Updates from the Field
Explore the latest science news in the Gulf of Maine, our ongoing research projects, Information about STEM and science education, and the natural history and phenology of Hurricane Island.
Cait and I visited Hurricane Island yesterday (April 10th, 2014) and were excited to see that some of our favorite trees have buds on them! It must finally be spring! If you are interested in tracking the phenology of plants around you, be sure to join Project Bud Burst or the USA National Phenology Network and submit your observations throughout the seasons.
From left to right: Horse Chestnut, Speckled Alder, Mountain Ash, Common Elderberry
Northern Black Racer Lifecycle, Zoe Keller
I wanted to share a few thoughts about the importance and relevance of scientific illustrations in effectively investigating and communicating science. During the programs we run on Hurricane Island for students, we often dedicate time to nature journaling and drawing from observations of newly collected samples or specimens.
Why bother drawing when you can just snap a photograph? For one thing, drawing forces you to look more carefully at every detail of your subject as you depict it on the page. Illustrations can also simultaneously show several different stages of development, multiple angles, and highlight specific characteristics of the subject while still keeping it in the context of its environment. Most importantly, drawing allows you to omit distracting information to help focus the viewer on the details that are key to identifying an organism, or are important to that subject's life history. Zoe Keller has a beautiful example of this in her illustration of the lifecycle of Maine's Northern Black Racer snake Coluber constrictor (you can see more of her illustrations in her blog, Compass and Wheel). In one compelling image, Zoe is able to convey important information about how the pattern of Coluber constrictor is different from juvenile to adult snakes, what this snake's eggs look like, the structural anatomy of this snake's ribs and vertebra, and how snakes shed their skin.
If you think you can't draw, never fear! You don't need to be an expert artist to take down valuable visual information that can inform you back in the lab more reliably than photography. Even if you start with simple gestural drawings that note an organism's movement, or sketches that inform coloration, patterning, and shape, this can supplement your field notes and help you remember more about what you observed.
If you are interested in reading more about how to make good observations, the importance of illustration, or want to see some great examples from different naturalists field notebooks, I recommend Field Notes on Science & Nature, edited by Michael R. Canfield.
Great news! It is gray seal (Halichoerus grypus) pupping season, and Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge is using a HD camera to give scientists insight into this event. It isn't easy to observe events that happen during Maine's worst weather conditions, and this camera means that scientists can observe seals during the whole pupping season from the comfort of their computer screen and without disturbing these 300-pound pinnipeds. Seal Island has the second largest gray seal colony in the United States, and is not too far from Hurricane Island (although Google Maps wouldn't give me directions...I suppose they are still working on their inter-island transit time). You can read more about gray seals here. Speaking of seals, if you want to come out to Hurricane Island for our Maine SEAL program, I promise you will get to see seals lounging on the ledges to the East of Hurricane Island!
This is a still still taken on January 15. Click the image to visit the video feed which broadcasts live starting at 10am every day.
Well, at long last you can use your smartphone as a microscope! Check out this $10 instructables hack. Out on Hurricane there are plenty of cool critters to see under a microscope with just a few plankton tows. We had fun with one of our most recent programs, the Eastern Maine Skippers, collecting zoo and phytoplankton from the waters just off Hurricane Island. Check out some of the critters we saw below:
But what else can you do with your phone? Try signing up for Marine Debris Tracker so you can record what you find on the coastline during your beach combing adventures! Or how about recording the cool intertidal invertebrates you find with Project Noah. There are tons of ways you can contribute to science while having fun doing it, so get to it!
For the past month and a half there have been many Northern Flickers and other woodpeckers flying quietly around Hurricane. Mostly I have only noticed them after they have been spooked and are flying away, but the underside of their wings is an unmistakable yellow that is visible even from far away. The Yellow-Shafted Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus is a unique woodpecker because it is actually often found foraging on the ground or perched upright on trees rather than against the trunk like their woodpecker relatives. Unfortunately, we found a beautiful female dead on Hurricane last week, likely from hitting a window.
Learn more about Northern Flickers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
