Keep Calm and Bird On: April 2022

Ginger Andrews • March 25, 2022
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.”
-Edith Andrews

The arrivals and departures only increase as spring progresses. We continue to watch recently arrived American Oystercatchers, Ospreys and Piping Plover.

But it is still worth getting in those last looks at the winter sea ducks: Black, White-Winged and Surf Scoters, not to mention Bufflehead, Harlequin and Long-tailed Ducks. Long-tailed Ducks—some of us who are older remember them as “Oldsquaws”—are particularly of interest as their numbers have varied so much over time. The huge flocks of the mid-1980’s and early 2000’s have not been seen for the last few years. And as a pelagic species, spending much time out of sight of land, it is difficult for researchers to get an accurate sense of how many there are. We do know that the big flights of yore coincided with big concentrations of food, in the form of gaminid amphipods, on a shoal about 50 miles southeast of Nantucket. Almost 10% of the estimated world population passed by our shores, going by the north shore and Great Point in the morning, returning back along the south shore and Madaket in the afternoon, and cutting overland sometimes in the fog, yodeling their haunting calls as they flew over. We count them one by one just now, to find out how many are still around here.  

And for sheer enjoyment, listen for the eerie keening of Black Scoters, gathering in large rafts off Sconset to prepare for migration. Their voices were supposed to be part of the origin of that mythical beast, the Tuckernuck Yo-ho. And enjoy watching behaviors: many of the northern ducks are pairing up here or along the way. Watch for feisty courtship displays: head-bobbing, yodeling, bowing, synchronized swimming, and a lot of splashing.

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Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 7, 2025
July 31, 1883. I had two or three rich days! On Friday last I went to Holderness, N.H.. to the Asquam House; I had been asked by Mrs. T to join her party. There was at this house Mr. Whittier, Mr., and Mrs. Cartland, Professor and Mrs. Johnson, of Yale . . . The house seemed full of fine, cultivate people. We stayed two days and a half. And first of the scenery. The road up to the house is a steep hill, and at the foot of the hill it winds and turns around two lakes. The panorama is complete one hundred and eighty degrees. Beyond the lakes lie the mountains.  The Asquam House sat atop Shepard Hill and was built in 1881. A hotel, it has space for fifty guests, it was located near Squam Lake and became part of a summer enclave that developed there in the later part of the nineteenth century. Today, the area is a National Historic Landmark, but sadly, the hotel was demolished in 1948. Maria would have been familiar with these people seen here – and others I did not include – but particularly John Greenleaf Whittier who was something of a family friend. He was close to one of her younger brothers, William Forester. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: July 2025

July 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

The Birth of the Maria Mitchell Observatory: Celebrating Over 100 Years of Discovery

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF
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