Join Sarah for a walk at Walpole Woods in South Bristol. This upland forest habitat provides wonderful cover and food for all sorts of animals and birds. See tracks left by jumping mouse, field mice red and gray squirrel, snowshoe hare, fox and more. Sarah also points out interesting plants and trees she encounters along the way.
In this online program, Research Ecologist, Conservation Planner, and Coastal Rivers trustee Peter McKinley takes a look at how the ecology of the Damariscotta-Pemaquid region ties in to other regions, including the boreal forest. He shares how individual property owners, no matter how large or small the property, can contribute to the larger landscape of wildlife conservation in this region.
Winterberry shrubs are easy to spot in Maine this time of year, when its red berries are often the only bright color on the landscape. Look for it in roadside ditches, in and around wetlands, and in soggy spots in the woods. From March to October this shrub is cloaked with dark, glossy, oval leaves, but in the winter the red berries stand out and draw us to take a closer look.
It was a clear, crisp January afternoon, cold, and the woods and fields were filled up with snow that had a hard, glazed crust and glinted in the lowering sun. Two young boys sat stiffly in the backseat of a station wagon, bundled up to their eyes in snowsuits and boots and knitted mittens, itchy flannel scarves, like tourniquets, around their necks and faces, and each had on a red woolen hat with a tassel on top.
“All right boys,” said the mother behind the wheel, slowing the car (…)
The Damariscotta River estuary is the backbone of our local economy. It offers incredible recreational opportunities and supports diverse and abundant wildlife. This invaluable resource is monitored on a regular, on-going basis by Coastal Rivers through a citizen-science water monitoring project.
In this recorded workshop you’ll hear from Sarah Gladu of Coastal Rivers and Kathleen Thornton from the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center. They discuss estuarine conditions and share observations made from their analysis of Coastal River’s water quality data.
Today I heard on the radio that the people in Point Barrow have seen their last sunrise and sunset for the year. Not until late next January will they see real daylight again. For them, it must be a sobering way of marking time – kind of a tough fact of life in their arctic winter. Yet, knowing how people are, I’m sure those folks up there must find some pretense or other to mark this day with some sort of celebration.
I would bet, however, that the day the sun returns will (…)
These handsome hats are embroidered with Coastal Rivers’ colorful kingfisher logo and the words “Damariscotta-Pemaquid Region” above the opening on the back. They are one-size-fits-all, heavy duty cotton with an adjustable closure. Available in two colors, navy or clay. Click to find out how and where to get them.
Coastal Rivers’ Wabanaki program has been a fixture for schools all over Maine for many years. Every October, busloads of schoolkids spend one or more days at Salt Bay Farm learning about Wabanaki material culture from a Wabanaki educator – listening to traditional stories, playing Wabanaki games, tasting wild edibles, etching birch bark, and helping to build a wigwam.
Teachers place a high value on this unique program that offers an immersive experience like no other.
But how to make it available to schools during a pandemic?
Take a road, any country road, and follow it into November’s landscape, over the hill and into the next valley and the next. Listen to the leaves whispering in your wake and let your eye roam over the fields, from house to house, past farms and through the woods. The lay of the land is bared once more. A black stream winding through alders flows into the distant tawniness of dead sedges and grasses, like a black jewel, beckoning to throbbing flights of migrating fowl to join the muskrat. A heavy rain borne on a cold wind has whipped gray branches clean in the night, and (…)
Coastal Rivers is working toward a goal of achieving carbon neutrality within the next 5 years. A major step toward this goal was to install energy-efficient heat pumps to heat and cool the renovated Denny Conservation & Education Center at Round Top Farm. The next step is to power those heat pumps – and the bulk of our electrical needs overall – with solar-generated energy. Joining with Kieve-Wavus in a Power Purchase Agreement has moved us closer to that goal.
