Island Science

Island Science

Winter Weather

• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • I am writing this article on an unseasonably warm Sunday in November. According to Weather Underground (http://www.wunderground.com ) which is usually my go-to source for weather data the maximum temperature was 57 degrees Fahrenheit on Nantucket […]

Island Science

Denizens of the Night

• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • Last June I wrote about moths here on Nantucket in preparation for a “moth party” and a public education effort to teach people more about moths and get folks excited about photographing them.  Since then I […]

Island Science

The Amazing Leatherback Sea Turtle

• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • Long considered an amazing boon to sailors when found at sea on long voyages, the sea turtle today enjoys protected status in all the oceans. Right now a massive (6-8 foot long) deceased leatherback sea turtle […]

Island Science

What Lies Beneath

• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • Mapping the Ocean Floor The UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station has the use of a new toy, and boy what a toy it is! In late August, Dr. Mark Borelli of the Provincetown Center for Coastal […]

Island Science

Folger’s Marsh Birds

• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • We are blessed to have the 17 acre Folger’s marsh as the centerpiece of the Nantucket Field Station. It is populated by an enormous menagerie of egrets, herons, and cormorants among other marsh birds. I usually […]

Island Science

The Magical Island of Tuckernuck

• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • For the past two summers I have been fortunate to visit the Tuckernuck Land Trust’s (or TLT, website can be accessed at http://www.tuckernucklandtrust.org/) field station and do some basic biological collection (bees and mosquitoes) and give […]

Island Science

Flying Dragons

• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • What is strong, a skilled hunter, ephemeral, eats mosquitoes and feeds a wide variety of birds, fish, and frogs? Give up? It is the beautiful dragonfly, currently gracing Nantucket ponds and wetlands this summer. Some of […]

Bay Scallops
Island Science

Bay Scallops, Nantucket Gold

• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • Nantucket is home to the last commercially viable “wild” bay scallop fishery in the U.S. (and essentially world-wide) and preserving this treasure is, in a way, tantamount to preserving Nantucket.  Other fisheries up and down the […]