My View of Life on the Dock
Sawyer Free Library Tails and Tales 2021 Summer Reading Program special events continues the snake theme on Monday with Curbside Crafts. Stop by to pick up the creative craft kit!
and big kids!
On now!
Sawyer Free Library Tails and Tales 2021 Summer Reading Program special events continues the snake theme on Monday with Curbside Crafts. Stop by to pick up the creative craft kit!
Summer reading, new books, ongoing weekly programs, and special summer events: Sawyer Free children’s department is impressive! Families time regular visits to check out and return books with an array of fun plans. Rick Roth and crew engendered smiles and gasps with snakes from New England and the world on July 27, 2019.
Ssssecurity!
Captures from Assistant librarian and wonderful photographer Linda Bosselman
With the crowds at capacity year round, the children’s library is ideal on this level.
Imagine using stairs and the elevator to access the crush of ongoing and popular children’s programs on a proposed top floor of a proposed new building (review plans here). Sawyer Free has appropriated $935,000 from the endowment for a fundraising firm to assist with the capital campaign to raise 20 million of a 26 million plus project. Preliminary plans displayed at the annual meeting can be seen here
The childen’s department needs renovation and expansion, and access to its outdoor space again. The future planned terracing limits the public outdoor space and will impact the rich flexibility of so many outdoor options, running around and programs this department made use of since the Monell build.
Reminder – Pop UP Planetarium at City Hall tomorrow July 29,2019 summer 2019 a Universe of Stories (separate reminder post coming)
The North American River Otter is making an amazing comeback, not just on Cape Ann and all around Massachusetts, but in many regions throughout the United States. River Otters need unpolluted wetlands, streams, rivers, and ponds to survive, along with secluded places to den. Hollows in the banks of ponds and rivers make excellent dens and so do former Beaver lodges. As the perpetually-lodge-building Beaver has returned, so has the North American River Otter.
River Otters also need plenty of prey. Locally, they eat fish, frogs, snakes, and EELS!
This summer over in West Gloucester there appeared to be two Otter families, one mama with three pups and another mama with four pups. After watching the romp of Otters eat tadpoles and frogs early in the summer, by midsummer they had graduated to American Eels. I at first could not figure out what they were doing skirmishing around in the tall grass at the pond bank. Compared to diving and resurfacing with a mouthful of frog, this was entirely new behavior. There was much excited chortling when one of the pups caught an eel, which then seemed to set off a chain of eel ambushing and eating. One morning I had the great fun of observing three otter siblings chomping down on an otterly delicious breakfast!
First one pup catches an eel and brings it to the old wooden perch, which is also the otters favorite place to play hide and seek with each other.
Then the second pup, and soon all three were chowing down on eels!
The first one was getting jostled by his siblings and sought out more private room in which to dine.
American Eels can grow up to five feet long and weigh as much as 16 pounds. These Eels were about three to four feet long. American Eels spend most of their lives in freshwater and only return to saltwater to spawn and then die.
The pups deftly use their feet to hold fast the slippery eel.
Photographed on a different day, I think this pup is eating a snake. Notice the tapering tail in the above photo.
Why is clean water so important for River Otters? Pesticides, industrial pollution run off such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and mercury are absorbed by the River Otters prey. The chemicals accumulate in the River Otters, causing illness and death.
All things considered I think this gentleman handled the situation pretty well. I would have probably died right on the spot when the snake got up on me from a heart attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi1t6ypMnn4
Good Morning Gloucester 