Nature & Science
April showers bring May flowers and also, perhaps, a torrent of toads!
The wet weather could inspire more than just the ducks. The large amount of rain last week was plentiful enough to bring out spadefoot toads. Spadefoot toads need at least two inches of rain and a drop in barometric pressure before they are persuaded to venture out of their comfy underground burrows.
I guess you could call it forensic ornithology — assembling a story or an answer by linking bits of information, like detectives solving a murder on all those TV shows I don’t watch. Anyway, birders do it a lot.
The Trustees of Reservations may be forced to close Wasque Reservation this summer if the erosion which has ravaged the southeastern corner of the Chappaquiddick reservation continues at the current rate, superintendent Chris Kennedy told the Edgartown conservation commission on Wednesday night.
Mr. Kennedy said there is a very real possibility that the parking lot at Wasque used by visitors for beach access will be gone by summer.
As a photographer I am always keeping my eyes open for new things to shoot. Often subjects have a way of finding me.
Dr. Paul Goldstein did not get stung by a bee last summer. That’s unremarkable unless you account for the fact that he tried to catch every kind of bee on the Island, bagging some 10,000 samples.
Two of the brightest nighttime celestial objects will rise together in the eastern sky tonight. Saturn and the moon are in the east and closest on Sunday night when it is full. On the Vineyard, we call that full moon the Daffodil Moon, to coincide with the seasonal arrival of the Vineyard’s favorite spring flower.
Almanac
A comprehensive guide to weather and tides on the Island.
Vineyard Gardener
I guess this past week weather-wise is called a January thaw. We did not really experience it the last several years as December was unseasonably warm.
Farm & Field
Beige and brown and tan and black, with horns spiraled or semicircular or in undulating waves, a legion of goats marched up the hill toward us, bleating in anticipation of fresh grass and leaves.