The Essex County Greenbelt Association has been selected as the Winner for the 2021 Best of Essex Awards in the category of Non-Profit Organization. Notice to other winners in Essex is happening over the next few weeks. The entire list of winners will be posted after all recipients have been contacted.
Happy Earth Day dear friends!
I hope you are doing well on this blustery morning, with temperatures hovering around 32 degrees and wind chill at 19. I imagined these temperatures were behind us and am worried about that one little PiPl egg. Will it be viable after this cold snap??
This morning in my inbox there was yet another awesome email from Greenbelt, this time featuring Greenbelt’s commitment to conserving farmland, with a short video of the Grant Family Farm at Brown Spring.
Chris Grant was able to purchase the farm at Brown Springs because of Greenbelt’s Land Trust program and great use of West Newbury’s Community Preservation Act funds (CPA). The land can never be developed and will stay a working farm forever through Chris and Greenbelt’s diligent work to put it under an Agricultural Preservation Restriction.
I am so looking forward to visiting the farm stand when open in June! For the latest updates from the Grant Family Farm, visit their Facebook page here and website here.
I can’t mention Greenbelt without giving thanks to Gloucester’s Piping Plover advisor-in-chief Dave Rimmer, director of land stewardship at Greenbelt. Greenbelt does not, nor has ever, requested a fee from the City for their Piping Plover assistance. As you may recall, Dave is also Greenbelt’s Osprey program director – so there you have it, a multitude of reasons for supporting Greenbelt!!
EBSCO and the Law Office of Donald M. Greenough have generously offered to match, dollar for dollar, the first $5,000 raised in celebration of Earth Day.
To learn more about ECGA’s Earth Day fundraising go here.
To become a member of ECGA go here.
We in Essex County are so incredibly blessed to have Greenbelt working so hard to conserve beautiful green space throughout the region. Check out this super video to get an overview of just some of the good work that has taken place this past year.
From Greenbelt, “Join Greenbelt President, Kate Bowditch, as she reviews Greenbelt’s challenges and accomplishments this past year. Thank you for your continued support of our organization!”
If you’d like to make a donation in support of Greenbelt, please visit ecga.org/annualfund
Bluebird nesting box Greenbelt Ipswich
Piping Plover Dad and Marshmallow Good Harbor Beach
Seine Field Gloucester
Dear Friends,
I’m writing to share the exciting news that the Great American Outdoors Act was signed into law today! The culmination of fifty years of bipartisan conservation effort, the law ensures that the critically important Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is permanently funded.
LWCF is used to acquire, protect and manage our public lands, including National Parks and Wildlife Refuges such as the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge right here in Essex County. The new law means that $900 million will be committed each year from offshore drilling revenues to protect important land, water and recreational areas that benefit all of us.
Greenbelt applauds the efforts of so many over so many years. This is the biggest win for our public lands in a generation and it ensures LWCF can protect our lands and waters forever!
Thanks for your ongoing support of land conservation, and be well,
Kate Bowditch
President
So many thanks again to Councilor Memhard and Mayor Sefatia, and to all who lent a hand in helping to inform the community about the Good Harbor Beach nesting Plovers. The PiPls thank you, too!.
Friends, I hate to ask you, but if you could, Please share this post and please write to your Councilors (see address below). Thank you!
This is why we need signs and the reason could not be any clearer.
Woman leaving the dunes after going to the bathroom (not posting her going to the bathroom photo)
and cutting through through the nesting area.
As I was leaving the beach several nights ago and turned to have one last look at how beautiful was the light, the woman in the photos was cutting through the nesting area to use the dunes as a bathroom. You can’t blame the beachgoers for cutting through the nesting area because there is not a single sign at GHB explaining about the birds.
The lack of signage is just plain cruel to the birds. And it is equally as cruel to our citizens because what if, God forbid, a beachgoer accidentally steps on an egg or stray ball injures a Piping Plover? How terrible will they feel, and how many tens of thousands of dollars will we be fined by the state and federal government if there is a take?
Why are signs so important and impactful? For the simple reason that they alert people to the presence of the birds. They are used at every beach along both the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts, as well as at lakes regions.
Please don’t write to say the City is short of manpower because we have a very simple solution. Essex County Greenbelt has signs. They are willing to put them up immediately and only need the go-ahead from the City.
Additionally, who will we call when the inevitable eggs are laid? Gloucester’s conservation agent applied for, but was denied, a permit, for her lack of experience.
We have been writing letters to the City, beginning this past January and prior to the pandemic outbreak, to try to understand the City’s overall plan for the Piping Plovers, but we have been completely stonewalled. We were assured months ago that “everything was under control.”
This year we thought was going to be easy, with the new dog ordinance for the beach, Greenbelt’s trusted assistance, and a cadre of people who care deeply about the birds, along with their willingness to spend time monitoring tiny chicks at Gloucester’s most popular and populous of beaches. After four years of working toward improving conditions for the nesting shorebirds at GHB, the PiPls are being thrown under the bus for what we can only surmise are personal and political reasons.
It is my understanding that Governor Baker made continuing to protect endangered species part of the original essential worker pandemic plan and that is why state wildlife officials have not been furloughed.
A Piping Plover update from the City administration is planned for the City Council meeting Tuesday at 7Pm. It is a live Zoom meeting. I think a link will be provided and I will post that here and on Facebook.
If you have not already done so, and you have a spare moment, please write to our City Councilors.
Our Good Harbor Beach mated PiPl pair courting – Papa fanning his tail feathers and bowing, all for Mama’s benefit. Photo taken yesterday, May 21, 2020.
