Nancy is recently retired from a celebrated career in the biological sciences. She has her own Wikipedia page highlighting her accomplishments in science, research, and scientific photography, and is a four-time finalist for the Nikon Small World photomicrography competition, blending art and science by photographing objects under a microscope.

She is the owner of what she describes as an “itchy brain,” a restless and excellent curiosity that brings both benefit and challenge.

I never outgrew the “why?” stage. Most people graduate to more important questions like “How much is this worth?” “Will you marry me?” “What does my retirement fund look like?” Instead, I’m like, “Why?” It can be tiring. Try getting to sleep with an itchy brain!

Nancy uses her masterful microscopy skills as a research lab volunteer, working at an activity known as “fish picking.”

I was invited to help with the fish picking over at the lab. The staff put out plankton nets [at Wells Harbor] and volunteers sift through the debris, pick out the good stuff and count it. I now can identify the different subsets in the life of a crab—the zoea stage and the megalopa stage—all these cool words that I didn’t even know before.

Nancy enjoys being outside after spending years in hospitals and research labs. She is an avid gardener. Her favorite tree is the dawn redwood, a deciduous conifer with soft needles that turn dusty orange and drop in the fall. She recently planted one as a memorial to her father.

My father was a gardener, my grandfather was a gardener. Every year as a birthday present to my father, my aunt would get a subscription to Organic Gardening and Farming magazine. I remember reading the ads in the back. Of course as a child I didn’t have any money, but I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could get these plants? Now I have far too many plants!

As a volunteer Ranger walking the trails at the Reserve, Nancy noticed too many plants of another type—invasives.

I knew I wanted to do something about invasives here. I live in The Forest, an HOA in Wells. I was on the all-volunteer Landscape Committee. I organized people, I baked cookies, and we did the physical work of cutting and removing the bittersweet, barberry, honeysuckle and glossy buckthorn. The more we did, the more we realized the extent of the problem. We rented invasive-eating goats through EcoScapegoats. That was a hoot! They did a terrific job, which did not eliminate our job, since they didn’t pull up the roots. They weren’t that well trained!

Last year, Nancy worked weekly through the summer and fall as a stewardship volunteer, removing tangled networks of invasive vine, stem, thorn, bush and root. She also collects water samples with fellow volunteer Susan Kaagan for the Maine Healthy Beaches program and is one of the 130 volunteers that make our annual Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival possible.

I love it here, I love the resources, the opportunities. I like to be outside, but a lot [of the motivation to volunteer] is guilt. Guilt for my species. I feel that we humans have kind of messed things up. The environment is out of whack and it is our fault. I can do a bit to push things back in the right direction. If I can help more people see how to mitigate the damage done by invasives, that will carry on.

The work is ongoing and volunteers are needed in several areas, including working alongside Nancy as part of the invasive removal team (as well as docents and event volunteers).

The extent of the number of invasives to remove is daunting. We need more people, more help. If you have the time and the energy and you like to be here, why not help? With the invasives, there is a whole spectrum of ways you can help. If you like cookies, we often have cookies. We have camaraderie! We have a nice group of people. It is a good way to meet local people that have diverse interests and diverse skills. Come help defend your favorite place!

The Reserve is lucky to have the support of volunteers like Nancy, who bring not only their professional and life skills, but take on multiple roles, greatly expanding the capacity to get things done. Thank you, Nancy! And thanks to all our wonderful volunteers as we prepare for another busy season, working together to support and preserve this special spot on Maine’s southern coast.

Do you have questions about volunteering? Want to know more about volunteer opportunities at the Reserve? Contact Lynne Benoit at lbenoit@wellsnerr.org or call 207-646-1555 extension 118.

The event began with the Center for Wildlife introducing the audience to four of its animal ambassadors: Blossom the painted turtle, Zipper the corn snake, Fern the barred owl, and Violet the turkey vulture. We learned about the amazing adaptations of each of these beautiful animals, as well as the stories of how they ended up at the Center. Some had lifelong injuries after being hit by cars, while others had been taken from the wild as pets and so were no longer fit for surviving on their own. The fan club of these ambassadors definitely grew by leaps and bounds as a result of our time with them!

