Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Jan. 2 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
Environment
RISING TIDES
Another Coastal Flood Hits Provincetown’s East End
Seawater intrusions were smaller and less damaging than last year’s flood
PROVINCETOWN — The unnamed winter storm that dumped heavy rain on the East Coast on Monday, killing two people in Massachusetts and one each in New York, Pennsylvania, and South […]
CONSUMER POWER
In Solar Market, Be Picky About Your Installer
Local companies with good references can make a difference in outcomes
EASTHAM — It’s been a pretty good decade or so for solar installations on the Outer Cape: 1,253 systems were installed on houses in the four outermost towns between 2014 […]
MORNING FLIGHT
Counting Alcids at Race Point
A sunrise-to-sunset day at the best seabird-watching spot on the East Coast
PROVINCETOWN — If you ask out-of-town birders what they know about Cape Cod, they’re likely to name Race Point. That’s because there’s a whole group of pelagic birds — those […]
PRETTY SEEDY
Goldenrod Shows Some Backbone
A handsome line of seaside goldenrod in seed marks the height of the tidal zone at the mouth of the Herring River in Wellfleet, where the first leg of the […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Dec. 19 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
PARTY HARDY
Winterberry Celebrates December Her Own Way
A festive specimen of winterberry holly marks the season, in this case from the ditch between Shore Road and Route 6 in North Truro. While its spiky evergreen cousins are […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Dec. 12 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
COLD-STUNNED
More Sea Turtles in the Bay Means More Strandings
Climate change and weird winds complicate the Cape’s annual rescue effort
WELLFLEET — A few weeks ago, Heidi Clemmer was walking her dog on Corn Hill Beach in Truro when she noticed a sea turtle lying in the sand. Clemmer, a […]
ON THE BEACH
Bearing Witness to Climate Change on Cape Cod
A theory teaches us how to see more than what our own eyes tell us
If you scrunch your eyes enough to blur your vision slightly, it’s easy to imagine what Wellfleet or Provincetown looked like 50 or even 100 years ago, when horse-drawn buggies […]
IDENTITY CRISIS
Not a Cedar. Not Berries, Either.
A female Eastern red cedar, exploding in fruit, stands at the harbor end of Commercial Street in Wellfleet. The species is dioecious, meaning it comes in two different sexes, so […]
MORNING FLIGHT
A Saw-Whet Owl, by Night
These smallest predatory birds are well adapted for darkness
As the sun sets on a late fall evening, an unfamiliar silence falls on the marshes of Wellfleet. The frogs, whose calls are inescapable all summer, are silent now, and […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Dec. 5 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
RADIOACTIVITY
Nearly 200,000 Gallons of Pilgrim Nuclear Waste Vaporized
DEP is waiting to see ‘if they choose to evaporate the water in an active way’
PLYMOUTH — While the debate over the proposed discharge of 1.1 million gallons of radioactive wastewater from the Pilgrim nuclear plant into Cape Cod Bay goes on, Holtec Decommissioning International, […]
PENALTY
Wellfleet Select Board Chooses $4.5M Penalty Over Mitigation Plan
After 2 years of work, dredging task force members quit, citing verbal attacks
WELLFLEET — The select board has directed the dredging task force to pay $4.5 million for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers instead of moving forward with […]
