Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary

Nor’Ida Whips up a Wild Weekend at Wellfleet Bay

Tropical depression Ida landed in the Northeast and Cape Cod last week as a nor’easter. While we were spared the heavy rains that fell just over the bridge, the Cape was pummeled with strong winds that gusted over 40 mph at times on Friday and Saturday. Despite the wild weather, 13 hearty folks came down to Wellfleet Bay to spend the weekend with us looking for stranded marine animals as part of an adult Cape Cod Field School.

Mid November is the traditional peak time for strandings of cold-stunned sea turtles on bayside beaches. The field school was organized to take advantage of this and enlist the help of the participants in the rescue of sea turtles off the beach, as well as provide them with a unique educational experience. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t cooperate. With the winds out of the east-northeast and balmy temperatures in the 50s, the conditions were not right for turtle strandings to occur.

While we didn’t find any cold-stunned sea turtles, there were plenty of unique educational experiences throughout the weekend.  Given the winds, the group patrolled Sandy Neck and Scusset Beach in search stranded marine life and got an insider’s look at winter beach ecology. The group assisted with the removal of a 250 pound + ocean sunfish from a Wellfleet beach which was brought back to the sanctuary for a group-assisted necropsy. A peek inside a deceased Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle was also a thrill for many of the participants. And the weekend ended with a cruise into Wellfleet Harbor to see grey seals and seabirds and ducks. A rare sighting of a pilot whale within the harbor was also a thrill! Visit Don Lewis’ Turtle Journal for details on the weekend—complete with photos and video.(Ed. Note: You can also follow Don on Twitter @turtlejournal.)

The weekend was led by Sanctuary Director Bob Prescott, Naturalist Dennis Murley, researchers Don Lewis and Sue Wieber Nourse (who provided these images), and Carol “Krill” Carson, adjunct professor at Bridgewater State College and founder of NEBShark. The collective energy, enthusiasm, and knowledge combined with the participants’ sense of adventure and good humor, made for a great weekend.

Melissa Lowe

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"Hoo, Hoo, Hooooo" It's the Haunted Forest!

The Haunted Forest on October 30th was blessed with relatively mild weather, and a good time was had by all. Visitors were led up a path lit by imaginative jack-o-lanterns, and entered  the Halloween decorated auditorium for cider and treats and an assortment of crafts and games to while away the time while waiting for their turn to tour the forest. Every 15 minutes guides took groups through the field and into the forest. Luminaries lined the path, the moon was almost full, and the atmosphere was appropriately spooky.

The tour began with “Rachel Ray” and her forest recipes, and the guides then introduced visitors to many creatures of the forest: a luna moth, a skunk, an owl, a bat and a raccoon. They also met a witch who lived in the forest and was concocting a “composting brew”, and walked past a graveyard where “campers” told scary tales.

The Haunted Forest has been an annual event for many years now, and would not be possible without the efforts of staff and many volunteers, both Wellfleet Bay volunteers and students from Nauset Regional High School. Our thanks go also to the local businesses who donated food and holiday decorations to help make this event yet again a successful fundraiser to help us continue our teacher visits and education programs in Cape Cod schools.

Cynthia Franklin

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Ducking the Harlequin

According to Birds of North America online “this sea duck occupies a niche that is unique among North American waterfowl. The Harlequin Duck uses clear, fast-flowing rivers and streams for breeding and is able to move swiftly and with great agility in turbulent white water, diving to river bottoms to feed. After breeding, individuals migrate to the coasts of North America and Greenland, where they occupy the shallow intertidal zones of rocky coastlines. They forage close to shore and consume a varied diet, including small crabs, barnacles, and other small marine food items.”

The Harlequin appears dark overall from a distance.  As one draws closer, the plumage becomes more dazzling and colorful. The body is slate blue with chestnut brown sides.  It has white stripes and spots on its head, neck and sides. It also has rusty and white crown stripes on the top of its very round head along with a white vertical crescent between the back of the eye and the small blue gray bill.  A distinctive white facial dot is located behind each eye. Click here to hear the call of the Harlequin with its distinctive mouse like squeak.