After our time with the animal ambassadors, some folks headed outdoors for a Maine Master Naturalist-led wildlife walk and/or scavenger hunt on the trails, while others stayed indoors for the wildlife activities there. York County Audubon helped children make fluffy snowy owls to take home, and the Wells Reserve engaged learners with wildlife furs, skulls, and tracks, as well as an animal insulation activity. And there was of course hot cocoa available throughout the festivities!

Thanks so much to all of the staff and volunteers who helped to make this event such a success, and to all of the families who joined us with your smiles. We'll look forward to another Winter Wildlife Day with you in 2025!

Over the next 2+ weeks, Brian, our facilities manager, and his hard-working crew of volunteers, worked the ground under it. After much scheming, planning, and labor, the job got done. Turns out the shelter / ski ramp / landing pad was just a temporary eave to keep the zone relatively dry and stable while workers made an essential stormwater improvement.

For untold years, rainwater and snowmelt from the vast barn roof have found their way into the basement. With recent (and dramatic) improvements to the wood shop, the water was more unwelcome than ever. Something had to be done.

Now granite slabs direct water away from the foundation onto the paved roadway and into a stormwater drainpipe. This system also moves water away from the entryway to the auditorium and public restrooms.

The berm's loam will be seeded in the spring.

The simple, tranquil final appearance belies the amount of work involved in this project, which is yet another part of a major effort to improve stormwater drainage on the campus. Be ready for more paving on campus coming in April.

Both the January 10 and January 13 events broke our old water level record measured at Wells Harbor back in January 2018. Data for water level at this site go back to 1996, so it's remarkable to have two record-setting incidents in one week. Wind was certainly a factor. Rainfall had less of an impact with these two storms.

Hope you enjoyed this latest installment of "By the Numbers," brought to you by your friendly local SWMP manager. I'm working on getting this data (and future data) displayed in feet and linked to tidal predictions to make it easier to understand. Stay tuned.

The Wells Reserve's critical infrastructure stands well above its sea-level low points, but some of its most popular spots were within grasp of the ocean's churn last Saturday. Some boardwalks and overlooks are closed. Some accessways are risky to maneuver.

As we assess, recover, and repair, we beg patience and common sense. For an idea of what's ahead, both in the coming weeks, and perhaps the coming decades, here are some views from a day afield.

We will update the Helpful Info and Trails pages with current conditions and cautions.

Our science team is looking into its environmental monitoring data for historical context and assessing effects on marsh-deployed equipment.

Our coastal training team continues to collaborate with coastal communities to encourage resilience planning.

Our stewardship team is actively involved with its partners on CoastWise Approach recommendations for coastal planners.

Then the reserve set its sights on the World Wide Web. During the dramatic rise of dot-coms—before the boom went bust in 2000—Wells Reserve became a dot-org. The domain wellsreserve.org was registered 25 years ago today: December 23, 1998.

A few months after the domain was secured, the first Wells Reserve website went online. Write.designs of Kennebunk created about 18 pages, the local Internet service provider cyberTours hosted the site, and reserve staff maintained pages using Microsoft FrontPage. The designer, as a complimentary service, offered to submit the new site to “20 of the most popular search engines.” Who remembers Yahoo!? AltaVista? InfoSeek?

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine provides a fascinating glimpse into the website's sometimes dramatic evolution. Since September 2000, the tool has captured the home page more than 500 times and logged more than 10,000 URLs within the site. We've selected a few highlights that illustrate key changes over the years.

While the main website remained "static," with each update requiring page-by-page HTML editing and FTP uploads, several new self-contained dynamic elements were being added in parallel. Over a 3-year span, the Wells Reserve launched its Seacoast Watershed Information Manager, a community forum, a custom database of fish and wildlife information, a dedicated site for mobile devices (and personal digital assistants), a blog (at laudholm.org), and a web-based calendar that automatically fed upcoming programs to the homepage sidebar.

