Early morning photos from around Gloucester after yesterday’s beautiful snowfall
Good Morning Friends!
I hope you are doing well and taking good care. I have exciting news to share regarding virtual screening times for Beauty on the Wing at the Providence Children’s Film Festival for my Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island friends. The festival opens at 4pm on this coming Friday, the 12th. Tickets may be purchased in advance and you will then have seven days in which to view. Once viewing begins, you have 24 hours to complete the screening. The tickets are only $12.50. Purchase tickets here. I am going to be participating in a Q and A on the afternoon of Saturday, the 20th, and will let you know more in the next few days.
The festival is showcasing a fantastic lineup of films. I plan to purchase a full access pass and there is also a family access pass option for ten films. The festival takes place during February school vacation week and will be a wonderfully inspiring source of entertainment for you and your family. Here is a link to all the films showing at the festival: FILM GUIDE. Just two of the many films I am super excited to see are The Last Lighthouse Keepers and Microplastic Madness.
I hope you’ll have a chance to watch Beauty on the Wing virtually. The Providence Children’s Film Festival is a truly stellar organization devoted to bringing inspiring and educational films to families in Rhode Island and the surrounding region. More information on how to participate in the Q and A to follow.
Take care dear friends and stay well.
Warmest wishes,
Kim
Dreamy fat flakes of falling snow around the Back Shore
Hello Friends,
It’s that time of year again when we occasionally find stranded seabirds on our beaches. Seabirds, also known as marine birds and pelagic birds, are birds that spend most of their time on the ocean, away from land. Ninety-five percent of seabirds breed in colonies. During the nesting season is the only time you will see them on land. Common Murre, Thick-billed Murre, Dovekie, Puffin, and Northern Gannet are examples of marine birds.
Seabirds can become stranded for several reasons. Possibly they are sick, injured, or starving. Seabirds are also generally clumsy when on land. Sometimes they are stranded for no other reason than they can’t make their way back into the water.
If you find a stranded seabird first check to see if it is injured. If the birds appears uninjured and relatively healthy, approach from behind, gently pick up, and place in the water.
Dovekie, the Little Auk
Thick-billed Murre
Northern Gannet
Wear gloves. When dealing with waterfowl, a thick pair of work gloves can prevent personal injury. A net is very useful for capturing animals that will try to flee or fly. If a body of water is nearby, get between the water and the animal. If the bird is not flighted, you can try to herd it towards an area like a wall or bush where you can more easily catch it.
A large crate or large box with air holes, lined with newspaper or a sheet/towel will work for most large birds.
Cover the bird’s head with a towel, keep the wings tucked into the body, and always be careful of its bill and wings. Immediately close the box.
Transport the bird to a wildlife rehabilitator or to Tufts Wildlife Clinic during clinic hours M-F 8am-5pm and Sat, Sun, & Holidays 9am-12pm. 508-839-7918
Tufts Wildlife Clinic
50 Willard St.
North Grafton, MA 01536
During transport, keep the bird in the box or crate, keep the car quiet (radio off).
If you need help capturing an injured or sick wild animal, the following are good resources for you to reach out to.
The rarely seen Black-headed Gull continues to make his home in Gloucester waters this winter. It’s super fun to watch his troublemaking antics, which include trying to snatch morsels of food from other gulls. Here he is getting into a smackdown with a Ring-billed Gull.
Black-headed Gull lost this round but after flying away briefly and dusting himself off, he jumped back into the fray.
Today, February 5th, 2021
A heads up for all the many people who enjoy walking the loop around Niles Pond. The berm is no longer a compacted path but is awash with rocks, pebbles, popples, and even some of the large boulders have become dislodged and knocked about.
A few snapshots more from Brace Cove after the nor’easter
The footage of the Eastern Point Lighthouse and Mother Ann was shot Wednesday afternoon as the storm was waning, about an hour and a half after high tide.
More wild wave clips from the February 2nd Nor’easter
Good Harbor wildly beautiful waves
Gloucester’s February 2nd Nor’easter brought rain, high winds, and area flooding. Both Nautilus Road and Atlantic Road were temporarily closed at high tide due to over wash. The waves along the back shore were tremendous!!
After a quick glance driving past the ice formation I at first thought it looked like a shark’s jaw. I turned the car around and stopped to take a photo (many, as it turned out) and am so happy I did. If you imagine a better caption, please write and share. Thank you
By Globe Correspondent,Updated January 29, 2021,
Two guests chat by the fireplace at the Grace Center’s winter home in the function hall of Gloucester House restaurant.SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF
A popular Gloucester restaurant known for its fresh seafood and harbor views has taken on a new role this winter as a temporary haven for people in need of daytime shelter, meals, and other assistance.
In December the Grace Center, a drop-in day program for homeless people run by Lifebridge North Shore, temporarily relocated from its regular quarters in the basement of the Unitarian Universalist Church on Church Street to the function hall of the Gloucester House Restaurant.
The arrangement, which has the active support of city and state officials, gave the center the added space it needed this winter to fully serve its guests while meeting social distancing requirements. The restaurant and its function hall are currently closed due to COVID-19, with plans to reopen in May.
