Wildly blustery at the Point last evening on this the first day of March.
‘In like a lion, out like a lamb’ – the old weather folklore is proving to be true for the first few days of March, 2021. Wouldn’t it be delightful if ‘out like a lamb’ were true as well.
ROCKPORT — Paul St. Germain of Rockport and Eric Jay Dolin of Marblehead made their film debuts this month in “The Last Lightkeepers,” a documentary by Rob Apse.
Apse’s film profiles a handful of the nearly 200 remaining lighthouse keepers across New England.
“In 2000, the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act was passed which created a mechanism to dispose these structures to cities and non-profits first and as a last resort they are put up to bid for private ownership,” Apse wrote in an email. “And so, ‘The Last Lightkeepers’ covers the historic past of these structures and the important events surrounding them and parallels those stories and events with all the people behind the preservation efforts that is happening today.”
St. Germain stepped down as president of the Thacher Island Association, a nonprofit group dedicated to raising funds for the restoration and on-going maintenance of the island, last summer after 22 years. Over the past decade, he oversaw a massive, $3.2 million effort to open Straitsmouth Island off Rockport to the public for the first time in 180 years. Massachusetts Audubon assisted the association in the near decade-long effort to rehabilitate the island’s historic landmarks for public use, such as the $150,000 project to repair the iconic lighthouse in 2013. Straitsmouth Island finally reopened in 2019.
I am overjoyed to share that Beauty on the Wing received the Best Feature Film award at the Providence Children’s Film Festival. Thank you friends for voting!I am so appreciative of your ongoing support.Thank you for taking the time to watch and to vote.
It is not easy to host a film festival during the pandemic. Without doubt, it takes enormous amounts of work and professionalism. Festival organizer Eric Bilodeau created a fantastic event, and managed to do all with grace and a wonderful sense of humor. I looked forward to Eric’s communications, for instance, when he requested stills from the film, I sent a batch of photos. He wrote back, did I have anything more colorful? I was taken aback at first before realizing he was kidding. And when he announced Beauty had won, writing -“the Monarch is King!” I think I will use that in the future 🙂
I was able to view many of the films and they were wonderfully interesting and inspiring. I am so proud Beauty on the Wing was a part of the Providence Children’s Film Festival! This was mentioned previously but two of my favorites were Microplastic Madness and The Last Lightkeepers. I hope you have a chance to see if you haven’t already done so.
Thank you so very much again for your kind support.
Beauty on the Wing is playing through tomorrow, Saturday, and I will be part of a Q and A at 3:00pm on February 20th, Saturday afternoon. If you would, please share the link with friends and please vote for Beauty on the Wing after watching the film. Thank you! Here is the link if you would like to sign up to participate in the Q and A. All the films in the festival are geoblocked to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
All this school vacation week, the virtual Providence Children’s Film Festival has been airing an outstanding collection of wonderfully educational and interesting films for families and kids of all ages. Tickets are only $12.50 per film for the entire family. Or you can do as I did and purchase a pass, which allows for viewing all films all week long.
Some of the outstanding documentaries I have had the chance to view this week are First We Eat, Microplastic Madness, and The Last Lightkeepers. I think everyone would enjoy all the films in the festival but especially, we on Cape Ann will love The Last Lightkeepers.
Do you know why Thacher Island has not one, but two lighthouses? At about ten minutes into the documentary, local lighthouse historian and president of the Thacher Island Association Paul St. Germain reveals why. Thacher Island’s Twin Lights are featured prominently in the film as are a number of familiar New England lights.
The Last Lightkeepers is filmed beautifully, telling different aspects of the history of lighthouses as well as current status. A quote from one of the interviewees, author Eric Jay Dolan (Brilliant Beacons), especially resonated, “Lighthouses are there to benefit everyone regardless of where they come from, their race, nationality, their creed, their beliefs. Lighthouses are a manifestation of a government’s desire to make navigation for Everyone safer. In today’s turbulent political times, I especially like to think about lighthouses being a beacon for the world, a welcoming embrace for those that are choosing to come to our country…”
Do you know why Thacher Island has not one, but two lighthouses? At about ten minutes into the documentary, local lighthouse historian and president of the Thacher Island Association Paul St. Germain reveals why. Thacher Island’s Twin Lights are featured prominently in the film as are a number of familiar New England lights.
The Last Lightkeepers is filmed beautifully, telling different aspects of the history of lighthouses as well as current status. A quote from author Eric Jay Dolan (Brilliant Beacons) especially resonated, “Lighthouses are there to benefit everyone regardless of where they come from, their race, nationality, their creed, their beliefs. Lighthouses are a manifestation of a government’s desire to make navigation for Everyone safer. In today’s turbulent political times, I especially like to think about lighthouses being a beacon for the world, a welcoming embrace for those that are choosing to come to our country…”
All this school vacation week, the virtual Providence Children’s Film Festival is airing an outstanding collection of wonderfully educational and interesting films for families and kids of all ages. Tickets are only $12.50 per film for the entire family. Or you can do as I did and buy a pass, which allows for viewing all films all week long. Beauty on the Wing is playing through Saturday and I will be part of a Q and A at 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. Please vote for BotWing after watching the film. Thank you!