Various components coming online "all at once" had created a mosaic of user experiences and a challenging set of maintenance obligations for a small staff. This realization coincided with a growing interest in unifying the Wells Reserve and Laudholm Trust brands for a clearer public presentation. Between 2007 and 2009, the partner organizations adopted new graphics standards, complementary logos, an entirely new look for publications, and a cohesive joint label for public promotion: Wells Reserve at Laudholm.

It was an ideal time to rethink web offerings. Planning got under way in 2009 and a new, singular site launched in early 2010. The change was dramatic and praised broadly (but not universally, as our new commenting system soon revealed).

The website, at last, was almost entirely integrated and on solid technological footing. It was attractive, content-rich, and easy to navigate. For staff, the content management system made additions and updates more routine than ever. More people could create content—blogs, programs, events—efficiently and directly.

Still, six years of advances on the World Wide Web and shifts in user expectation gradually caught up with the venerable website. In 2017, another transition was completed. With an entirely new framework and a modern look and feel, the new Wells Reserve web demonstrated smoother integrations with external applications. We were showing off the real-world site, automating registrations for programs, and processing donations with ease. Importantly, the updated site also functioned well on handheld devices, since the intervening years had been seen explosive growth in our visitors' use of web-surfing phones and pads.

Five years into the latest version of the Wells Reserve web, we elected to focus on updates and refinements rather than broad changes. We upgraded the underlying content management system and tweaked some settings and features in 2022 and 2023.

A website accessibility audit this year revealed we can do a lot more to be inclusive on the web. We have made some improvements and more are on the way. We have plenty of untold stories and unshared pictures that could be populating our blog and projects sections, and a quiver of fresh thoughts and images are imminent as 2024 approaches.

Ultimately, what's important to you is what's important for us. Please feel welcome to share your ideas by emailing web@wellsnerr.org.

Inestimable contributors had hands in building the Wells Reserve web as it grew and morphed. At the beginning, it was Nancy Lowenberg (Bayse) whose foresight and skill fueled the reserve's Internet acceleration, and her name is on that first domain registration form. But she was far from alone; many others—staff and volunteers—were involved in shaping that first foray onto the web.

Steve Kelley (write.designs) built the first website. I plugged away through the toddler and teenage years. George A. Fitch III constructed the LiFe database and a team from NOAA's Coastal Services Center produced the Seacoast Watershed Information Manager. Dietz Associates led the rebranding effort. iMarc LLC undertook 2010's major upgrade and won the contract leading to the 2017 site that remains strong today.

Back in 2013, when I participated in my first Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship expedition in Svalbard, Norway, I experienced a great many similar awe-inspiring moments while in the company of walrus, polar bears, reindeer, and beautiful ice-covered Arctic landscapes. And yet, I also remember feeling so surprised and saddened to see plastics washed up on a remote island we were hiking upon in the Barents Sea. We were so close to the North Pole, seemingly worlds away from sources of plastic pollution, and yet there it was at my feet.

Fast forward ten years to this past October, while traveling across the South China Sea from Vietnam to Borneo in search of whales, where I had a similar surprising encounter with plastics. The seas were very calm, making it easy to detect breaks in the water’s surface. I at times excitedly thought that I had spotted a whale fin in the distance, when the sighting only turned out to be a plastic water bottle afloat. Sometimes we really did see whale fins, and what an exhilarating experience that was! One time we were cruising over 15,000 feet of water and witnessed sperm whales diving, presumably in search of meals of squid. I couldn’t help but wonder whether plastics were also being inadvertently consumed.

In these last two months since my expedition, I’ve reflected on all of the incredibly beautiful sights I experienced in the Western Pacific. There are so many! And I’ve also reflected upon what is at the core of the Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship—enhanced geographic awareness. For me, the concept that resonates so powerfully after my recent voyage around the world is the interconnectedness of the oceans. They may have different names and be thousands of miles apart, but their water flows as one. As we say during Wells Reserve education programs, we all live in a watershed, whether inhabiting inland or coastal towns. The choices we make upstream affect habitats downstream and ultimately, the world’s one vast connected ocean.

*I will be sharing photos and stories from my expedition experience during a public Lunch & Learn via Zoom on January 30 (12-1pm). I hope you will join me! And in March, National Geographic Explorer Jom Acebes will be giving a public presentation via Zoom about her whale research. Stay tuned for more details!

