The Timulla Contigua Ant - by Eliza D.

Today at the Field Station while walking up the dirt path from the garage to the lab Sarah noticed an interesting red ant with black and white stripes on its abdomen. Molly and I wanted to know what type of ant the ant was. Lenny thought the ant was a Velvet Ant because of its distinct markings; Sarah disagreed. We all wanted to know what type of ant it was so we trapped the ant in a vile and brought it to the lab. Then Sarah focused a microscope on the trapped ant and handed us a book on New England ants. She showed us how to use the book to identify our mystery ant. Molly and I looked for a long time but we never found out what type of ant it was. We decided to try using the new computer at the field station and used Google Crome. After changing our key words a couple times we finally found an ant identical to our ant! The name of the ant was Timulla Contigua and it was in the the same family as Velvet Ants. Lenny wasn't that far off in guessing what type of ant it was. We took the name back to the ant book and searched for it. Sarah even helped us search but still none of us could find it. We looked through the whole glossary and even flipped through the book. We realized the ant wasn't in the book; that's why we couldn't find it. Sarah told us she would contact the writer of the book to let him know he missed an interesting ant in his book. I hope I find another interesting ant soon.

field station-day 1 Clyde K.

Today, Orion and I went on a walk around the property. As we were walking, he told me some stories about what happened here. Here they are:

First, Orion told me when he and his friends tried to make candle wax with Bayberries. You can convert 5 lbs of Bayberries into 1 lb of wax, but that takes a loooooooooooong time, so they gave up. So, mission failure for them.

The next story was about when Orion and some others went to a board next to a stream here  and saw a Northern Water snake, a snake that can bite, but it isn’t poisonous. It can grow to be 2 feet long, it’s red and yellow, and it’s also shiny. Then, they put it in the road and it slithered away.

The last story was about when Orion and his friends were on the beach and they found a Bluefish. They took it onto the beach and tried to put in a bucket, but it was too big. Lenny asked if they wanted to keep it or let it go, and they chose to let it go.

So, this is some of the stuff that has happened at the Field Station. 

Naturalist in Training - Len Germinara

Wear muck boots

Write observations

Moleskin notebook

Bounce

Walk the shoreline

Manmade pond

A moment or two before sunrise

Avian murmur aligns with the spinning hum of the

Almost syncopated not quite rock and roll

Dance

The morning light reveals flags unfurled

Hundreds of spider webs dappled

Dew and insect

Sing

Box on a pole

With a hole

At water’s edge

Babies stuffed like cannoli  

Beaks smearcaked with bug bits

Sprinkle

By midmorning all but one will fledge

Out of the frying pan and

So it goes

Sit down to sketch

What is framed

By the mood you’re in

Out of the blue

A tree sparrow

Wings its way straight at you

Duck

A cormorant

Great and Snowy Egrets perched

Circles in the sand

At water’s edge

Blue Gills nesting

Deer Fly - buzz

The week that was

Beck and Francis, two new Jr. Rangers head out into the marsh.  A Black Crowned Night Heron takes wing.

It's Deer Fly season here at the field station.  Avacado and Seeweed prepare Beck and Francis to become Jelly Sticks.  The flies are attracted to blue and generally strike their prey at the tallest point.  Our jelly sticks will precede us wherever we walk. 

Don't they look ready?

Ben returns for his second year.

Beck, Nicholas, Ben, and Francis become Adjunk members of the Nantucket Clean team! 

They cleaned Polpis Road in front of the field station.  Not sure what happened to Ben, someone check that bag please.

Pictures of the Week

Deep greens and blues

This is the sock monkey that stole Nicks voice.

The Jr. Rangers fleet heads out into Eel waters.

Orion leads a lab.visit, talks about the entire process of keeping and caring for wild creatures.

Mollard and ED lead the nature walk on the 8th.  The total #of visitors that day was 16.  Great job JRR's, y'all earned an Italian Ice this week!

Cat Tales by the Pond - Anjali D.

A cat came to UMASS one day, bringing with it a towel, waterbottle, and kitty treats. It sat down by the pond across from Lenny’s garage and wrote a poem:

On the pond

A Cat tail sits

It mewls and meows

But to other it’s silent,

Just the whish of the wind

And the occasional croak of an unseen frog.

The cat dropped it into the pond and then left.

2 years later, a dog found it.  

The short life of a green crab by Nick D.

The short life of a green crab

One day, I (my name is Charlie, and I am an invasive green crab), couldn't find a blue crab for breakfast, so I traveled around the marsh hoping to find something. I did. Although what I found looked like a trap there was… HOT DOGS, so I crawled into the trap to find more of my crab friends, and they were saying “DON'T COME IN it's a trap!” But I didn't listen to them so I climbed in and started eating HOT DOGS when I realized it was a trap! I didn't see where I came in! So I tried to sleep for the little bit of life left for me but I didn't know that this was it. When I woke up I was being taken out of the trap. I was free! I tried to run away from the giant animals that were talking in a weird language but they caught me and I said “put me down!” but they didn't hear me. They let me go and lifted up their foot and it started coming down on me. And then…

END

To Be Continued?