After watching The Last Lightkeepers, I am more inspired than ever that we form a nonprofit organization to restore Gloucester’s crumbling lighthouses. There is a great deal of expertise from which we can draw upon.
THERE IS NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT! Please write and let me know if you have every thought about how to go abut restoring our lighthouses and if you have an interest in Gloucester’s beautiful, but severely decaying, beacons. What do you think about the name Friends of Gloucester Lighthouses?Director, Filmmaker & Editor Rob Apse
All this school vacation week, the Providence Children’s Film Festival is airing an outstanding collection of wonderfully educational and interesting films for families and kids of all ages. Tickets are only $12.50 per film for the entire family. Or you can do as I did and buy a pass, which allows for viewing all films all week long. Beauty on the Wing is playing through Saturday and I will be part of a Q and A at 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. Please vote for BotWing after watching the film. Thank you!
At this moment I am currently watching The Last Lighthouse Keepers. This is a film I have been especially super excited to see largely because I think here in Gloucester we should form a Friends of Gloucester Lighthouses Association. Our lighthouses are in increasingly deplorable condition. I would like very much for we in Gloucester to follow in the footsteps of Rockort’s Paul St. Germain and the Thacher Island Association in restoring our lighthouses and the surrounding grounds.
The Last Lighthouse Keepers – This stunning documentary explores lighthouses across New England (including in Rhode Island) and the sadly decaying condition of many of them. Many abandoned lighthouses haven’t been tended to in decades or since they were replaced by updated tools of navigation. Director Rob Apse captures the beauty of these American sentinels that once defined a nation’s coastline. The Last Lightkeepers highlights stories of individuals currently fighting to preserve these structures while capturing their folklore before the lights go dim forever.
All this school vacation week, the Providence Children’s Film Festival is airing an outstanding collection of wonderfully educational and interesting films for families and kids of all ages. Tickets are only $12.50 per film for the entire family. Or you can do as I did and buy a pass, which allows for viewing all films all week long. Beauty on the Wing is playing through Saturday and I will be part of a Q and A at 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. Please vote for BotWing after watching the film. Thank you!
At this moment I am currently watching First We Eat – funny, wry, and fascinating to watch the teenagers especially as they try to adjust to eating only local sourced food, in the middle of the Yukon. Read more here –
“What happens when an ordinary family, living just south of the Arctic Circle, bans all grocery store food from their house for one year? Add 3 skeptical teenagers, 1 reluctant husband, no salt, no caffeine, no sugar, -40 temperatures.
Putting food security to the test in the far North of Canada filmmaker Suzanne Crocker, living just 300 km from the Arctic Circle, removes absolutely all grocery store food from her house. For one year, she feeds her family of five, only food that can be hunted, fished, gathered, grown or raised around Dawson City, Yukon. Add three skeptical teenagers, one reluctant husband, no salt, no caffeine, no sugar and -40 temperatures. Ultimately the story becomes a celebration of community and the surprising bounty of food that even a tiny community in the far North can provide. After all, “First we eat, then we do everything else.” – MFK Fisher. Written by Suzanne Crocker”
For further reading and some terrific background information, see the following article, published by the NRDC in early February of this year. Scenes from Beauty on the Wing were filmed at the stunning forest at the Cerro Pelón Monarch Butterfly sanctuary.
NRDC Profiles:
For a Family in Mexico, a Mission to Protect Monarchs
Siblings Joel, Anayeli, and Patricio Moreno see the future of their community and that of the butterflies that migrate annually to the local Cerro Pelón forest as being intimately connected.
If there’s something that the Moreno family agrees on, it’s that monarch butterflies changed their lives. And not just their own but the lives of most in Macheros, Mexico. The agricultural village of 400 people—whose name translates to “stables” in Spanish, because of the 100 horses that also make their home here—sits at the entrance to Cerro Pelón, one of four sanctuaries in Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, established by the federal government in 1986.
It started when Melquiades Moreno de Jesus secured a job as a forest ranger, or guardabosque, in 1982. Six years earlier, National Geographic had run a feature on monarch migration, bringing international attention to the butterflies’ overwintering sites in the mountainous oyamel fir forests some 80 miles west of Mexico City—though locals had discovered the colonies long before outsiders descended on the area. Soon after that publication, the State of Mexico’s Commission of Natural Parks and Wildlife (Comisión Estatal de Parques Naturales y de la Fauna, or CEPANAF) established the local forest ranger positions, employing men from Macheros to patrol the part of the sanctuary that’s in the state of Mexico. (Part of the butterfly reserve also lies in the state of Michoacán.) CEPANAF hired Melquiades several years later and he stayed on, monitoring the butterflies and deterring illegal loggers, for more than three decades.