Until this year, Ed and Amy Francis had not pondered this question. Then they decided to volunteer as Wells Reserve docents.

This decision led to new and deeper questions, lively emails, and fellowship with other volunteer docents committed to introducing students to the value of estuaries and the wonders of nature.

In the case of the Reserve, the word “docent” describes a volunteer who leads guided group walks for visitors of all ages.

Before becoming volunteers, this pair of avid birders discovered the Reserve several years ago after moving to Kennebunkport. In February, they attended an interactive online presentation describing the role of volunteer docents.

Ed chuckles, “I realized when at the meeting, 'Oh, they want us to sign up!'”

And they did. Amy recalls being impressed by volunteers who talked about their experiences as docents.

Ed and Amy discovered the journey to becoming a docent is not made alone. At the spring training sessions, new and experienced volunteers circled up to introduce themselves. Ed felt comfortable from the beginning.

Ed is no stranger to teamwork.

Ed calls the docent training sessions “the magic behind the scenes.” Under the guidance of Program Coordinator Caryn Beiter, docents engage with coastal science, and discuss how to present concepts without lecturing to students.

There is a sense of shared responsibility with the ability for each volunteer to set their own pace and put information in their own words, which Ed appreciates.

Amy found her fellow volunteers to be patient and kind. Learning about the estuary was a new endeavor, but like most docents (and most volunteers in general), Amy is a lifelong learner.

Still, there are questions, and moments of pause. Ed wondered about how the concept of a mummichog “mascot” could be used with student groups. Mummichogs are small fish commonly found in salt marshes along the East coast. They serve as a food source for larger fish and birds, and adapt well to the changing tides.

It would be worth the effort to introduce this fish to students when talking with them about the estuary. But, what should one say? Ed felt comfortable approaching the docent group with his questions.

Docent volunteers gather in a collegial group, awaiting the arrival of students. The scene is a familiar one on weekday mornings in spring and fall. A sense of anticipation, activity and teamwork is in the air! In between tours and training, group members ask questions and offer support. Ed appreciates the exchange of ideas.

One doesn’t always know what to expect when committing to a volunteer role. Amy says there have been some pleasant surprises.

Ed agrees. Both he and Amy are skilled at teamwork, but they didn’t necessarily expect it to become such a highlight of their first year as volunteers.

The Reserve is still a great place to walk the trails and spot birds, but Ed notes a deeper understanding since becoming a docent.

Amy smiles when Ed says the only thing being a docent lacks is medical benefits. True, but they are still having a healthy good time. Amy says that the docent team is one in which all get to play.

She laughs and Ed picks up the metaphor as a skilled teammate would.

Now that you’ve met Ed and Amy, and have a few nuggets of wisdom about mummichogs, would you like to come off the bench and be part of our supportive and fun team of docent volunteers? We’d love to hear from you!

All across the Reserve, our volunteers make incredible teammates. For more information, contact me at lbenoit@wellsnerr.org or call 207-646-1555, extension 118.

But they're not really escaping this world, are they? They're just temporarily changing their latitude. Another perspective might see those migrating geese working as a team to find more hospitable climes in winter. They rotate the lead flyer, so none gets too tired; as a gaggle they find food, open water, and relative safety. Season after season, they persevere. Even into headwinds as strong as today’s, they fly on, together.

Geese on their journeys need places like the Wells Reserve, and so do we. This place is a refuge, a refueling station for the body and the mind. For a time I rested by the river, “in the grace of the world,” and I was free. I returned to my desk, still world weary but less heartbroken. That's what a walk in the woods or a long gaze at an estuary can do. That's just part of the reason why the Wells Reserve at Laudholm is here, for you and me and anyone else who needs it. We all need a place like this, especially these days.

Thank you for being a part of saving and sustaining this important place and its work. This holiday season, I do hope that you’ll renew your support for this reserve that continues to renew so many, and I hope you’ll have the opportunity in 2024 to visit and “come into the peace of wild things.”

Donate Now

Until then, all of us here wish you a safe and sound holiday season.

