snowy egrets are the egrets that make their homes here. The great egret has a yellow beak with black legs and is larger than the snowy, which has a black beak and yellow legs. The plant life in the salt marsh is also very interesting. One of the plants is pickle weed, which has a salty taste to it. The grass in the marsh was once used to feed cattle. This would be different to the cattle because of its salty taste. As you can see the salt marsh is very important in the life of animals and even people.   

Nicholas M.

Strange creatures on the beach and Horseshoe Crabs too. 

lnrd

The Three Amiga's

Avacado

Seeweed

Mollard

Prepping Art Work for Friday Graduation Party

Raymond, Henry, and Orion

Rainy Day Fish by Sonia

Lenny by Molly A.

The World Wide Web

Raymond and Nicholas on a web adventure.

The Egret Crab - Nicholas M.

The Egret Crab is a creature that lives in some of greatest depths of the ocean. It has long legs that bend back giving it a very strange appearance. It has adapted like this to support itself on the ocean floor. Its body resembles an egret with its long neck. Coming out of its body are two skinny arms with claws on the end that it uses to catch its favorite meal, the Shelled Scuttler. On its long neck it has a small head with eight eyes. It has a long beak also similar to egrets for stabbing and eating. Its main diet the Shelled Scuttler is always the prey of these crabs for they refuse to eat anything else. The crab uses its claws to snap off all of the Scuttler’s tentacles. Then it sticks its beak inside and drinks the Scuttler like a smoothie. It is truly a fierce predator.

2009 video of Caillean leading a nature walk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k11QFHDEgk&feature=share

Thank you Wendy Hudson for the video.

The Pond Kraken pt 3 By Nicholas M.

I bet you have found yourself wondering, “Where do pond krakens come from? What is there origin?” well you can wait no more because we have figured it out. The life cycle of a pond kraken is a very interesting thing. As we know the pond kraken dies right after it expels its stomach full of yo-ho’s and these yo-ho’s at one point will die. When this happens they release spores into the air. These spores then float on the winds until they are above freshwater. They can feel when they reach freshwater with tiny little hairs on them that can feel the temperature of the air. When these plummet into the water they expand to about the size of a jellybean then they drift along the water until they can release their signature scent, which is extremely enticing to snapping turtles. The snapping turtles will go crazy trying to eat these spores.

When a snapping turtle swallows one of the spores it forces itself deep into the ground for its hibernation stage. During hibernation the only part of its former self it keeps is its shell, which becomes the krakens eye. This creates extremely strange patterns on its eyes. After five months it emerges as a fully-grown pond kraken. It then creates its burrow and begins its life.

Italian Ice. By Henry F.

Is also an ice pack

Tasty

Add to lemonade

Lemon flavored

Is good after working hard at the field station

Addicting

Nice with great books

Is good with pie

Cold

Eat cold or melted

How to: by Henry F.

How to sein :

(seining is when two people use nets with weights at the bottom, small buoys at the top and two sticks at either end to catch fish and other creatures)

step 1.  go into a body of water with fish and other small living things.

step 2.  have a group of people gather together.

step 3.  place the seining net in the water so that the buoy floats and the weights are at the bottom  which is about three feet deep.  

step 4.   have two people hold either end of the seining net

step 5.  have the rest of the people walk with the current, towards the net; stomp and make as much noise as you can to scare the fish and other creatures in toward the seining net.

step 6.  after the people have scared the fish in the net the two people walk together keeping the bottom of the net on the ground

step 7. after you have brought the net together grab the two sticks and tilt them sideways this will make the net like a bag

step 8.  now grab the bottom and the top and start pulling it toward you

step 9.  grab the whole net and bring it somewhere where you can examine the fish

How to shave grass:

step 1.  grab the net you want to use it cannot have any holes and must be at least 10 inches in diameter

step 2.  find some grass in the water and put your net in gracefully

step 3.  put your net to the bottom then pull up and repeat 4-5 times

step 4.  now look in the net for small fish and glass shrimp

Subject - Earth Creatures by Nicholas M.

Name-Dr.Faytuarge                                                      

Occupation-Asparugian scientist

Date            26-74-6N9

Location-Sector 5897-Milky way galaxy-Earth

Subject-Earth creatures

          Hello fellow Asparugians.  For todays lesson on earth creatures I am documenting the strange and terrifying Yellow Tounged Jimlob. This earth creature has a very odd way of catching its prey. It first wills creatures to pick it up and put it into a container. It then releases oil into this container that has very odd properties and affects the brain. Finally it uses its mind control once again to make its prey place this substance it creates into their ear. This obviously implies it is taking over their brain. After it does this, the earth creature apparently develops a strange attachment to the lowest creature on the earth food chain the Spectrum Swirled Freeze Slime. The freeze slime makes its home in a white exoskeleton with a tab on top for easy opening. Strange that the freeze slime has evolved to be easier to open.  The only known creature that that the jimlob has taken over is the Blue Horned Deranged Junior, which most believe to be an incredibly foolish being as it has been seen hitting its fellow deranged juniors with sticks and giving other earthly life forms the wrong names. Such as, calling the jimlob Saint John and the freeze slime Italian ice. As you can see earth has a remarkable ecosystem that I will give you more lessons on later through the year. 

Two poems from Nicholas M.

