WELLFLEET — A group of fishermen using baited hooks delivered by drones to fish for sharks at LeCount Hollow Beach last September got into an altercation with surfers that led […]
Environment
FRESH BROOK: PART 2
The Sea-Run Trout’s Return to Wellfleet
Understanding a subspecies that starts in fresh water but needs access to the sea
In May 1840, a small group of sport fishermen set out from Newport, R.I. in search of sea-run brook trout. Traveling first by ferry, then by coach and horseback, and […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Wishing on Neon Stars
There are two species of the New World genus Hudsonia, or false heather, on the Cape: a woolier one with fuzzy leaves and flowers that don’t have much of a […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, April 8 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
ENVIRONMENT
Adding Sand Could Help Salt Marshes Recover
Loose sand lessened crab burrowing and facilitated regrowth within a year
PROVINCETOWN — Across the Outer Cape, an ever-growing explosion in the Sesarma crab population is causing salt marshes to rapidly retreat — but a new study suggests that adding sand […]
ENVIRONMENT
The State of the Birds on Cape Cod
Shorebirds and saltmarsh sparrows are among those at a tipping point
WELLFLEET — A new report on research by leading bird conservation scientists, published by Cornell University, confirms that North American bird populations are continuing a steep decline. The North American […]
THIS WILD CAPE
Respect for the Gulls
Learning to look for yellow legs and other distinguishing features that make a bird not just a bird
[Here we are, anywhere on Cape Cod. We look up and see a gull. There’s a flock in a parking lot, or bobbing on a freshwater pond. Fifty miles out […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Good for a Pain in the Apse
The smooth red-brown buds opening like hatches across from the Methodist Church in Provincetown may belong to Salix discolor, the native pussy willow, or they could belong to an introduced […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, April 1 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
MORNING FLIGHT
The American Woodcock’s Got the Moves
A peent and a sky dance announce the arrival of one goofy bird
It was a still March evening, and I was watching the sunset along the Pilgrim Spring bike path in Truro. For what seemed like a long while, the marsh there […]
ENVIRONMENT
As Right Whales Shift, Cape Cod Remains Safe Haven for Now
With warming, whales follow food to new waters, and a key source declines
[PROVINCETOWN — North Atlantic right whales, critically endangered with a population of only around 370, move widely around our ocean. They have traditionally ranged from below Cape Canaveral, Fla., where […]
NATURAL SELECTION
A Catkin of Another Kind
In the summer, the speckled alder, Alnus incana, hides in plain sight along the Beech Forest trail in Provincetown; its leaves look almost identical to those of Fagus grandifolia. This […]
ENVIRONMENT
After 6-Year Delay, Seashore Carries Out Prescribed Burn at Fort Hill
Housing costs hindered hiring of a Park fire officer; now DOGE is doing the same
EASTHAM — On any other sunny spring day, Fort Hill would be dotted with hikers, dog-walkers, and nature lovers. But on March 12, the historic grassland that overlooks Nauset Marsh […]
THIS WILD CAPE
The Return of the Peepers, Wood Frogs, and Salamanders
Listening (and looking) for the emergence of spring amphibians
It’s early spring, round about mid-March, when, as the Earth makes its way around the Sun, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere notice we’re receiving more sunlight as each […]
NATURAL SELECTION
The Grandeur of the Beech, for Now
Within Fagus grandifolia, the American beech tree, as the millennia-old processes of spring try to get under way, an unwelcome guest is disrupting things. The nematode that causes the new […]