Sincerely,

Nik Charov, President

PS. You can find Berry’s seminal poem, “The Peace of Wild Things” online in many places. It is one of our favorites here at Laudholm. It fits right in, and so do you.

I watched this fox as it was hunting late one morning in the field by the water tower, then ambling to the parking lot berm where it curled up and took a nap near the base of a light post. The fox had a beautiful lush coat and black stockings, mottled face, and the tell-tale white tip on its tail. (Gray foxes are smaller, with a smaller face, and have a black tip on their tail.)

This fine specimen was out hunting and resting in the middle of the day. Though a few observers thought this was suspicious, it was not unusual behavior for a fox, especially on a cloudy day. Even though they are considered crepuscular, meaning most active at dawn and dusk, foxes regularly hunt at other times of day—whenever they are hungry.

Foxes are essential to a healthy landscape. Though our wild canine friends typically hunt rodents, they have a varied diet that also includes vegetation, fruits, eggs, birds, and small mammals. Through their diet and behavior foxes help to disperse seeds, enrich the soil, and keep rodent populations in check.

When welcoming foxes, remember they are wildlife. We need to respect them and keep our distance. They usually keep their distance too, but isn’t it a treat to encounter them as they hunt and nap? It is important to be grateful for wildlife but let the wild be wild.

Foxes rarely carry rabies, but the red fox that was on campus last month appeared healthy and was exhibiting normal fox behavior.

I invite you to observe your wild neighbors, welcome them, and send positive energy as they help us and inspire us. And learn about them, so you can teach others to respect and support them.

• Nik's Notebook: e pluribus, laudholm
• Heron
• Invasives Removal
• Marine Invaders
• Education Assessment
• This Land: Volunteers
• Great Photos Wanted
  

Download the Fall 2023 Watermark
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Download the Fall 2023 Watermark
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We’ve always felt that here at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm. This is a protected place saved, invigorated, and advanced by thoughtful, committed citizens, born not of tragedy but of opportunity. For four decades, the can-do, all-hands-on-deck spirit has thrived here, creating a unique and treasured spot on the coast of Maine.

You can see it in the pages of this newsletter. Whether it’s staff and volunteers pulling together to root out, or at least identify, invasive species on land and in the sea, or dozens of students, parents, and educators making a mosaic to grace our gallery, from many efforts there arises one Laudholm. It is a collaboration that has passed the test of time, thanks to folks—like you—who have continued to stay involved and engaged.

This joint effort, the Wells Reserve at Laudholm, will officially turn 40 next year. Middle age, I’ve found, is a time of unavoidable but essential reflection, self-questioning, planning, and possibility. So let it be with your Laudholm next year as well. In our Spring 2024 Watermark, and even before then, you’ll be hearing from us, but we’d love to hear from you too. Tell us: What makes this special place world-changing for YOU?

Nik Charov
President, Laudholm Trust
Chair, Wells Reserve Management Authority

The event draws people who enjoy exploring, harvesting, evaluating, and propagating fruit that is gathered rather than grown. Enthusiasts from across the continent are invited to submit "interesting or beloved" fruit varieties for tasting and judging at the exhibition. The 2023 candidates included more than 100 varieties.

Tom entered a sample of apples from one Wells Reserve tree in the friendly competition. As he was mapping and describing hundreds of apple trees around the reserve, he had discovered the fruits of this particular tree produced a "standout juice."

Tom's taste proved sound. The reserve's "Island in the Field" apple took the gold for Best Quality Cider at the exhibition.

Most or all of the reserve's apples are probably "wild and seedling" trees that are generations removed from the orchard apples of the former farm. Because grafting is the only way to propagate apples that will remain true to their variety, traits of these seed-scattered opportunists are impossible to predict. Some turn out desirable, others less so.

Congratulations to Tom for recognizing a great one.

"You do everything right," shouted the baroness of wool, Nanne Kennedy, about this year's crafts festival. Nanne was one of nearly 130 artists at the 2023 show, at which volunteers and staff worked together to welcome 4,000 attendees and raise more than $103,000 in support of the Wells Reserve's facilities, operations, and visitor services in the coming year. It was among our top three shows of all time.

