What Lies Beneath: URI Surveys Rhode Island Waters
By     |    Nov 1, 2014
Posted in: BioBlitz, Blue Crab, Natural Science, Outdoor writing, Uncategorized, URI, URI Graduate School of Oceanography, US Fish and Wildlife, USFW     |    2 Comments

What Lies Beneath: URI Surveys Rhode Island Waters

  Note: SaNfaP is on Facebook! Go to facebook.com/scienceandnatureforapie and click on “Follow” to receive pictures, facts, and more about the natural world. Then suggest that your friends do the same. They’ll thank you.  -HM It takes Captain Tom Puckett a moment to decide on the most unusual fish he’s brought aboard the URI research vessel Cap’n Bert. Tall, lanky, and sporting curly gray hair, Puckett has been responsible for […]

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Hatching a New Group: Ocean State Bird Club
By     |    Sep 16, 2014
Posted in: Caterpillars of Eastern North America, land trust, National Audubon Society, Natural Science, Ocean State Bird Club, Outdoor writing, RINHS, Steere Hill Land Trust, Uncategorized     |    5 Comments

Hatching a New Group: Ocean State Bird Club

It’s dusk. A dirt parking lot (well, more like a clearing of dirt) retains a few cars, and further back there is a small circle of people sporting binoculars. They wear the full palette of the bird watcher’s color wheel: khaki, tattered khaki, dirty khaki, spanking new khaki, and new khaki stressed to look old. (We are nothing if not consistent.) A bearded young man in the circle speaks to […]

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Turtles from the Dust: Endangered Terrapins in Rhode Island
By     |    Sep 7, 2014
Posted in: diamondback terrapin, land trust, Natural Science, Outdoor writing, Rhode Island DEM, RINHS, turtles, URI, US Fish and Wildlife, USFW, Writing     |    No Comments

Turtles from the Dust: Endangered Terrapins in Rhode Island

The sand is fine grained and the sun is hot. Hundred Acre Cove in Barrington is just a few hundred yards away, but at the moment, there isn’t a shred of the cool breezes usually associated with being by the water. There are only scrub pines, weedy grasses, and dust. Lots of dust. Charlotte Sornborger carries a basket containing an empty green and white striped Newport Creamery plastic tub. She […]

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Diamonds in the Surf
By     |    Aug 15, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized, URI, URI Graduate School of Oceanography     |    No Comments

Diamonds in the Surf

Note: “Science and Nature for a Pie” is now on Facebook! Visit www.facebook.com/scienceandnatureforapie and “like” the page for ongoing discussions, photos, and factoids! Looking at them was like seeing diamonds scattered in the shoreline. They were translucent, and sparkled brilliantly in the wet sand as the sun caught them. There were thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, running the entire 1.5-mile length of Napatree Point Conservation Area. Shimmering, sparkling, a king’s […]

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An Antenna on Napatree? What is this neighborhood coming to?
By     |    Aug 3, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized     |    No Comments

An Antenna on Napatree? What is this neighborhood coming to?

Note: “Science and Nature for a Pie” is now on Facebook! Visit www.facebook.com/scienceandnatureforapie and “like” the page for ongoing discussions, photos, and factoids! Taylor Swift’s cell phone tower? Some new spying gadgetry from the NSA? Wrong on both counts. Then why on earth is a 40-foot tall antenna rising from the dunes at Napatree Point Conservation Area in Westerly, RI? Fear not. This is an instrument being used by doctoral […]

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The Mid-Summer Moth Mingle
By     |    Jul 27, 2014
Posted in: BioBlitz, Caterpillars of Eastern North America, Franklin Farm, Light pollution, Moth Mingle, Moths, National Audubon Society, National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders, Natural Science, RINHS, Roger Williams Park Zoo, Uncategorized, URI, USFW     |    2 Comments

The Mid-Summer Moth Mingle

Note: “Science and Nature for a Pie” is now on Facebook! Like the page for regular updates on new stories, photos, and other discussions about the wonders of the outdoor world! www.facebook.com/scienceandnatureforapie . If moths and butterflies thought like human children, they would be embroiled in a never-ending case of sibling rivalry. “Why do the butterflies get all the attention?” the moths would moan. “People never even notice us!” The […]

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What is a Gall, after All?
By     |    Jul 15, 2014
Posted in: Kettle Pond, mites, National Audubon Society, National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders, Natural Science, Rhode Island DEM, RINHS, Roger Williams Park Zoo, Uncategorized, US Fish and Wildlife, USFW, wasps, Writing     |    No Comments

What is a Gall, after All?

Note: “Science and Nature for a Pie” is now on Facebook!  Stop by and “like” the page for ongoing stories, photos, and discussions about the great outdoors! https://www.facebook.com/scienceandnatureforapie “You have some gall saying that to me!” “Man, that guy galls me!” It’s difficult to determine precisely how common these expressions still are, but most will recognize the idea that having “gall” or to “gall” someone is not a good thing. […]

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Chowder, Clam Cakes, and Cigarettes: Rocky Point Shore Dinner Hall
By     |    Jun 24, 2014
Posted in: Rocky Point Park, Uncategorized, Writing     |    8 Comments

Chowder, Clam Cakes, and Cigarettes: Rocky Point Shore Dinner Hall

Note: The 2014 BioBlitz was held at what’s left of one of Rhode Island’s legendary attractions: Rocky Point Amusement Park.  That story is in a different post.  What follows here is a memoir of my time spent  working as a busboy at my first job, at the Shore Dinner Hall. The story goes that river boat captain William Winslow brought the genteel set to Rocky Point in the 1840’s for […]

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Life amid the Ghosts: BioBlitz 2014 at Rocky Point
By     |    Jun 24, 2014
Posted in: BioBlitz, Central Fall Middle School, Moths, Mushrooms, National Audubon Society, RINHS, Rocky Point Park, Roger Williams Park Zoo, Uncategorized, URI, US Fish and Wildlife, USFW     |    No Comments

Life amid the Ghosts: BioBlitz 2014 at Rocky Point

  From the mid-19th century until the late 20th, it was a fantasy land of adventure. Rides, games, food, music. Over its 150-year life cycle, it was a world of vaudeville acts and 1970’s metal bands playing in the Windjammer Lounge. Visitors swam in a salt water swimming pool, filled from the rocky waters of Narragansett Bay, whose cool breezes swept the park from only feet away. They arrived by […]

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Masters of Construction: Bird Nests
By     |    May 18, 2014
Posted in: BioBlitz, Kettle Pond, National Audubon Society, Natural Science, Ningret Wildlife Refuge, Ninigret, Red Bellied Woodpecker, Rhode Island DEM, RINHS, Roger Williams Park Zoo, The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge, Uncategorized, US Fish and Wildlife, USFW     |    No Comments

Masters of Construction: Bird Nests

  Consider this: the average human brain weighs roughly 1300 grams (2.86 pounds). A warbler brain weighs about 513 mg. (.00113 pounds). But while a human must spend untold hours and tens of thousands of dollars in order to learn to build a house, the warbler does so as a natural part of its growth process, and in response Spring’s most basic instinct: the urge to procreate. Granted, the plan […]

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