10/28/07
10/27/07
10/26/07
Seal Walks Scheduled
These are the times and places of seal walks led by a CRESLI naturalist at Montauk Point and Cupsogue Beach.
CRESLI seal walks at Montauk Point State Park
Friday 12/21/200711:00 AM
Friday 1/4/200811:00 AM
Friday 1/18/200810:00 AM
Friday 2/1/200810:00 AM
Friday 2/15/20089:00 AM
Friday 2/29/20089:00 AM
Friday 3/14/20089:00 AM
Friday 3/17/200811:00 AM
Friday 4/11/20089:00 AM
Friday 4/25/20088:00 AM
Friday 5/2/200811:00 AM
CRESLI seal walks at Montauk Point State Park will depart from area near the bathrooms in the main parking lot at Montauk Point State Park. The walks are approximately 3 miles round trip and take about 3 hours. Meeting times are 15 minutes prior to departure. These beach walks are suitable for children.
CRESLI seal walks at Cupsogue Beach County Park, Westhampton Beach
Sunday 12/23/0710:30 AM
Saturday 01/05/0810:00 AM
Sunday 01/20/089:30 AM
Saturday 02/02/089:00 AM
Sunday 02/17/089:00 AM
Saturday 02/24/081:30 PM
Sunday 03/02/089:30 AM
Saturday 03/08/0812:00 PM
Sunday 03/16/089:00 AM
Saturday 03/22/0812:00 PM
Sunday 04/06/0811:00 AM
Saturday 04/19/0812:00 PM
Sunday 05/04/0811:00 AM
CRESLI seal walks at Cupsogue Beach County Park (at the western end of Dune Road in Westhampton Beach) will depart from area near the fence at the western end of the parking lot. The walks are approximately 1 miles round trip and take about 2 hours. Meeting times are 15 minutes prior to departure. These walks are suitable for children.
CRESLI seal walks at Montauk Point State Park
Friday 12/21/200711:00 AM
Friday 1/4/200811:00 AM
Friday 1/18/200810:00 AM
Friday 2/1/200810:00 AM
Friday 2/15/20089:00 AM
Friday 2/29/20089:00 AM
Friday 3/14/20089:00 AM
Friday 3/17/200811:00 AM
Friday 4/11/20089:00 AM
Friday 4/25/20088:00 AM
Friday 5/2/200811:00 AM
CRESLI seal walks at Montauk Point State Park will depart from area near the bathrooms in the main parking lot at Montauk Point State Park. The walks are approximately 3 miles round trip and take about 3 hours. Meeting times are 15 minutes prior to departure. These beach walks are suitable for children.
CRESLI seal walks at Cupsogue Beach County Park, Westhampton Beach
Sunday 12/23/0710:30 AM
Saturday 01/05/0810:00 AM
Sunday 01/20/089:30 AM
Saturday 02/02/089:00 AM
Sunday 02/17/089:00 AM
Saturday 02/24/081:30 PM
Sunday 03/02/089:30 AM
Saturday 03/08/0812:00 PM
Sunday 03/16/089:00 AM
Saturday 03/22/0812:00 PM
Sunday 04/06/0811:00 AM
Saturday 04/19/0812:00 PM
Sunday 05/04/0811:00 AM
CRESLI seal walks at Cupsogue Beach County Park (at the western end of Dune Road in Westhampton Beach) will depart from area near the fence at the western end of the parking lot. The walks are approximately 1 miles round trip and take about 2 hours. Meeting times are 15 minutes prior to departure. These walks are suitable for children.
10/22/07
Beached Birds
Wildlife Trust and Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine are working with numerous non-profit organizations and agencies including CRESLI, and the Riverhead Foundation, SEANET (The Seabird Ecological Assessment Network) is conducting volunteer-based beached bird surveys throughout the NY-NJ-CT coast.
Volunteers walk a designated stretch of beach, generally a mile or two, at approximately the same time every month, once or twice per month. We provide a kit for each volunteer including datasheets, a ruler, calipers, and latex gloves. Volunteers record location information, date, conditions, and if they find a bird carcass, as much detail on the specimen as possible, including basic measurements and condition.
Trainings on identification, measurement technique, and general protocol will be held for those interested in volunteering. If possible, volunteers take photographs of specimens they find, for confirmation of identification and for possible use in an Atlantic coast guide to beached birds that we are producing.
If specimens are fresh enough, and we have identified a nearby collaborating facility, specimens can be collected for necropsy. We also encourage those volunteers with bird ID skills to keep track of live birds seen while doing the surveys.