Attendees wouldn't have known that 39-mph gusts, pelting rain, and nearly continuous lightning had terrorized the Friday evening setup of the show; all was calm and smooth at the admissions gate, under the four tents and in the barn, and across the Laudholm campus all weekend long.

The smooth sounds of Rob Spaulding, Gordon Shannon, and Bob Moore on keyboards and guitar mingled with the smell of warm cider donuts, hot dogs, pizza, and kettle corn. There wasn't a more peaceful, relaxing, and inspiring place to be in southern Maine that weekend.

The Laudholm Trust thanks our festival's lead sponsor Kennebunk Savings Bank, along with Maine Community Bank, L.L.Bean, Lee Auto Malls, Sevigney-Lyons Insurance, Renewal by Andersen, and Tully's Beer & Wine for making this show such a grand day out in Wells.

We'll see everyone again next year for the 36th Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival—"always the weekend after Labor Day!"

Hiking Day, was created by mother-daughter author-illustrator team Anne and Lizzy Rockwell.

The Saw-whet Owl and Laird Norton trails are populated by intermittent barberry and bittersweet along the trail edges, but are still dominated by native plants. We chose sites on these trails where there was a higher chance that by removing invasives we could maintain native plant diversity and keep invasive plants at bay.

The site on the Farley Trail was a relatively small area with a high density of invasive plants surrounded by native ferns.

In the Yankee Woodlot, we selected an area around blight-resistant chestnut trees planted in 2012. Unfortunately, the chestnuts had become threatened by tangles of bittersweet.

Removing invasive plants by hand is tough work physically and mentally. The prolific nature of invasive species is frustrating. There is also a decent amount of effort required to pull these plants and their deep roots from the soil. It feels like when one bittersweet vine is pulled up from the ground, bright orange roots in tow, another three crop up.

Once invasive plants have colonized an area, eradication becomes less and less feasible and containment is the only option. Pulling an invasive plant from a site with only a couple of other invasive plants has a greater impact than pulling one from a site overrun with invasives. Areas where invasive plants haven’t taken control are the highest priority. Pulling out invasive plants from areas still populated by native plants helps prevent an infestation of new invasive plants. Once an area is essentially taken over by invasives it is difficult to control them.

Each week, eight dedicated volunteers, after donning work gloves and mosquito nets, used loppers and mattocks to cut and uproot invasive plants. Many of these volunteers have spent hours wrangling invasive plants in their own backyards. They recognize the damage that invasives inflict on ecosystems and are motivated to control them.

Our volunteers arrived with a mix of experience. Helen had never removed invasive plants or learned to identify them before volunteering for this project. I showed her the ropes and watched her go on to teach other volunteers to identify plants and how best to remove them. Nancy, a master gardener who is also a docent and research volunteer, used her expertise in bittersweet removal to target well established vines wrapped around trees. Richard quickly established his “spot” on the Farley trail where, week after week, he could see the progress he had made in removing invasives and uncovering natives such as ferns and hawthorns.

We made 39 trips from the trails to the burn pile with a trailer full of invasive plants. Each trip contained five or six sizable armfuls of brush and roots. The burn pile grew huge as the weeks went by and was finally burned in August.

Our work sites will require continuous monitoring and control to successfully contain invasive plants. This summer project was part of a renewed effort to address the spread of invasive plants at the reserve, which will also be addressed in updates to the reserve's Natural Resource Management Plan.

Dest was cited for his outstanding contributions toward protecting natural resources at the Wells Reserve and the broader Gulf of Maine watershed. In a release, the council stated "For more than 30 years, Paul has worked to conserve and sustain the Gulf of Maine as a volunteer, naturalist, manager, mentor, and teacher." Paul started volunteering at Wells Reserve in 1989 and became its director in 2001.