Here is a timeline compiled based on film footage, photos, and notes. As you can see, because of the timely assistance provided by Greenbelt, at this time last year, our chicks more than half way to hatching. We don’t even have eggs yet this year!
March 25 Piping Plover pair arrive GHB.
March 27 Symbolic fencing and signage installed by Greenbelt at areas #3 and #1
April 28 First egg laid (estimated date).
May 3 Greenbelt installs wire exclosure.
May 4 Adults begin brooding all four eggs.
May 31 Four chicks hatch.
March 22 Piping Plover pair arrive at GHB
March 27 11.5 foot deep narrow strip of symbolic roping is installed along the length of the entire beach. No one has responded from the conservation office re. Is this meant to protect the dunes? It is much, much narrower than the area delineated the previous four years by Greenbelt. No signs installed at this time, as they had in previous years at the time of installing roping.
April 17 Symbolically roped off area widened by boardwalk #3, the area where the PiPls have nested and courted the previous four years. No signs installed at this time.
May 11 A second pair of PiPls is trying to become established at GHB.
May 13 Still no signs, continued dog disturbance, kite flying next to nesting area, human and dog footprints in roped off #3 area.
May 21 Exclosure erected at Coffins Beach for nesting PiPls. Installed by Greenbelt.
May 22 Still no threatened or endangered species signs at Good Harbor Beach, continued dog disturbance, kite flying next to nesting area, human and dog footprints in roped off #3 area.
Despite the fact that our Good Harbor Beach Piping Plovers arrived 3 days earlier this year (March 22), they are struggling to become established. While the weather has been cold and windy (I think they like wind even less than freezing temperatures), the problem is largely due to dog and human disturbance in the nesting area. This is not the fault of beachgoers. The difficulty stems from a complete and utter lack of signage at Good Harbor Beach. There are no signs at any entrance, but more importantly, there are no signs on the fence posts around the nesting area.
The above are the informational signs we have had the previous four years, from 2016-2019, which were installed by Essex County Greenbelt. Last year, the Piping Plovers arrived at Good Harbor on March 25th. Two days later, on March 27th, Greenbelt had installed protective symbolic roping and signs. The PiPls early arrival and early assistance from Greenbelt helped the Plovers to establish a nest early in the season.
Why is it so important to help the PiPls as soon as they arrive? Because the earlier in the season they are able to nest, the older the chicks will be when the beach becomes busy, the earlier the chicks will fledge, and the sooner they will be off the beach, which will give them the greatest chance of survival. It was thanks to Greenbelt’s assistance last year and because of our fantastic corps of volunteer Piping Plover monitors that we were able to successfully fledge three chicks last summer.
Here is a timeline compiled based on film footage, photos, and notes. As you can see, because of the timely assistance provided by Greenbelt, at this time last year, our chicks were a third of the way to hatching. We don’t even have eggs yet this year!
March 25 Piping Plover pair arrive GHB.
March 27 Symbolic fencing and signage installed by Greenbelt at areas #3 and #1
April 28 First egg laid (estimated date).
May 3 Greenbelt installs wire exclosure.
May 4 Adults begin brooding all four eggs.
May 31 Four chicks hatch.
March 22 Piping Plover pair arrive at GHB
March 27 11.5 foot deep narrow strip of symbolic roping is installed along the length of the entire beach. No one has responded from the conservation office re. Is this meant to protect the dunes? It is much, much narrower than the area delineated the previous four years by Greenbelt. No signs installed at this time.
April 17 Symbolically roped off area widened by boardwalk #3, the area where the PiPls have nested and courted the previous four years. No signs installed at this time.
May 11 A second pair of PiPls is trying to become established at GHB.
May 13 Still no signs, continued dog disturbance, kite flying next to nesting area, human and dog footprints in roped off #3 area.
Again, the disturbances are not the fault of beachgoers; you can’t blame people if there are no informational signs.
Our Good Harbor beach Mom and Dad courting: Dad digging a nest scrape (1) and bowing (2). Mom coming over to inspect his handiwork (3) and Dad all puffed out and doing the mating dance (4).
Aren’t these PiPl eggs beautiful!? This photo was taken yesterday at another beach I am following. The Plovers at this beach arrived on the very same day to their beach as our Gloucester Plovers arrived to Good Harbor Beach.
CLICK HERE FOR LIVE OSPREY CAM
History: In 2017 a pair of young Osprey took up residence on the LobstaLand platform in July/August and made a small nest. In 2018 they returned in April, stayed until August and built a large nest but never laid eggs. We call this a “house-keeping pair”- almost always a young pair learning the ropes.
In 2019, the pair returned in April to the nest and produced a clutch of 3 eggs, all under the watchful eye of the newly installed webcam. The adults were named Annie and Squam. They hatched one egg, and eventually fledged one chick – named River. River was banded before he fledged. He left the nest for good in late summer.
2020 – Annie and Squam returned to the nest in mid-April, and since then they have been tending to the nest, preparing to produce a clutch of eggs. They have been very patient as we have been back and forth to the nest site many times getting the new webcam set up.
Update April 29, 2020 – The webcam is now live. We’re awaiting what this season will bring! We hope you enjoy with us.
Ospreys adding sticks to their nest
Hello from Kate Bowditch canoeing on the Ipswich River
Enjoy this paddle on the Ipswich River with Greenbelt President Kate Bowditch. The Ipswich flows for miles through beautiful, pristine scenery, much of which is permanently protected thanks to years of generous support from you, our Greenbelt community. During these uncertain times, we hope that you will continue to support our work to the extent that you are able. Together, the land we conserve today is protected forever. Thank you.