If you might be interested in volunteering, contact Christine Banks, 212 380 4464 or banks@wildlifetrust.org for more information. Please tell your friends. The training sessions are listed below. If you or anyone you know are interested in attending, please let me know which session will be good for you. You will be contacted to confirm the date shortly.
Volunteers walk a designated stretch of beach, generally a mile or two, at approximately the same time every month, once or twice per month. We provide a kit for each volunteer including datasheets, a ruler, calipers, and latex gloves. Volunteers record location information, date, conditions, and if they find a bird carcass, as much detail on the specimen as possible, including basic measurements and condition.
Trainings on identification, measurement technique, and general protocol will be held for those interested in volunteering. If possible, volunteers take photographs of specimens they find, for confirmation of identification and for possible use in an Atlantic coast guide to beached birds that we are producing.
If specimens are fresh enough, and we have identified a nearby collaborating facility, specimens can be collected for necropsy. We also encourage those volunteers with bird ID skills to keep track of live birds seen while doing the surveys.
If you might be interested in volunteering, contact Christine Banks, 212 380 4464 or banks@wildlifetrust.org for more information. Please tell your friends. The training sessions are listed below. If you or anyone you know are interested in attending, please let me know which session will be good for you. You will be contacted to confirm the date shortly.
10/21/07
Leviathan!
The Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum has scheduled
"Leviathan: the History of Whaling in America" for next Sunday, at 3 p.m.
"Leviathan: the History of Whaling in America" for next Sunday, at 3 p.m.
10/20/07
Upcoming Seal Walks
The Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island has scheduled its seal walks, starting in November.
General Information about Seal Walks: CRESLI seal walks will take place between November and May. Please note that weather will play a significant role in determining the seal walk schedule. Please call CRESLI at (631) 244-3352 for schedule changes and cancellations.
Please be prepared for the weather, i.e., wear warm clothing (outerwear should be in muted colors) in layers. Hats, gloves, warm waterproof shoes, and water are also recommended, as are cameras and binoculars. For those without waterproof shoes, an additional dry pair of shoes and socks (for the ride home) would be beneficial.
General Information about Seal Walks: CRESLI seal walks will take place between November and May. Please note that weather will play a significant role in determining the seal walk schedule. Please call CRESLI at (631) 244-3352 for schedule changes and cancellations.
Please be prepared for the weather, i.e., wear warm clothing (outerwear should be in muted colors) in layers. Hats, gloves, warm waterproof shoes, and water are also recommended, as are cameras and binoculars. For those without waterproof shoes, an additional dry pair of shoes and socks (for the ride home) would be beneficial.
10/15/07
Blog Action Day: Cleaning Green
It’s time to get rid of the unhealthy cleaning products in the house and use such natural items as borax, distilled white vinegar, baking soda, salt, washing soda (sodium carbonate), also known as soda ash, and lemons.
Note that most of these products are readily available We had trouble finding Borax for a while. I went to seven supermarkets over a period of weeks, looking for Borax but was met by blank looks by the 20-somethings. I did find one manager who knew what I was talking about but said that Borax, like other products, such as Brillo and Spic-and-Span, had pretty much disappeared. (Stop and Shop, in particular, seems determined to reduce the number products it offers).
Then, suddenly, Borax reappeared on the shelves of the Waldbaum’s store near me, so I’ve been scooping up the boxes as I can.
If it’s not available in your nearest store, try Soaps Gone Buy, which offers Twenty Mule Team Borax, Fels Naptha and other seemingly lost products.
If you need convincing that shifting to these products is a good idea, study the labels of your commercial soaps. One day, when I had an especially ugly, sticky spill on my kitchen floor, I used bleach and a little dish soap and immediately felt sickened by the fumes. It turned out that the dish soap contained ammonia, and mixing it with bleach is a terrible idea. The air in your house will be healthier; so will the waterways where products end up.
I was further surprised to discover ammonia in some shampoo! So read those labels or just switch; it’s easy.
Here are some uses:
Lemon juice: We’ve also used lemon to clean the inside of the car. I frequently found myself coughing hard in the car, especially when the heat came on. Just spraying the air didn’t help; we keep a lot of papers and clothing in the car for different reasons and so the air is frequently dusty from those items. So applying some lemon to clean off the dashboard, reaching into the air vents and sprinkling some baking soda and then vacuuming it up helped the air quality a lot.
It also can dissolve soap scum. We have hard water in our neighborhood and soap scum remains on the bathtub. It works well to remove it, especially if mixed with vinegar or baking soda. You can also let it soak in the kitchen sink and pour it down the drain to remove odors. It also works to clean the kitchen floor.
Borax: all kinds of cleaning: countertops, laundry, floors. Boosts cleaning of clothes—will definitely brighten your clothes. We didn’t realize how dingy our bed covers had gotten from the dog—we washed the covers, of course, and they looked fine. Then we used Borax to supplement laundry soap and things looked much, much better, almost new.