“As a provider, it’s inspirational to see a business owner along with municipal leaders step up in this way,” said Jason Etheridge, executive director of the nonprofit Lifebridge. “We are bringing dignity to a group of people who otherwise would have nowhere to go.”
The Grace Center, normally open weekdays only, is able to operate seven days a week at the temporary site. Meals are prepared by the center’s staff and volunteers using the restaurant’s kitchen.
The Grace Center’s wintertime move reflects the creative work-arounds many shelters have devised to continue operating during a pandemic.
Joe Finn, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, said the health crisis has revealed that the state’s shelters were not set up for social distancing. When COVID-19 struck, he noted, many had to sharply reduce capacity and then scramble to find added spaces.
“If there is a silver lining to this pandemic, it’s been the innovation we’ve seen from these community-based organizations and the community response,” he said.
Relocating to a space normally used for weddings and other special occasions also gives the Grace Center’s approximately 50 daily guests the chance to enjoy such amenities as a fireplace, banquet tables decked with flowers, and waterfront scenery.
“We typically operate in basements of churches and places like that,” Etheridge said of shelter programs. “For our guests, this has been a bright spot in an otherwise very difficult time.”
Guests are enjoying the ambiance of the temporary setting.
“It’s pretty cool,” said Andrew, a regular at the Grace Center for the eight years he has been in and out of homelessness — he currently sleeps on the street, in the woods, or at the Gloucester train station. “I like it better over here. It’s a lot more open and a lot bigger. It’s very welcoming.
“I love the food here, I like the services they provide — they give you clothes and blankets, and the people help you a lot,” added Andrew, who is homeless due to a heroin addiction he hopes to have kicked as a result of a recent visit to a treatment facility.
“This was the most selfless thing that anyone can do,” Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said of Gloucester House owner Lenny Linquata’s willingness to welcome homeless people to “this beautiful waterfront function hall, [a place] that makes you feel like a princess when you get married there.”
Linquata, whose restaurant has been donating meals to the Grace Center each month the past several years, said with his function hall available and Lifebridge in need of space, “We thought this was something that could work for the Grace Center, the city, and the underserved community.”
Today’s winter sunrise, with the added beauty of sea smoke
Our little snow lover built her first snowman, dubbed Genevieve.
I read the following article with great interest “Butterflies fly using efficient propulsive clap mechanism owing to flexible wings”.
Subsequent reports have come out with headlines such as “Butterfly wing claps explain mystery of flight” and“Natural wonder: Wing ‘clap’ solves mystery of butterfly flight”
Butterfly wings come in all shapes, sizes, and degree of flexibility. They have evolved with a range of mechanisms and strategies in flight. Butterflies such as the Silver-washed Fritillary (see video below) and Yellow Sulphur clap their wings frequently, but other butterflies, the Monarch Butterfly for example, does not “clap” their wings every time they take flight. The Monarch’s wings create an open cup shape, operating in more of a figure eight pattern.
Scientist have known about butterfly wing clapping for more than fifty years. I don’t think a mystery has been solved by the recent study from Sweden’s Lund University nonetheless, the articles are interesting to read.
In the above video you can see in the first few frames when the Monarch is taking off that its wings do not clap.
On a more terrifying note, the Western Monarch population has become nearly entirely extirpated from its historic range. A recently published article from the Xerces Society “Western Monarch Population Closer to Extinction as the Wait Continues for Monarchs’ Protection Under the Endangered Species Act”reports a 99.9 percent decrease in population since the 1980s. Only 1,914 Monarchs were located during the annual Thanksgiving Butterfly Count.
Monarchs at the Goleta Butterfly Grove, 2015
In 2015, when my daughter Liv was living in Santa Monica, she and I took a day trip to the Goleta Butterfly Grove, just outside of Santa Barbara.
Goleta Butterfly Grove
The butterflies were, for the most part, sleeping quietly in the Eucalyptus trees. A few were fluttering about, drinking nectar from the Cape Honeysuckle (Tecoma capensis) growing nearby.
Non-native nectar source for Monarchs, Cape Honeysuckle
The Western Monarch Butterfly demise has been in the making for decades. The Ecaplytus trees the butterflies were roosting in appeared stressed. Eucalyptus trees are not native to California and are highly flammable. I wondered at the time why the forest couldn’t be underplanted with native tree and also wondered exactly what were the trees the butterflies may have historically roosted in.
With unbridled development that has lead to loss of habitat, forest fires, a warming climate, and the use of deadly pesticides and herbicides in this American breadbasket to the world, is it really a mystery as to why the butterflies are nearly extirpated from California.
Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count Data 1997-2020 shows that despite a strong volunteer effort, monarch numbers are at the lowest point recorded since the count started in 1997.
Friday morning found the Jean Elizabeth at the Dogbar Breakwater. The lobster boat was close enough inshore for Charlotte to watch and understand what was happening and she was fascinated. Despite the numbing cold and wind, the men were hard at work. Thanks to our local Cape Ann lobstermen, we are blessed to have fresh caught lobsters throughout the year!
Reader Ned Talbot writes that the captain of the boat is Jay Gustaferro. Thank you Ned for commenting!
