I’m kicking off my annual best birds list, to be fleshed out at the end of the year!

• Virginia’s warbler – 4/3 Good Friday

Thank you for reading my article: https://capemaymag.com/this-is-cape-may/nature/the-rich-local-history-of-palynology

In keeping with the format of articles for the nature column of Cape May Magazine, we don’t have room for in-text citations or a reference section. So, for those who would like to consult the sources or enjoy further reading, here is the material I referenced for writing the article:

Christie, M.A.; Bernhardt, C.E.; Parnell, A.C.; Shaw, T.A.; Khan, N.S.; Corbett, D.R.; García-Artola, A.; Clear, J.; Walker, J.S.; Donnelly, J.P.; et al. Pollen geochronology from the Atlantic coast of the United States during the last 500 years https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/3/362

Donnelly, Jeffrey P., et al. “Sedimentary evidence of intense hurricane strikes from New Jersey.” Geology 29.7 (2001): 615-618. https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/29/7/615/188804/Sedimentary-evidence-of-intense-hurricane-strikes

MEYERSON, ARTHUR LEE. Pollen and paleosalinity analyses from a Holocene tidal marsh sequence, Cape May County, New Jersey. 1971 https://preserve.lehigh.edu/system/files/derivatives/coverpage/426668.pdf

Potzger, J. E. “What Can Be Inferred from Pollen Profiles of Bogs in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.” Bartonia, no. 26, 1952, pp. 20–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41610336. Accessed 22 Dec. 2025. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41610336?read-now=1&seq=5

Looking for Prehistoric Pollen? Check the Floodplains

Natural Resources Inventory

New Jersey (USA) Wetlands Past, Present and Future: Using Sediment Archives to Inform and Guide Wetland Protection, Restoration and Resilience. https://dspace.njstatelib.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/9ee6a9a0-fa3d-4226-993e-1342454a1934/content

Important Bird and Birding Areas

https://www.chesapeakequarterly.net/V01N2/main

Here were my best birds of the year! I haven’t yet fleshed out the stories here; check back later.

• Audubon’s oriole and northern beardless-tyrannulet (3/28)
• zone-tailed hawk, mottled owl, McCall’s screech owl (12/6)

I was thrilled to get out on the water on the nicest November trip (weather-wise) I have enjoyed yet! Land temps ranged from the 40s into the 50s during the day. The day served as possibly the only Nov trip I have not been cold, once the sun was sufficiently high in the sky. This is what I wore, and quite comfortably at that…

• shin-length down parka
• heavy Smartwool base layer
• wool sweater mid layer
• fleece-lined leggings
• Comrad wool compression socks
• Arctic muck boots
• faux fur lined trapper hat
• waterproof lined gloves (my “winterproof” gloves that still allow for some dexterity)

So, make no mistake, I was still decked out in winter gear, but not feeling cold without my down vest under it this time of year was notable for me!

Happy Labor Day Weekend! We did a trip to Maine to celebrate my mom’s birthday. Today we crossed a NP off the bucket list! We drove the park loop most of the way, but turned off at Bar Harbor, so I’d still like to “close the loop” from there and drive back from Bar Harbor to the visitor’s center. But, we also did drive to the summit of Cadillac mountain and walk around the trails there a bit, and it was spectacular!

This year, I finally figured out how to get plants from the tree farm I’d kept meaning to visit: I was delighted to find they went to native plant fairs, and one was in my birth city! So I went home for the weekend and was able to get the species I’d been planning for years.

Behind the fence is more of a mix of transplants. Walking through the gate: there’s the other crab apple I bought, and a sweet gum I transplanted.

Last year, I transplanted red maples, a red cedar and a black cherry that have thrived. The species that most drove me to this particular native plant farm though was red mulberry. Unfortunately, something happened to one of the saplings, perhaps a casualty of my lawn care service. The other one took off though where it was planted.

I had a personal emergency this week so I was unable to see if the backyard flooded during the hurricane. But unfortunately, since these photos were taken, the back tree line that has looked so healthy all summer now looks wilted. Let’s hope the trees recover.

I have updated the site title to match the new domain, and the new themes to be explored here 🙂

Again, it’s summer, so allow me to share some re-wilding (well, sorta…) that I’ve been up to in my yard. I do enjoy varietals, so excuse the not strict wild-typing here. Otherwise, I have several natives to at least the state level, if not county. (Probably my next project is going to be separating that out.) I have species/varietal info in the photo captions, and also a list from the end of the walkway to the steps in order.

Here is the list of what’s planted, in order:

• New Jersey tea
• “prairie splendor” deep rose coneflower
• “Pollynation magenta” coneflower
• “green twister” coneflower
• whorled milkweed
• butterfly flower (Asclepias tuberosa)
• “fireball” bee balm
• “ice ballet” swamp milkweed
• Hibiscus moscheutos
• Jacob’s ladder
• wild lupine
• orange coneflower (Rudbeckia fulgida)
• “pow wow white” coneflower
• “Luna red” Hibiscus moscheutos
• “sunstruck” false sunflower
• purple coneflower
• Asclepias syriaca
• New England aster
• “balmy pink” bee balm
• “Goldsturm” Rudbeckia fulgida

As mentioned in my prior post, I intend to do some walk-throughs and take some notes on some fisheries analysis processes. Right now, I’m going to add some notes on where I’m at, which is not the beginning! Ideally, more tutorials to come, and more content to be presented in order 🙂

Currently, we’re working through the age-structured assessment program (ASAP). The leader of our subcommittee was kind enough to provide us a tutorial and commentary, so this is me transcribing some notes for myself (and hopefully that someone else might find helpful)…though plenty will be specific to me and this exercise/session/assessment (including video timestamp references).

Inputs

Any

• For tog in our region, dead releases are lumped in with total catch (i.e. not handled separately in the “discards” tab)
• selectivity blocks
  • don’t need to change (15:37)
  • if you wanted to add one… (16:16)
• your data CAA (29:40) the scale of what’s entered on the catch-at-age tab doesn’t matter (e.g. if a prior year used 1000s of fish, you can use raw numbers because ASAP converts it to proportions immediately)
  • tog specific data considerations (32:06)
• indices (41:52)
  • don’t add for an update
  • you can try dropping them for sensitivity runs (42:48)
  • data (46:43)
    • age structured (46:51)
    • sample size (47:09)
• provided to us: time series of data for MRIP index and CAA (48:28 – 50:29)
• lambdas (56:01)

Retrospective

for me: your last block starts 2018 so set there to not “overrun” the next block

• 1:13:30 gets to running the model (below)

Interpreting results

• can set option to keep terminal open to see more output
• “scan …results” under “Run” allows you to read results back in

Diagnostic Results

• stage 2 multipliers is where you find the ESS you can re-run with (1:15:41) for final run only, adjust effective sample sizes based on output
• you can try to optimize RMSE…(you don’t have to)
  • increase CV where RMSE > 1, decrease where it’s < 1
  • if CV is too big, it won’t fit to the index
  • ideal: indices and catch RMSE = 1

ASAP Model Results

• SSB: roughly 4321 is ok
• MSY: roughly 933 is ok

Retrospective results (1:24:40)

R plots (1:30:12)