Spectacular Sight
Written By Peter Brace
Photography by Daniel Sutherland
Chase your golf ball into the rough after a particularly ugly slice, stop along an island bike path for a breather or shut off your boat engine, and you’ll see, hear and smell the natural environment of Nantucket.
You might even notice other people out there tromping through the island wilderness or paddling silently into tidal ponds and creeks where powerboats and sails can’t navigate.
When you unplug, stop, listen and open your eyes, you experience the ecological magic of Nantucket that a large percentage of island visitors and even year-rounders and long-time natives often miss.
Despite its size, the island contains an astoundingly diverse collection of terrain and plant and animal species—many are officially rare and endangered—for such a small atoll off the coast of Massachusetts. And that diversity encourages Nantucket’s burgeoning ecotourism.
“There’s the geologic structure of the island in the north part with the glacial moraine, with kettle hole ponds, the hidden forests, the bogs, the swamps,” said Allen Reinhard, Middle Moors Manager for Nantucket Conservation Foundation. “And on the south side you have the glacial outwash with the great salt ponds, beaches and the sandplain grasslands.
Though rarely promoted as an ecotourism destination in travel guides and advertising materials, that designation for Nantucket is almost a given, whatever the season.
With about 50% of the island preserved as open space, including wildlife refuges and sanctuaries owned by local groups and the Trustees of Reservations and the Massachusetts Audubon Society, amateur and professional naturalists will find a lively mix of rare coastal plain habitats to satisfy fans of seals, whales, winter gulls, bogs, salt marshes, rare grasses and much more.
“I think it is a fantastic eco-tourism destination,” said Dr. Sarah Oktay, director of the UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station off Polpis Road. “It’s just such a small island and very accessible with all the bike paths. It is only fifty square miles, and it’s hard to get lost. There’s all kinds of habitats, and there’s a lot of variety in the flora and fauna.”
Year-round sanctuary
Great egrets, American oystercatchers, common terns, curlews, willets, whimbrels and ruddy turnstones are all shore birds on display up in Coskata Pond, a tidal pond at the northeast head of the harbor among salt marsh cord grass and mudflats. The shoreline is accessible on foot from the north end of Wauwinet Road or by kayak from Polpis Harbor.
Running along much of Nantucket’s and nearby Tuckernuck’s south shores are 620 acres of sandplain grasslands, the last such coastal upland habitat remaining in the world and home to rare plants such as sandplain blue-eyed grass, bushy rockrose, New England blazing star, yarrow and trailing arbutus, the Northern harrier and short-eared owl. These sandplain grasslands form a subtle yet magnificent habitat. Free from the heavy light pollution of the mainland, Nantucket is an ideal location for viewing the Perseoid meteor shower emanating from the constellation Perseus in the second week of August. One can watch them from a backyard lawn, from out in the moors or at the beach. For a better look, Maria Mitchell Association maintains a telescope for such astronomical light shows and galactic observation.
In late August through early October, millions and millions of lemon-size clear jellyfish called “Leidy’s comb jelly” swarm in the waters around Nantucket. Nearly invisible during the day, these non-stinging jellyfish, classified as plankton, are visible at night, glowing blueish-green when agitated in the water. Locally, this natural marine phenomenon is known as the phosphorescence.
Tens of thousands of long-tailed ducks spend their winter days diving for clams southeast of Nantucket, but when they fly back to Nantucket Sound to spend the night in massive flotillas of birds, they pass over Smith’s Point low enough to be easily heard and also seen without binoculars.
Muskeget Island west of Tuckernuck Island is one of only a handful of breeding spots for gray seals in New England, and more than 2,000 gray seals congregate around Nantucket in late January into February to give birth to their pups. These seals linger in the area’s waters well into the spring and can be seen along our shores, on the jetties and on Great Point.
Those natural wonders and sights are out there to be discovered and reveled in on their own, equally as fascinating as what you see along the way.
“All the conservation groups have done a remarkable job of preserving what open space there is relative to the number of tourists that come here,” said Captain Blair Perkins of Shearwater Excursions, which offers whale and seal watching cruises. “There is certainly enough territory to cover both on the water and on shore,” said Perkins.
Out on walkabout
Strike out into the moors, bogs,meadows, beaches and coastal plains by shanks mare because it is the only way you’re really going to see the terra firma of this island. Viewing it over handlebars works too, but the slower you go, the more you’ll see.
Running out of new places to explore on Nantucket is nearly impossible, even if you live here. The outdoor life is never boring for Perkins, Middle Moors Ranger Reinhard and Coatue Wildlife Refuge Property Superintendent Steve Nicolle of the Trustees of Reservations, who oversees Great Point Lighthouse. They rarely see the same things twice when they’re out covering familiar ground, including the mix of people who are out on a walkabout.
“It really depends on the weather, but I notice loads of people out there,” said Reinhard. “There’s a group early in the morning of dog walkers and bikers, and others late in the afternoon. During the middle of the day, there doesn’t tend to be a lot of people, but if it’s an overcast day, regular walkers like to go out and explore certain areas like Altar Rock,Windswept Cranberry Bog or the Milestone bogs.”