Baking soda: Use about a half cup of baking soda, followed by a half cup of vinegar, as a drain cleaner. Those over-the-counter drain cleaners are about as toxic as you can get in a household product. It’s far less abrasive than commercial products.
Hydrogen peroxide: mix with water, spray on grout and areas subject to mold; let sit for an hour and then wash off with water. Kills mold and germs.
Vinegar: We use this for all kinds of projects: we use a bit to clean the dishwasher to kill germs, to kill mold or mildew, as a fabric softener (add a little during the rinse cycle), countertops, kitchen and bathroom floors. There may be a strong smell when first used but it dries and the scent disappears very quickly. And the temporary smell is nothing compared to the odor of bleach or ammonia, and there’s no harm remaining from using it.
Note that most of these products are readily available We had trouble finding Borax for a while. I went to seven supermarkets over a period of weeks, looking for Borax but was met by blank looks by the 20-somethings. I did find one manager who knew what I was talking about but said that Borax, like other products, such as Brillo and Spic-and-Span, had pretty much disappeared. (Stop and Shop, in particular, seems determined to reduce the number products it offers).
Then, suddenly, Borax reappeared on the shelves of the Waldbaum’s store near me, so I’ve been scooping up the boxes as I can.
If it’s not available in your nearest store, try Soaps Gone Buy, which offers Twenty Mule Team Borax, Fels Naptha and other seemingly lost products.
If you need convincing that shifting to these products is a good idea, study the labels of your commercial soaps. One day, when I had an especially ugly, sticky spill on my kitchen floor, I used bleach and a little dish soap and immediately felt sickened by the fumes. It turned out that the dish soap contained ammonia, and mixing it with bleach is a terrible idea. The air in your house will be healthier; so will the waterways where products end up.
I was further surprised to discover ammonia in some shampoo! So read those labels or just switch; it’s easy.
Here are some uses:
Lemon juice: We’ve also used lemon to clean the inside of the car. I frequently found myself coughing hard in the car, especially when the heat came on. Just spraying the air didn’t help; we keep a lot of papers and clothing in the car for different reasons and so the air is frequently dusty from those items. So applying some lemon to clean off the dashboard, reaching into the air vents and sprinkling some baking soda and then vacuuming it up helped the air quality a lot.
It also can dissolve soap scum. We have hard water in our neighborhood and soap scum remains on the bathtub. It works well to remove it, especially if mixed with vinegar or baking soda. You can also let it soak in the kitchen sink and pour it down the drain to remove odors. It also works to clean the kitchen floor.
Borax: all kinds of cleaning: countertops, laundry, floors. Boosts cleaning of clothes—will definitely brighten your clothes. We didn’t realize how dingy our bed covers had gotten from the dog—we washed the covers, of course, and they looked fine. Then we used Borax to supplement laundry soap and things looked much, much better, almost new.
Baking soda: Use about a half cup of baking soda, followed by a half cup of vinegar, as a drain cleaner. Those over-the-counter drain cleaners are about as toxic as you can get in a household product. It’s far less abrasive than commercial products.
Hydrogen peroxide: mix with water, spray on grout and areas subject to mold; let sit for an hour and then wash off with water. Kills mold and germs.
Vinegar: We use this for all kinds of projects: we use a bit to clean the dishwasher to kill germs, to kill mold or mildew, as a fabric softener (add a little during the rinse cycle), countertops, kitchen and bathroom floors. There may be a strong smell when first used but it dries and the scent disappears very quickly. And the temporary smell is nothing compared to the odor of bleach or ammonia, and there’s no harm remaining from using it.
10/14/07
Terms Defined
Long Island Boating World looks at the issue of Admiralty terms.
Admiralty terms are unique. And, while a doctor’s
writing may be difficult to understand, admiralty’s language
can be just as tricky to navigate. Here we are in the
21st century, and the U.S. Supreme Court recently re-visited
the definition of vessel in relation to a maritime dispute.
Just last month, a reader of the “Sea Trials” column
(a licensed captain) sent me an email asking what the
term seaman means in maritime law.
Believe it or not, the issue of seaman status is frequently
litigated. This is because, under maritime law,
the types of remedies available and elements of damages
recoverable may depend upon whether one is or is not a
“seaman.” Plaintiffs with bodily injuries like to be
cloaked with “seaman” status for expanded remedies
against the vessel owner/employer.
