The Wrack

Remembering Tony Amos, who dedicated nearly 40 years to understanding, protecting, and kindling appreciation for marine life along the Gulf Coast.

We got lots of help over 10 weeks of fyke netting in the York River and added 3,759 fish records to our database. The results will be included in a report to the York River Wild and Scenic Committee.

Introduction to the larval fish monitoring done by reserve scientists at Wells Harbor.

It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a team to save a raccoon.

Robert and Rose Marie are avid lepidopterists, which is a fancy word for people who are enthusiastic about butterflies and moths. This couple's passion focuses on butterflies. Since 2007, they have been busy each year collecting information for the Maine Butterfly Survey.

Now that the butterfly survey has ended, they have turned their butterfly catching talents to producing butterfly checklists for natural areas. That is what brought them to the Wells Reserve. Robert is the primary netter and Rose Marie is the photographer.

Yesterday, the picnic table under the copper beech was covered with clipboards, bird books, and banding supplies for the first time since last summer. Around the table, a bird-banding team kept busy with catbirds, veeries, waxwings, and other species brought up from the nets. This long-term monitoring and research project has entered its 29th year (28th on the Laudholm campus) — but it's got a new look for 2016.

Dovekies, or little auks, are sea-going plankton consumers who tend to stay to our north. You're most likely to spot one from a boat or, with persistence, through a telescope at a good "sea-watching" site. I've never been so lucky; dovekie's on my wish list.

Three years ago I observed a magical happening while on a drive along Ocean Avenue in Kennebunkport. Suddenly I was surrounded by what appeared to be a veritable storm of brightly colored pieces of paper fluttering past me. Upon stopping I saw that these were monarchs gathering in the Rosa rugosa at the water’s edge. There was a strong onshore breeze and they were flying about, hesitant to launch over the open water.

"That seaweed is disgusting. It's ugly, it smells, and it's covered in flies. Why don't you do something about it?"

I can only imagine the phone calls fielded by beach managers from York to Biddeford this summer. I'm sure they got an earful. Southern Maine's tourist magnets, our beautiful sandy beaches, got turned into algae dumps in July. Popular sun-bathing spots were piled high with twisted mounds of seaweed. Vacationers were none too pleased.

Peeved visitors took to social media to vent their frustration. Empathetic local officials tried to explain. The press pounced.

Katrina Papanastassiou brought good news for her lunchtime talk about this summer's piping plover and least tern nesting season in Maine.