These images were captured on Sun. Nov. 1, 2009 at Scusset Beach State Reservation located in Sandwich.  Skies were overcast with light winds. The ducks were bobbing in the surf and diving for food among the rocks at the east end of the Cape Cod Canal entry jetty. During the fall migration cycle, this is an excellent location to observe both migrant and wintering waterfowl. According to “Birding Cape Cod,” published by the Cape Cod Bird Club “this may be one of the best spots on the Cape to find the King Eider.” Other common migrating and wintering species found in this location may include: Northern Gannets, Common Loons, Common Eiders, Surf Scoters and White-winged Scoters. Please click here for additional recent images of the Harlequin.

Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay provides an online Cape Cod Weekly Bird Sightings roundup. The recent edition noted that “it's the time of year when interesting waterfowl begin to show up on the Cape. Ducks found during a recent birding round-up in Barnstable included a gadwall, a Eurasian wigeon, 96 American wigeon, 3 blue-winged teal, a green-winged teal, 101 ring-necked ducks, a bufflehead, a hooded merganser, 5 common loons, 5 pied-billed grebes, plus a blue grosbeak found in Marstons Mills.” The sightings list is updated weekly.

Enjoy!

Craig Gibson
Woods Hole

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Long, Strange Terrapin Season

Diamondback terrapin season has officially come to a close with the water temperature dropping and the turtles starting to go into hibernation. At the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, we had 59 total nests this year with 29 of them found and protected before skunks and raccoons could get to the eggs. Once hatching was underway, we were pleasantly surprised to find an additional 2 nests that had been missed by staff, volunteers, and the predators, bringing our nest total to 31! In addition to the terrapin nests, we also had 1 protected box turtle nest and 5 protected painted turtle nests.

We had a 68% success rate this year. No hatchlings or eggs were lost to maggots and only one to ants, but 14% were lost to root depredation, likely because of all the rain we had in June. We also lost 4 nests to a fox that figured out how to get under the predator excluders. The biggest loss was eggs that just didn't develop (32%), the vast majority of which were in nests that were laid in the last 10 days of the season. Despite everything, nearly 300 hatchlings were released back at the edge of the sanctuary's salt marshes.

This season the first nest was laid on June 13th and the last on July 27th, making this year's season 20 days longer than last year's! The first nest to emerge was on Labor Day after 86 days of incubation, which just shows how much the cool and rainy June affected the season when considering that the first nest last year emerged after 68 days.

So another successful terrapin season is now behind us, and it couldn't have been accomplished without our dedicated volunteers. If you would like to help us with this work next season, contact our volunteer coordinator, Cynthia Franklin.

Emily Goczalk

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Annual State of Wellfleet Harbor Conference

The Annual “State of Wellfleet Harbor” Conference will be held on Saturday, November 14, from 8:30 AM to 2:00 PM at the Wellfleet Elementary School.   The conference agenda is as follows:

8:30 - 9:00    Continental Breakfast, Sign In
9:00 - 9:10    Opening Remarks - Jerry Houk

Moderator - Ned Hitchcock

9:10 – 9:30    Monitoring Program for Herring River Restoration - Tim Smith                                   
9:30 – 9:50    Tidal Restoration and the Coastal GroundwaterAquifer - John Portnoy
9:50  – 10:10  Native Sea Run Brook Trout Restoration - Steve Hurley
10:10 – 10:30  Q and A Session
10:30 – 11:00  Poster Presentations and Break
11:00 – 11:20  Ocean Management Act as it applies to Wellfleet - Jack Clarke
11:20 – 11:40  Pharmaceuticals and Hormones in Ponds and Groundwater on Cape Cod - Laurel Schaider
11:40 – 12:00  Q and A Session
12:00 – 12:45  Lunch
12:45 – 1:05   Oyster Habitat Restoration - Mark Faherty
1:05  – 1:25   2009 Herring Count - Wellfleet Results - Jo Ann Muramoto
1:25  – 1:45   Methodology for Sampling Fin Fish - Ethan Estey
1:45  – 2:00   Q and A Session / Closing Remarks

The goals of the conference are to distribute information about current and ongoing research and monitoring projects that are taking place in Wellfleet Harbor and to identify citizen's concerns and questions about the health of Wellfleet Harbor.
 
The conference is free.  A continental breakfast is included.  No registration is required.

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