Among Dest's accomplishments the council noted were:

• Guiding the Mount A to the Sea Conservation Initiative to establish a 19,000-acre conserved area in York County
  
• Shepherding the York River Wild & Scenic River designation
• Making the Wells Reserve the first 100% solar-powered nonprofit in Maine
• Editing the first-ever Maine Coastal Access Guide
• Increasing the Wells Reserve’s impact beyond its borders in southern Maine
• Effectively working with Maine’s congressional delegation and growing the collective impact of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System through his leadership at the system's supporting association

Gulf of Maine Council Visionary Awards are presented to individuals or organizations within each of
the five Gulf of Maine jurisdictions of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, and
Nova Scotia. These awards recognize innovation, creativity, and commitment to promoting a healthy
Gulf of Maine.

The Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment was established in 1989 by the Governments of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts to foster cooperative actions within the Gulf watershed. The Council’s mission is to maintain and enhance environmental quality in the Gulf of Maine to allow for sustainable resource use by existing and future generations.

• Nik's Notebook: Discovery
• Apples, How 'Bout Them?
• Smelt Brook Surveyed
• York River Forever Wild
• SWMP Summarized
• Blue Crab Rediscovered

Download the Spring 2023 Watermark (23MB)

In 2023, the Wells Reserve at Laudholm is once again “a place to discover.” We’ve stuck with that double-meaning tag line for seven years now; it continues to bear fruit. Into my second decade of work here, I certainly still discover new things. Most recently:

• Freshly-caught rainbow smelt are redolent of cucumber.
• The leaves of storm-downed maples sprout green but then can turn autumnal orange, even in May.
• The word “porcupine” comes from the Latin for “thorn pig,” though their oinking sounds more like a squeaky dog toy.

See? There’s always something new to learn. Perhaps that’s why so many of us keep coming back to Laudholm. Each spring, birds in the bush flit among blooming buds. With the arrival of summer interns, scientists begin budding too. Fresh art exhibits, novel observations from the research lab, shouts of wonder from schoolkids and campers, even a newly paved parking lot—all are signs of renewal, of development, and of your continued investment in this place and its work. Some things, like a Wild & Scenic designation, can take years. Others just seem to appear one day, like a migrating Baltimore oriole.

Thank you for helping to make all of this work, beauty, and tranquility possible. Do come over and enjoy it this season, and let me know what “something new” you discover while you’re here.

Nik Charov
President, Laudholm Trust
Chair, Wells Reserve Management Authority

Of course, the young woman didn’t *actually* spit on the poor beast. She backed away, grinning; a peculiar sense of humor clearly evident. I reminded her about that Queens Zoo porcupine in the wedding vows we exchanged a year later. I admit that I have been fascinated by both creatures ever since. After sixteen years of marriage, I still point out to her porcupines in trees, on roadsides, and of course, at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm.

Zoos are essential and important places, introducing people, especially “city folk,” to their animal cousins. But I prefer animals in the wild, where they’re less captive and more captivating. For instance: the young porcupine that took up a month-long residency behind our Coastal Ecology Center lab this past winter (see page 3 of the latest Watermark newsletter, or a video on our Facebook page). Someone brought it an apple once a week. That someone presumed that the porcupine’s squeaks and grunts were expressions of delight, forgiveness, and an appreciation for this protected place that is a haven for all.

That porcupine eventually moved on, but with summer’s arrival in Maine, creatures great and small are appearing once again at the Wells Reserve. Welcome back, friends. I do hope you can come for an extended visit and that you’ll make a gift to this place that continues to renew so many. Thank you, as ever, for your support and love for the Wells Reserve. We hope to see you here.

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The celebration was capped off with a champagne toast to the river and a celebratory cake decorated with an outline of the York River watershed.

Earlier in the day, Pingree, Reynolds, and others had joined some members of the York River Study Committee—and the newly formed Stewardship Committee—on a boat tour of the river so they could experience the precious resource first hand.

The designation, 14 years in the making, establishes a local/federal stewardship partnership for about 30.8 miles of the river and surrounding acreage, directs federal funding and technical assistance from the National Park Service, lifts the region’s profile as a national destination, and provides a local forum for the four watershed communities to collaboratively address long-term river stewardship needs.

Representative Pingree said the York River is "scenic and beautiful, of course, but also rich in well-preserved history, diverse in natural ecology, is a source for clean drinking water, and is home to a thriving working waterfront."