In Gloucester you can climb City Hall tower or follow one of the 3 self guided HarborWalk tours. Walk up the Fish Net mural to see City Hall and Sawyer Free WPA murals. The library is also featuring an annual local artists exhibition. Read about extra special tours and events at Cape Pond Ice, Magnolia Library and Historical Society, Maritime Gloucester, Cape Ann Museum, Cape Ann Trail Stewards tour Rafe Chasm, and Babson Boulders.
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The Fishermen win their opening game defeating Lynn Classical with just a couple of minutes left on the game clock. Kind of a typical Gloucester-Lynn Classical game!
An unbelievably beautiful event this years race out in the ocean waters off Cape Ann. It was incredible to see these wonderful vessels sailing under such conditions with the swells and wind filling their sails.
You couldn’t help but notice yesterday morning’s dramatic cloud formations. Facebook Friends have been posting from several different times of the day and these photos were taken around 7am. I am so curious and tried looking it up although it was all a bit confusing. Its fun to say undulatus asperatus, but that’s only a guess. Do we have any cloud experts that would like to write and let us know?
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A pile of bones and animal parts were found by the East Gloucester neighborhood kids on Niles Beach Sunday. We are wondering if one of our readers could help us identify what we are looking at here. Thank you 🙂
There were several of these starry shaped things and this is the largest one. There is some kind of cartilage base from which they extend.
This is hard and and thin. We were holding up to the light but the sun had gone down. It was somewhat translucent when earlier the light had been shining through it.
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Catch sight if you can of the graceful Bonaparte’s Gulls, migrating along the Atlantic Flyway and through our region. A few will spend the winter here but most are taking pause to rest and refuel at the least disturbed of our beautiful shores.
Bonaparte’s Gull taking flight
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GloucesterCast 196 With Ken Riehl, Kerry McKenna, Heidi Dallin, Robert and Barbara Walsh, Deborah Cramer, Catherine Ryan, Kim Smith and Joey Ciaramitaro Taped 8/14/16
Topics Include:
Ken Riehl and Kerry McKenna Blues Fest, Block Party, Sidewalk Bazaar Upcoming Waterfront Festival and Second Block Party
Heidi Dallin Songs For a New Play- Great review In The Boston Globe Runs Now Through August 27th Wednesday-Sunday with Matinees Saturday and Sunday. Bob Walsh Directed Barbara Walsh Broadway Sat Nominated For a Tony Featured
Beautiful Essex-built Schooner Roseway this afternoon. Question for Marty or Len – where will she be berthed during the environmental cleanup?
From the World Ocean School website ~
In the fall of 1920 a Halifax, Nova Scotia, newspaper challenged the fisherman of Gloucester, Massachusetts, to a race between the Halifax fishing schooners and the Gloucester fleet. Therefore many schooners, such as Roseway, built at this time were not strictly designed for fishing but in order to protect American honor in the annual races.
Roseway, 137′ in sparred length, was designed as a fishing yacht by John James and built in 1925 in his family’s shipyard in Essex, Massachusetts. Father and son worked side by side on Roseway, carrying on a long New England history of wooden shipbuilding. She was commissioned by Harold Hathaway of Taunton, Massachusetts, and was named after an acquaintance of Hathaway’s “who always got her way.” Despite her limited fishing history, Roseway set a record of 74 swordfish caught in one day in 1934.
Roseway was built and maintained to an exceedingly high standard, using a special stand of white oak from Hathaway’s property in Taunton. She had varnished rails and stanchions and had a house built for her every winter. She was so well maintained that the coal for the stove was washed before being stored in the bunker. This kind of treatment, which contributed to her longevity, was unheard of in the commercial fishing fleet.
On December 7, 1941, just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Boston Globe reported the purchase of Roseway by the Boston Pilots Association. In the article, the Pilots described Roseway as “sturdily constructed of oak, the craft is fully capable of withstanding the battering of heavy seas and onslaughts of terrific gales that pilot boats maintaining the lonely vigil off Boston Harbor are called upon to meet.” Clarence Doane, agent for the Boston Pilots, stated that Roseway “approaches as close as possible to specifications of the ideal pilot boat as any vessel. . . .”
For the past ten weeks, each morning very early before work I have been filming the Good Harbor Beach shorebirds and their habitat, and when not too tired from work, would go back again at the end of the day. For the most part, it has been a tremendously educational and rewarding experience, and I love Good Harbor and its wild creatures even more than when I began the Piping Plover project. We are so fortunate to have this incredibly beautiful and beloved treasure of a beach in our midst, and so easily accessed. As much as I have enjoyed filming the wildlife, it has been equally as fun to observe the myriad wonderful ways in which people enjoy the beach recreationally and that too is part of the Good Harbor Beach Piping Plover story.