If hearing that these stewards and guides of conservation land are never exasperated by workplace boredom isn’t enough titillation for your Lewis and Clark fantasies, learn about Nicolle’s 2007 numbers for the Trustees’ natural history tours to the remote areas of Great Point beyond Wauwinet. “We have a van and we take nine people max, per trip, two trips daily,” said Nicolle, adding that they go out seven days a week during the summer and early fall. “Last year, we also did around eleven hundred people. Last year we started our fishing tour. It’s a marine environment tour educating people about seals and fish.”
Water of life
Fiddler crabs burrow deep into the muddy, honeycomb-like base of the salt marshes in Nantucket’s saltwater creeks, tidal ponds and harbors. Ribbed mussels attached to the stalks of cord grass that poke coarse green blades above the surface. Baitfish such as Atlantic silversides, dodging striped bass, swim over horseshoe crabs gliding along in the shallows, past the necks of soft-shell clams reaching up into the water for oxygen and food amidst jabbing beaks of great blue herons on their skinny legs, spearing a scaly dinner.
Get into a kayak and paddle into The Creeks, Folger’s Marsh, or Medouie Creek at high tide or out into Polpis Harbor. In Coskata Pond or around Hither Creek in Madaket drift in over the nearly submerged grass and put your fingers down onto the mud and grab hold. There you’re feeling it—what makes these waters live and breath. Open your eyes, tune in your ears and inhale the briny, pungent earthy odor of salt marsh life. Do it at dusk and another world otherwise missed may come alive for you.
Litte of this is obvious when charging along in a motorboat, but when aimed in the right direction, those engines can carry you out 15 to 20 miles east of the island to see finback, humpback and minke whales, sunfish, dolphins, sea turtles, and sea birds such as sooty shearwaters, greater shearwaters, jaegers and Wilson’s storm petrels.
“We have a year-round abundance of fauna to look at,” said Perkins. “We’ve got the gray seals out at Muskeget Island, which are year-round, so not only can I show visitors a great number of seals up close, but in the winter they can see them pupping. Also in the winter, you’ve got the numerous flights of sea ducks. They’re all up in the Arctic breeding right now, but in the winter Nantucket is just a haven for sea birds.” All of these wondrous ecosystems, their beasties and their plants, are here on Nantucket and in our waters.What are you waiting for?
Peter B. Brace is the environmental writer for the Nantucket Independent and the author of “Walking Nantucket: A Walker’s Guide to Exploring Nantucket on Foot.”
Into The Wild
Several non-profit organizations oversee the vast majority of Nantucket’s natural lands. They, along with a growing number of private guides, are leading residents and tourists alike into Nantucket’s most breathtaking sea-and landscapes.
Maria Mitchell Association conducts seasonal classes, nature hikes and birding and marine ecology walks for all ages. Their wonderful facilities, with its main campus on Milk Street, include a natural history museum, astronomical observatories and a small aquarium. Visit their Website at www.mmo.org or call 508-228-9198.
Nantucket Conservation Foundation conducts FIELD (Find, Investigate, Explore, Learn, Discover) days for children through August. The Nantucket Field Station serves as a living, waterfront laboratory on Polpis Harbor underthe stewardship of NCF. Mornings for Members walks are held all around the island, led by Middle Moors Manager Alan Reinhard. See www.nantucket conservation.org or call 508-228-2884.
Nantucket Land Council has created a brochure-guided tour of Nantucket’s historic downtown trees. Included are locations, illustrations, histories and biological information. The group also guides tours of local plant life and holds water and soil quality workshops. Check local visitor brochure racks for the tree tour, see www.nantucketlandcouncil.org or call 508-228-2818.
The Linda Loring Nature Foundation in the Eel Point area of Nantucket oversees vast conservation lands and leads natural walks and birding tours with resident naturalist Vern Laux. Call 508-325-0873 or see www.llnf.org.
Trustees of the Reservations manages and leads tour groups to the spectacular Coskata-Coatue Wildlife Area and Great Point Lighthouse, accessible only by permit in four-wheel drive vehicles. Call 508-228-5646 or see www.thetrustees.org.
Strong Wings Adventure School provides day camps, hikes and kayaking and bicycle tours for youth. Visit www.strongwings. org or call 508-228-1769.
Shearwater Excursions, with its veteran Captain Blair Perkins at the helm, leads seasonal whale watching and year-round bird and seal watching tours in Nantucket’s nearby waters. Sailings last from one-hour harbor cruises to six hours for whale watching. Call 508-228- 7037 or see www.explorenantucket.com.
For more local ecotourism experiences with non-profit and commercial guides, visit Nantucket Visitor Services & Information Bureau at 25 Federal Street, 508-228-0925 or stop by Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce at Zero Main Street, 508-228-1700, or see www.nantucketchamber.org.