A seaman, according to a dictionary definition, is a
person skilled in seamanship or a person whose trade or
occupation is assisting in the handling, sailing, and navigating
of a ship during a voyage, especially one below
the rank of officer. However, it is not so simple in admiralty
parlance. Maritime law relating to liability for
death or injury to seamen has evolved from ancient
maritime codes. Coupled with U.S. legislation and
case law, unique tests of eligibility for seaman status
have developed.
10/8/07
Updating the Weather Report
This is one of those decisions that seems self-evident, in hindsight.
... Now, instead of issuing weather warnings on a county-by-county basis, the National Weather Service will issue them based on the location of the storm.
NewsChannel 7 Meteorologist Katie O’Brien says, “It helps in terms of there’s a lot less hassle on the part of people who aren’t even going to be affected by the storm.”
Here's more information.
... Now, instead of issuing weather warnings on a county-by-county basis, the National Weather Service will issue them based on the location of the storm.
NewsChannel 7 Meteorologist Katie O’Brien says, “It helps in terms of there’s a lot less hassle on the part of people who aren’t even going to be affected by the storm.”
Here's more information.
Run for the Turtles
5K Run for the Ridley to benefit the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation.
The run will take place on October 20, 2007, at 10:00 AM in Riverhead, NY. The Race will be timed by Fit Results.
Eligibility: Open to runners and joggers of all ages.
5K Course: The Run starts on Main Street in Riverhead, goes through a quiet residential neighborhood and finishes on McDermott Ave.
Registration: Early registration is $17.00 if postmarked by Ocotber 12, 2007.
Late registration between Ocotober 13 and October 19, 2007 is $20.00
Race day registration is $25.00
Event T-shirt will be given to all pre-registered runners
Check-in: Easternmost end of Municipal Parking Lot adjacent to Peconic River. 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. Ample parking.
Awards: Top three male and famale overall, plus top three male and female in the following age categories: 14-under, 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75 and over.
Register: or call the Riverhead Foundation office 631.369.9840
The run will take place on October 20, 2007, at 10:00 AM in Riverhead, NY. The Race will be timed by Fit Results.
Eligibility: Open to runners and joggers of all ages.
5K Course: The Run starts on Main Street in Riverhead, goes through a quiet residential neighborhood and finishes on McDermott Ave.
Registration: Early registration is $17.00 if postmarked by Ocotber 12, 2007.
Late registration between Ocotober 13 and October 19, 2007 is $20.00
Race day registration is $25.00
Event T-shirt will be given to all pre-registered runners
Check-in: Easternmost end of Municipal Parking Lot adjacent to Peconic River. 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. Ample parking.
Awards: Top three male and famale overall, plus top three male and female in the following age categories: 14-under, 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75 and over.
Register: or call the Riverhead Foundation office 631.369.9840
10/7/07
Pirates of Cold Spring Harbor
Buccaneers invade the Whaling Museum in Cold Spring Harbor for its new special exhibit:
“Pirates!”
Explore the mystery, folklore and reality of pirates through the legends, artifacts and art which have earned these shady characters a permanent place in popular culture
“New York has a long and colorful history with sea-going thieves: in 1699, Governor Richard Coote called Long Island a "great receptacle for pirates." Two of his predecessors were known to consort with pirates.
“As we hope to show with this exhibit, pirates on film and pirates in reality were sometimes two different things,” said Museum Curator Dan Trachtenberg.
The exhibit will run through August, 2008. The Whaling Museum, located on Route 25A in Cold Spring Harbor, is open Tuesday through Sunday form 11:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.
Open year-round Admission
Hours:
Tuesday thru Sunday
11am to 5pm
Also open Summer Mondays and Holiday Mondays throughout the year
Adults $5.00
Seniors $4.00
Students
(Ages 5-18) $4.00
Children (Under 5) Free
Family $15.00
Member, Military Free
Sunday
11am-1pm Donation
“Pirates!”
Explore the mystery, folklore and reality of pirates through the legends, artifacts and art which have earned these shady characters a permanent place in popular culture
“New York has a long and colorful history with sea-going thieves: in 1699, Governor Richard Coote called Long Island a "great receptacle for pirates." Two of his predecessors were known to consort with pirates.
“As we hope to show with this exhibit, pirates on film and pirates in reality were sometimes two different things,” said Museum Curator Dan Trachtenberg.
The exhibit will run through August, 2008. The Whaling Museum, located on Route 25A in Cold Spring Harbor, is open Tuesday through Sunday form 11:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.
Open year-round Admission
Hours:
Tuesday thru Sunday
11am to 5pm
Also open Summer Mondays and Holiday Mondays throughout the year
Adults $5.00
Seniors $4.00
Students
(Ages 5-18) $4.00
Children (Under 5) Free
Family $15.00
Member, Military Free
Sunday
11am-1pm Donation
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