The village of Macheros; Cerro Pelón is the tallest peak on the right.
Ellen Sharp
“When my dad got the job as a forest ranger, it changed our lives,” says Joel Moreno Rojas, the fourth-born of Melquiades’s 10 children. His father’s steady income brought the family out of poverty and afforded the children the chance to go to school. It also instilled a sense of local pride and inspired his family’s commitment to caring for the natural wonder at their doorstep.
Among the Moreno siblings, three have continued their father’s legacy: Joel, Anayeli, and sixth-born Patricio (“Pato”). Pato took over Melquiades’s forest ranger position after his dad’s retirement in 2014. When the monarchs are roosting in Cerro Pelón, roughly from November to March, he spends many days near the overwintering colonies, monitoring them and asking visitors not to disturb the impressive clusters. The butterflies, which have migrated thousands of miles from the eastern part of the United States, are drawn to the oyamel canopy—which provides insulation and keeps out the elements—for their winter rest. “I love it,” says the father of two. “It’s the most marvellous thing that could have happened in my life to have a job like this.”
Pato Moreno at work in Cerro Pelón after a rainstorm
Ellen Sharp
Being among hundreds of thousands of butterflies sparks such an intense emotional reaction that the Moreno siblings say it is impossible to name. When they do find the words, they describe experiencing the monarchs as powerful, beautiful, and emotional. Joel has seen visitors drop to their knees and pray or break out in tears when they first see the butterflies, who some locals believe are the souls of their ancestors, since the migrating monarchs arrive in Macheros right around the first of November, el Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead.
“As Mexicans, we should all be proud of the butterflies,” Pato continues. “I’d like everyone to understand the value of the forest, because it helps us and it helps the butterflies.”
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
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.
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.
Prepare a container
A large crate or large box with air holes, lined with newspaper or a sheet/towel will work for most large birds.
Put the bird in the box
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.
If you can’t transport it immediately
Keep the bird in a warm, dark, quiet place.
Do not give it food or water. Feeding an animal an incorrect diet can result in injury or death. Also, a captured animal will get food and water stuck in its fur/feathers potentially leading to discomfort and hypothermia.
Do not handle it. Leave the animal alone. Remember human noise, touch and eye contact are very stressful to wild animals.
Wishing you peace, love and the best of health in 2021 – Happy New Year dear Friends. I am so grateful for blog, Facebook, and Instagram friendships, new and old. Thank you for your kind comments throughout the year.
I wish to especially thank you for your support of my documentary, Beauty on the Wing. Although completed in March at the beginning of the pandemic. The virtual support has been phenomenal and has made a world of difference knowing of people’s unwavering love for the butterflies.
Please stay safe and healthy in the coming year. Wishing all your dreams come true. To peace, love, and great health in 2021. <3
Interrupting your election news coverage to bring you PlumStreet Wild Kingdom chronicles:
What a luxuriously warm early morning and late day for photographing wild creatures – GBHeron, Blue Jays, a herd of White-tailed Deer (8!), Snow Buntings – and right in our own backyard, just at the moment our little Red Fox slipped behind the fence, a Red-tailed Hawk flew into a neighboring tree.
I wonder if he was attracted to the cacophony created by the Crows harassing the Fox. I never would have seen the Hawk if not for the Red Fox. The Hawk perched in the tree and then flew to my neighbor MJ’s towering and stunning Larch Tree (the tallest tree in the neighborhood). He stayed there for sometime before tiring of the Crows and swooping off.
Love when able to successfully (not always achieved!) capture the tracing of the Monarch’s wings in movement -the dot, dot dot of the beautiful border patterning.Monarch Butterfly Migration October 2020 – Monarch and wild mustard flowers
Slight delay in posting episode 8 but lots of good things to talk about, including excellent clips of Piping Plovers mating as our Piping Plover Chronicles continues. See you then <3
A beautiful thing to see – Cedar Waxwing male and female pair courting. They were feeding each other, hopping through the branches and passing buds back and forth.
Cedar Waxwings are frugivores (fruit-eaters) and they subsist mainly on fruit, although they do eat insects, too.
What to plant to attract Cedar Waxwings to your landscape
Dogwood (Cornus florida, C. alternifolia)
Creeping Juniper (Juniperus horizontals)
Common Juniper (Juniperus communis)
Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana)
Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana)
Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)
Holy (Ilex opaca)
Crabapple (Malus sp.)
Hawthorn (Crataegus sp.)
Tall Shadblow (Amelanchier arborea)
Smooth Shadbush (Amelanchier laevis)
Canadian Serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis)
Mulberry (Morus rubra)
Winterberry (Ilex verticilata)
Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)
Raspberry
Blackberry
Wild Grape
Strawberry
