by Dr. Sarah T. Bois, Director of Research & Education for the Linda Loring Nature Foundation Springtime on Nantucket brings blossoms of every color, resident birds back to the island, and a plethora of new visitors. Among all of these spring occurrences is one often met with derision: the Eastern […]
Island Science
Signs of Nantucket Spring
by Dr. Sarah T. Bois, Director of Research & Education for the Linda Loring Nature Foundation Springtime on Nantucket is a special time when muddy roads and icy sidewalks make way for budding crocuses and nesting song-birds. Spring officially begins with the Nantucket Daffodil Festival that has always been held […]
Nantucket Lighthouse School Honored by Monarch Watch
Early in April, Nantucket Lighthouse School received a Certificate of Appreciation from Monarch Watch, a non-profit education, conservation and research program based at the University of Kansas that focuses on the monarch butterfly, its habitat, and its spectacular fall migration. The award grants Nantucket Lighthouse School’s Pollinator Garden national recognition […]
Camp Scholarship in Memory of Son
Susan and Howard Bloom have announced the Adam Bloom Scholarship Fund for children interested in attending the Maria Mitchell Association’s winter and spring vacation camp programs running in December and April. Applications, available at mariamitchell.org, are being accepted for the MMA’s Winter Discovery Camp from December 27 to 30. During […]
What Is This? A Striped Bass Skeleton
~ by Katherine Brooks, Maria Mitchell Association ~ The story of the striped bass skeleton hanging in the Maria Mitchell Association’s Hinchman Natural Science Museum begins with an old Nantucketer, Granger Frost, who caught the striped bass off of Tuckernuck in 1971. The bass, lovingly named the 7th Earl of […]
One Night Only
Legends Paul Winter and Roger Payne Perform “Whales Alive: The Music of Whales” Concert at the Whaling Museum, 13 Broad Street on Wednesday, August 31 at 7 pm. Winter is a saxophonist, composer, and seven-time Grammy winner. Dr. Payne is the biologist famous for the discovery of humpback whale songs […]
What Is This? A Sundial!
~ by Katherine Brooks, Maria Mitchell Association ~ Sundial or Sun d’Isle, as so cleverly named and crafted by Robert A. diCurcio (Bob), was designed as a piece of functional art and commissioned for the Maria Mitchell Association in 1989. The sundial is designed based on the latitude (41 degrees, […]
What Is This? – Wood Fern
The Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) biological collections’ oldest specimen is the Wood Fern (pictured above). Maria Louisa Owen, an expert in mosses and moss-like plants, collected this fern in 1879. This was during the height of “Pteridomania” – also known as the Victo- rian fern craze – which was sweeping […]