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Author: Sarah Gladu

Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Nature Notes

The final fruits of summer are ripening. It is time to pick apples, find a lingering blackberry, and maybe discover a hazelnut that the birds somehow missed. If you lived here a thousand years ago, you might be drying the fruits you find and putting them in birch bark baskets to protect them from bacteria and insects. (Birchbark contains phytochemical compounds which act synergistically together to achieve antimicrobial and insect-repelling effects.) Wild animals are foraging the newly ripened seeds and final fruits of the summer, too. (…)

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Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Looking at Lakes and Ponds, Nature Notes

Sweet sound of summer on the pond Few sounds convey unadulterated wildness like a loons’ voice, floating over the water. Their trilling calls are a highlight of the summer soundscape on our lakes and ponds. Common loons are spring and summertime residents on these inland freshwater bodies. They spend the winter in coastal areas, and move inland in the spring for the breeding season. Males generally arrive first, to establish their territories, and the females return several weeks later. They construct their nests in the spring, building their nests right at the water’s edge – sometimes even on low mounds …

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Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Season's Successes, What's New

Ten years into their fruitful partnership, educators at Coastal Rivers and Lincoln Academy continue to deliver fresh and engaging curriculum to the school’s alternative education programs. A newly expanded focus on watershed science is providing students in the Ed Lab and IDEAL programs with hands-on, outdoor learning experiences designed to help them reach education goals outside the traditional classroom setting. (…)

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Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Nature Notes

Most often we see them in the distance, lying on the cold, knee-slicing granite with salt water drying on their fur, looking content as can be to bask in the sun. Sometimes their inquisitive faces pop up alongside our boats or even peer at us from afar at the beach. Who amongst us has not said something inviting to a seal in an attempt to communicate with them like we do with our pets? They seem so familiar, with their dog-like faces and inquisitive air. (…)

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Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Nature Notes

In nature, timing is everything. If the alewives were to migrate into the lake before the algae begins to reproduce, the fish fry will starve soon after hatching. If the buds burst open only to freeze, the trees will have sunk valuable resources into growth, only to have them damaged before photosynthesis even begins. Phenology is the study of events in nature and how these events are impacted by seasonal changes and variations in climate. (…)

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Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Nature Notes

Those sweet harbingers of spring Sometimes, when I am walking in the woods on a late-February day, I find areas in the snow beneath a maple tree that are slushy with dripping tree sap. Squirrels and other animals know that if they break the twigs on a warm day, the sap will drip and they can lap it up and enjoy the sweet sugars. Humans no doubt learned by observing this behavior, and have enjoyed sap and its by-products, syrup and sugar, for thousands of years. An indigenous friend once shared this Passamaquoddy story with me, which I love and …

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Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Nature Notes

Saving the world, one dam at a time Sweet creature of the peeper-filled pond, or road-wreckers? Everyone seems to have an opinion about beavers. Beavers are incredible – and bizarre – rodents with an impressive set of skills and some very specialized features. They can take down huge trees with their enamel-covered incisors in a matter of a few nights, and harvest the branches for winter food or building their dams and lodges. They have a double set of lips, one pair in front of their teeth and one behind, that allows them to navigate sticks through the water without …

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Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Season's Successes, What's New

The weather outside may be “frightful,” as the Christmas song goes, but Coastal River’s nature education staff are outdoors with students in every sort of weather, comparing habitats, identifying plant and animal species, building trail bridges, bird-watching, learning about winter adaptations, and more! Now that we have two educators, Sarah Gladu and Angela DesVeaux, the education program is serving more students than ever before.

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Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Climate, Looking at Lakes and Ponds, Nature Notes

Those of you living on or near a lake shore may have observed that lakes are freezing later in the season and thawing earlier than they did in the past. These changes in ice cover can impact the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of lakes and ponds.

The timing of ice cover on lakes in the winter, and its disappearance in the spring, are important indicators of climate change and have implications for summer water conditions (…)

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Posted on by Sarah Gladu Posted in Season's Successes

Coastal Rivers was fortunate to host not one but two interns in 2022: Stewardship and Facilities Intern Gunnar Nurme and Education Intern Abigail Van Slyke. It is always exciting to welcome new people onto our team, and the energy these young people brought was tangible.

Coastal Rivers internships are paid, and we are now in a position to be able to provide good housing for our interns, thanks to the generous gift of a house in Newcastle that was (…)

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