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?

Francis - The First Day on the Job.

So my first day at Junior Rangers was okay. I had a good time, except for the part where I got putty in my hair. I learned about the gall on the poison ivy. A gall is an outgrowth on an organism. I forgot what species that gall was on the fox grape, but it was very interesting. It especially gave me a craving for jelly beans. 


Francis

Fiddling Around the Marsh - by Henry F.

Fiddler crabs scuttle up and down the beach

ducking into their homes, just out of reach

these tiny creatures run into their homes

As my friends and I walk, while  on the roam

as fast as these fiddler crabs go

how many get hurt, you wouldn't even know.

luckily their numbers keep them alive

otherwise their population would dive.  

out in the marsh flags go down.

each cluster is like its own town

these flags will help out Dr. Oktay

unless Lenny just wanted us away

Emily by ED

Today at the Field Station we met Emily; she is the mosquito lady of Nantucket. She is sitting at her desk in the lab using tweezers to sort through different kinds of bugs, pulling out only the mosquitos. Emily wanted us to help her sort out the bugs from the mosquitos. There are beetles, moths, flies, some bees and wasps, and of course there are lots of mosquitos. To catch the mosquitos she uses a dry ice trap. Dry ice lets out CO2 and to find humans the mosquitos use CO2 also. The traps were set in different habitats of the island because there are many different types of mosquitos; some areas are the marsh, grasslands, forests, and ponds. Emily's  trap works well and caught many mosquitos. She was catching all the mosquitos to see if any of them carried any diseases that were harmful to humans like West Nile Virus. If any of them carried the disease Emily would alert the public of Nantucket about the disease carrying mosquitos and the kind of habitat they like to live in. I enjoyed meeting Emily today because she is so friendly and she is helping protect the public of Nantucket one mosquito at a time.

Training Day by Orion D.

Training Day

July 2, 2014

Today I trained a new junior ranger named Clyde. The first thing we did was go on a little walk. On our way I told him some stories like when we caught a little snake and the year when we made deer fly traps. I also told him the name of plants. Then we went off the road and onto the path. The first thing I did was showed him the little stream that went to the pond. I showed him the geocache, which was a plastic rock with a bottom on it. Inside there is a field station necklace, a pencil, and a little pad where you can write your name when you find it. As we kept walking I showed him a place every junior ranger should hang out in once in a while. To get there you have to go down a deer path and then you find yourself in a little deer home which is like a canopy of branches with a huge rock in there. The rock is perfect to sit and read or hang out and talk.

Then we went out and went to the field of sumac. I showed him the Osprey nest. We kept walking to the sandplain grassland. I told him about how it is an endangered habitat and how there is only a couple miles of it left and Nantucket has a lot of it. Then we went back to the garage and saw that Lenny had a group that we would lead. Lenny told us to help him with the nets and asked me to show Clyde how to shave grass. When we got to the marsh we got the D nets and went right in and I showed him how to shave the grass. This means collecting the shrimp off the grass.

After that we crossed over to the little island. We saw a moon jelly and picked it up. We checked it out and put it back in the water. Then we went back into the marsh and sat in the marsh talking.

After the walk we had lunch and talked about what happened during the day. Clyde had to share the stories I told and I was asked about the questions Clyde had. The other junior rangers had to share what they didn’t know or had forgotten and remembered that day.

Then we got to take a dip in the ocean and when we returned our parents were there to pick us up. 

Cat - Bird

Meow

The simple meaning of ‘meow’ is easy

All you do is listen to a cat

For 12 months straight

And then you’ll now what ‘meow’ means

I know

My cat meows

And loud.

So it took less time

I wish I could explain

But there are no words for ‘meow’

Just ask my cat

She’ll say “meow.”

Bird

Bird on a pine

Looking fine

Now it’s gone.

It’s back again,

The bird on the pine

Looking so fine

And then it flies

Once again,

The bird on the pine

Looking oh so fine

And then it stays,

Mouth full of worms

She feeds to her little ones.