The Hounds

I arrive at the field station

To quite a fun time

Tess is barking at something in the pond

Lenny is making a rhyme

Lenny stands up

He decides what to do

He says, “Release the hounds!

So get the door you!”

Swedgen runs down the steps

Tess runs out of the pond

Oscar runs down the path

All of them respond

And the dogs all have fun

Playing a game of chase

These dogs can get crazy

So give them some space

Lenny

                          There once was a man named Lenny

For talents he had many

         He could make a rhyme any time

He was very nice about Italian ice

But for hair he doesn’t have any

Lady Crabs by Thomas G.

Lady Crabs

Lady crabs, or Ovalipes ocellatus, live in eastern North America. They are also known as calico crabs or ocellated crabs, because of the purple spots on their shells. They live in the Atlantic Ocean, from Canada to Georgia. They are generally 3.5 inches wide and 3 inches long. They have beautiful shells, earning the name “Lady” crab. Lady crabs are white to yellowish grey, with reddish purple mottled spots all over their bodies and claws. Female crabs use their tails to cover their eggs. Young crabs hatch in the early summer month, beginning their lives as zooplankton. They settle to the bottom of the ocean as crabs by early fall. Lady crabs are very aggressive and they have sharp claws. They also are very tasty. The crabs are often seen partially buried. At the field station in the marsh when I am looking for them, I try to cover as much area as possible. You will know when you step on them. They scurry away from under you and try to pinch you. They then get away very fast, as lady crabs can swim. Like most crabs, lady crabs are scavengers who eat whatever they can find.

By Thomas G

Directions by Ben G.

D irections are the basis for everything.

I ce is formed by water freezing and stops moving in any direction.

R ain falls down when rain gets to heavy

E  arth moves in a rotation around the sun

C ant follow directions…

T ime travels in no direction,  there's no one path

I n life, it can take ups and downs, twists and turns.

O ver and over, you become an idiot and lose your direction.

N o one  knows anthing about direction, only a elusion.

S tupid direction, messing up our lifes.

Directions Poem Courtesy of Le Gigi

Decisions and

Inquiring about where to go and the

Reason you are going there.

Everything you do

Can affect who you are and

That is why you need to take risks

In the sense that you only live

Once, so you should try as much as you can. If you

Never try anything because you are afraid. You aren’t living.

So, go any direction and you will find adventure.

-Le Gigi

Directions By Thomas

Dogs poop

In the woods

Rivers too

Eating random stuff

Cats hate them

Three times a year they have a war

In the quantum plane

October

November and

September the war goes on

By Thomas Glover

You can read this poem two different ways. The first way is you read the first word of every line. The second way is you read the entire line.

Directions By Nicholas

Deciding to follow them

If we don’t Lenny will eat us

Really lost

Everything is made of matter

Coming to a wormhole

The quantum plane is where wormholes exist

Immediately transferred through space and time

On a different timeline

Not the same way of evolution

Squids happen to be the dominant species

-Nicholas

TURKEY - An Acrostic Poem from Ben G.

T urkey's have feathers that shoot straight out when scared in an attempt to frighten predators 

U nder the sun Turkey's rest, soaking up the warmth

R ather than scatter like most birds would, turkey's attempt to stick together in the face of danger

K icking with their claws straight out and pecking predators with their beaks is a last resort but it keeps them wary.

E venings, the turkey's poof out their feathers and settle in the warm grass under the dying sun.

Y oung Tom Turkey's fresh from the flock,beheaded, gutted and plucked. Only .59 cents a pound. 

What's on his mind?

Sharp the shark by Orion D.

Hi I’m Sharp the shark.

 One day I was swimming at Surfside when I saw an injured fish. I went for it. I bit it and then suddenly a net dropped on me. It lifted me up and dropped me in a room full of water. The room was in a submarine! When I was swimming around in the room I heard a snide voice say, “set course for Nantucket. ’’ A high pitched voice said, “yes, sir.” We started going back to Nantucket. When we got there we started flying like a helicopter to town. When we got to town the snide voice said,  “they will be scared and then business will be booming.” They dropped me in the door frame of the Sea Dog . It started to rain. The storm drains got clogged. The water rushed up to me and I swam away.     As for the criminals, the cops caught them.

Silver Side by Nicholas M.

The salt marsh is a very nice place. I am an silver side that lives in this marsh. It is very safe for any fish that wants to live in here. There are crabs and other fish at the school of fish I live in. I was at school one day and we were learning about how to flee from predators then I hear a thump a huge foot that appeared behind us. I really hate these feet always interrupting class, and for what? They never catch us anyway. So I quickly swam off thinking of how boring this was.

Then I felt a strange thing on my face I kept trying to swim but I couldn’t go anywhere. I shouted for help but I realized every other fish was in this predicament too. Then I looked back and the walls had already closed then, in a rush of air we were out of the water.

Struggling to breathe I held on to my consciousness but I passed out. I woke up to “I think it’s dead.” I felt water around me and I realized that now was my time to escape. I swam off thinking “wow those feet are so dumb that they put me back in water.” It seemed too good to be true. Sadly it was, I hit my head on the glass and realized I was in a tank. At first I thought it would be torture but after a while it turned out to be great. The feet feed us and take care of us. All in all I am very glad that I got to live in this tank.

The Week In Pictures

Ben and Henry

Thursday Nature Walk led by Molly and Anjali

Ben shows some visitors mud fiddler crabs