With a stroke of a pen, President Biden signed executive orders canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, pausing border wall construction, rejoining the Paris climate accord, and directing agencies to review and reverse more than than 100 TR actions taken against the environment.
January 20, 2020 marks a glorious day for our nation. I imagine many are, as am I, still processing all, though wasn’t it magnificent to wake up this morning and not worry in what manner the former president had harmed our nation and it citizens, whether racially, environmentally, pandemic related, or on the world stage. There is still much to set right again, to repair, to restore, to rebuild, and ultimately to move forward with. In thinking about these profound changes and how a stroke of the pen puts pause to the insane wall construction, how this simple act will help people, communities, butterflies, and myriad species of wildlife along our border with Mexico, I am reminded of ED’s “Hope” is the thing with feathers
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
-Emily Dickinson
Fillmmaker Will Bermudez and his ‘bubble’ crew from Pratt were at Seine Field in Gloucester today working on Will’s short film Beneath the Grass. Local girls (our) Charlotte and Meadow Anderson were cast as sisters. It’s a full circle moment for my family- Will’s Mom, and my dear friend Claudia, featured our daughter Liv in a children’s film twenty-five years ago, when Liv was about Charlotte’s age.
Little Red Fox found a sunny, albeit super windy, spot to soak in some morning rays. Fox use their tails to snuggle in for warmth.
Look what the storm brought in its wake – great waves, marsh flooding, and dreamy atmospheric skies, along with Sanderlings, Gulls, and an American Pipit feeding at the shoreline.
That’s Rick and Roman Gadbois enjoying the scene in several of the Back Shore photos.
Very sadly though, another dead baby Harbor Seal was washed ashore, this one at Niles Beach. 
Lovely update from the Gloucester Daily Times Gail McCarthy for Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly. So many thanks to the Times for their continued support for BotWing. I am so grateful and appreciative!
Gloucester’s Kim Smith, who boasts a love of nature, photography and all things art, has found growing recognition for her film “Beauty on the Wing,” about the life of the monarch butterfly and its intercontinental migration from Canada to Mexico.
Smith spent more than eight years researching and documenting the natural phenomenon, whose more than 3,000 miles includes Cape Ann.
This fall, her documentary was accepted into the Boston International Kids Film Festival, where it earned an award for best documentary.
More recently, “Beauty on the Wing” received an Award of Excellence from the Nature Without Borders International Film Festival and was accepted as an official selection to the Providence Children’s Film Festival, which takes place in February.
“I am overjoyed that ‘Beauty on the Wing’ is finding acceptance at both children’s and conservation festivals; that jurors see it as it was meant to be, a conservation film for people of all ages,” Smith said.
She noted that “Beauty on the Wing” also appears on the American Public Television Worldwide website in its catalog of science and nature programming at aptww.org/program/Beauty-on-the-Wing-Life-Story-of-the-Monarch-Butterfly.
Rockport artist wins Texas honor
Rockport artist Susan Lynn won the grand prize at the EnPleinAirTEXAS competition with her painting titled “Peace on the River.”
“It was overwhelming to get the grand prize because there is a stellar group of painters in that competition every year,” she said. “It was humbling, and I was very honored to be recognized in that group.”
We are thrilled to kick off the 2021 Science Hour talks with Dr. Vincent Pieribone, Vice Chairman of OceanX!
Please join us on Thursday, January 21st at 7:30pm via Zoom to hear Dr. Pieribone discuss the fascinating adventures of OceanX and what it means for the future of Ocean Science. Register today!
Dr. Pieribone is currently a Professor of Cellular & Molecular Physiology and Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine, and is a Fellow and Director of the John B. Pierce Laboratory at Yale University.
Did you miss the news about our collaboration with OceanX? Read all about our new partnership that will pair our cutting-edge genomic capabilities with OceanX’s incredible exploration and storytelling abilities.
If you have already registered for this talk, you will have received a confirmation email from Zoom with login information.
Please reach out to ashley.destino@gmgi.org with any questions.
I have returned several times more to see that rare and beautiful little Black-headed Gull. He wasn’t alone but was feeding in a mixed flock of gulls and ducks. All seemed perfectly peaceful at first. Before too long, he was squawking noisily, barking orders, and flying aggressively toward any other gull that crossed his path. Very comical actually, as he was smaller than all the others nonetheless, they took orders readily and moved aside.
Black-headed Gull vs. Ring-billed Gull Battle
Wonderfully animated surf dancer!
Bonaparte’s Gull left, Black-headed Gull right
A friend wrote wondering if I was sure what we are seeing is a Black-headed Gull. He, as was I initially, wondering if it was a Bonaparte’s Gull. Bonaparte’s have black bills, whereas the Black-headed Gull has a black-tipped red bill, along with red feet and legs. I found this terrific image showing the progressive molting stages of a Black-headed Gull while looking up Black-headed Gulls.
By the way, the head feathers of the Black-headed Gull in breeding plumage are really not black, but chocolate brown. Then again, there is an actual Brown-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus). Whoever gave name to these gulls!!
Black-headed Gull in breeding plumage, photo courtesy Google image search