Take a closer look at the shorebirds next time you are at Good Harbor Beach. Small and swift, they can look similar, but once you begin to study their behaviors, each species becomes easier to identify.
New female Piping Plover on the scene with very pale coloring
Good Harbor Beach is currently home to three different species of plovers. We all know about our beautiful Piping Plover family. The lone surviving chick and Dad were last seen heading deep, deep, deep into the salt marsh. Since that time, several new Piping Plovers have joined the scene, two females and a male. We can tell they are different from our original mated pair by their feather pattern and bill color.
Earlier in the summer, four Killdeer chicks hatched at the edge of the GHB salt marsh. It was pretty scary filming the Killdeer family because all six were running willy nilly every which way throughout the beach parking lot on a very busy weekend morning. In the next photo, taken several days ago, you can see that the family has grown quickly.
Killdeers are the largest of the the three species of plovers seen in Massachusetts, nearly twice as large as the pocket-sized Piping Plover. That fact didn’t stop the male Piping Plover from defending its nesting territory. Notice the two dark bands around the neck and chest of the Killdeer.
Half the size of his foe, our male Piping Plover is vigorously chasing the intruding Killdeer from his nesting territory
The Killdeer has a dark band encircling its neck and a second band across its chest
The third species of plovers at GHB is the Semipalmated Plover. Although only slightly larger than the Piping Plover, the difference is easy to spot by the darker brown wings. Compare the single neck ring of the Semipalmated Plover to that of the Killdeer’s double set of rings. Unlike Piping Plovers and Killdeers, Semipalmated Plovers do not breed in Massachusetts but in northern Canada and Alaska. At this time of year we are observing their southward migration to the southern United States, Caribbean, and South America.
Semipalmated Plover
Semipalmated Plovers are often seen in mixed flocks with Semipalmated Sandpipers and Least Sandpipers. Semipalmated Sandpipers have black legs. Least Sandpipers have distinctly colored yellowish legs.
Semipalmated Plover and Semipalmated Sandpipers
Least Sandpiper
Note that all of the shorebirds mentioned here are also currently at Wingaersheek Beach.
Semipalmated Plover
Least Sandpiper
Semipalmated Plover resting
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GloucesterCast 193 With Ringo and Emily Tarr, Cat Ryan, @kimSmithdesigns and @Joey_C taped 7/24/17
Topics Include:
CountryFest July 30th and BluesFest August 6th Ringo Tarr and Emily Frank From Boston Fence Donates the Fencing, Get $30 tickets at The Chamber or Firefly downtown before, at the gate tickets are available for $35 http://gloucesterbluesfestival.com/
Kent XCircle tree Lighting, Flags At The Boulevard, the Concerts at The Boulevard, The Fireworks, Founding member of The GloucesterFund
Squished Bunny- how small must the bunny Rabbit’s Brain’s be that you give them like 150 yards and they still manage to at the very last second leap in front of your tire?
Hungry? Pack light. You’ll pass great sandwich shops, locally owned and operated, en route to Gloucester’s magnificent beaches. Jeff’s Variety can set you up for a good lunch to go wherever you’re headed including Good Harbor Beach, Long Beach, or the back shore. Jeff says that there are many repeat customers that come back each and every season–for years–on their way to Good Harbor Beach. IF you have a big group, you can order trays with finger sandwiches. Sandwich platters featuring Virgilio’s rolls need at least two days notice to prepare. They’re open Sundays. What else? “Yes!” the answer to my question if they have plenty of call ahead requests from cars caught in traffic. Passengers calling only, please!
Scroll down the post for a one-stop, sub-shopping Gloucester directory with phone numbers and links. I could add in our favorite choices from each place.
Marshall’s Farm Stand (picnic route rather than sandwich counter) (978) 283-2168 (pints of fruit, munchies, loaf artisan bread, mozzarella specialty cheeses)
I haven’t forgotten Magnolia–just missing Magnolia’s House of Pizza. ON Mondays there’s Cape Ann Farmer’s market for Magnolia. “M” for Mondays, “M” for Magnolia.
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GloucesterCast 196 With Ken Riehl, Kerry McKenna, Heidi Dallin, Robert and Barbara Walsh, Deborah Cramer, Catherine Ryan, Kim Smith and Joey Ciaramitaro Taped 8/14/16
Good Morning Gloucester 