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Dear Friends of Allens Pond,
 First off, we want to thank you for a tremendous response to last month's Duck Derby e-news! Thanks to your support, 4,107 ducks raced for a chance at the Grand Prize "Dinner For Two Anywhere in the World."
This Duck Derby gave us a great excuse to have fun on the coast during a very hot and humid day in mid-August. The excitement of the race also gave us a unique outreach opportunity. Visitors who attended the festivities at the tents checked out displays showing some of what we do from Piping Plover protection to Osprey monitoring, the Bluebird box project, and our youth projects. Our Silent Auction of locally produced artwork, food, and crafts was also a big success. Quansett Nurseries donated over a hundred potted plants for the Live Plant Auction that drew lots of attention and some battles. While participants enjoyed burgers hot off the grill, salad from Sid Wainer, pasta from the Westporter, dessert from Cecily’s and iced coffee from Coastal Roasters, they relaxed to the music of the New Bedford Harbor Sea Chantey Chorus. For a number of people, this was the first time they had set foot on the Sanctuary or learned of the many roles we have in the community. The event raised critical funds to support the work that we do for bird conservation and habitat stewardship. This year’s Duck Derby netted over $30,000 for the Sanctuary.
 Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary wasn't the only winner -- Dartmouth resident Margo Moore, a 7th grade teacher has several ideas about where she'd like to go for her "Dinner for Two Anywhere in the World" including places in France, England and as far away as Australia.
Check out all the prize winners!
Thank you so much for your participation and support. Please read on to learn more about what we've been up to this summer and what we have in store this fall!
~The Allens Pond Team~
 Herp Report
by Lauren Miller-Donnelly
This summer I've had several herp encounters in the field. With all the rain, frogs and toads appear to have had a successful breeding year. The forest floor is alive with miniature American ‘toadlets’. One even jumped right onto my field notebook during a bird point count on the Quansett Trail.
On another occasion I was gathering a tarp from the Shrubland when I noticed three small Garter snakes racing out from under it. Imagine my surprise when, back at the Field Station, two snakes were still inside the tarp in the back seat of my car. I managed to gather them into a bucket and drive them back to where I had found them. A closer look revealed that I actually had found two species, a Milksnake and a Garter snake.
I’ve been somewhat lucky with turtles this year, encountering both Spotted and Painted turtles along the Quansett trail. I also had the opportunity to educate an individual who intended to bring a Painted turtle home as a pet. After the encounter, I did some research on this; all but three species of turtles in Massachusetts (Painted turtle, Stinkpot, and Snapping turtle) are protected and cannot be captured and kept. As a Mass Audubon policy we discourage anyone from removing a turtle from the wild, regardless if it’s unprotected. Check out the Mass Audubon website for more information on reptiles and amphibians.
Sunny, warm conditions during the afternoon of July 14th encouraged a  female Diamondback terrapin to emerge from the Allens Pond salt marsh to lay her eggs in the sand down at Little Beach. I discovered the female just as she finished laying her eggs. She's now the third female terrapin from Allens Pond to be marked. Later in the month another female terrapin was reported by a Little Beach cottage owner in a different location. Although the population is estimated to be relatively small compared to Wellfleet, DNA collected by terrapin researcher and Tabor Academy teacher, Sue Wieber Nourse, will help to understand the genetic ancestry of diamondbacks along the Northern Atlantic Coastline.
Local Ospreys on the Move by David Cole
 It's that time of the year again when kids go back to school, and our local Ospreys start thinking about heading south. In the past we may have noticed their nests were empty, or occupied by a gull, and wondered when and where they had gone. But this year is different. This year we know exactly when three of our Ospreys left town and where they have gone. This new information is the result of having installed satellite transmitters on the backs of three birds, two male adults and one fledgling. These transmitters record the birds' position each hour during the daylight, transmit that information to a satellite which then transmits it back to a computer on earth. We download these points onto our computers and generate maps on Google Earth to show where the birds have been.
 The Osprey Transmitter Project, a collaborative effort with the Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA), started with installing transmitters on three adult birds in May and tracking these mature birds to see where they have been fishing. One bird, Hudson, has a nest in the West Branch of the Westport River just north of Tripps Marina. The secondbird, Ozzie, has a nest in the East Branch on Big Pine Island. A third bird, Rafael, has a nest right here at Allens Pond. Unfortunately for us something happened to Rafael's transmitter and there has been no signal from it since June 7th. We know that he is OK because we have seen him around his nest, but somehow he wriggled out of the transmitter and left it somewhere, perhaps under water, where it does not send a signal.
 But the transmitters on the other two adult males are working fine and maps of their travels since early May are on the website. A fourth transmitter was placed on a young bird hatched this summer. This bird was given the name Hix because he was raised on a nest near Hix Bridge. Hix's transmitter was installed on July 29th, and just in time. Within a day or two he took off and headed in the wrong direction - due north. He continued that way until he got across the Canadian border. Perhaps a Canadian Osprey stopped him because he didn't have a passport? Anyway, he circled back and has spent the last month around some lakes in northern Maine. When he will head south remains to be seen. You can follow Hix, Hudson and Ozzie through the Westport Osprey website. We are waiting to see when Hudson and Ozzie will start their move south. Both of these birds are about twelve years old, which we know because they both had bands put on by Gil Fernandez in Westport twelve years ago. They surely know which way to go for the winter and how to find their way back, because they have done it at least ten times.
This year we will learn where they go, and then we want to try to make contact with schools and school children in their wintering grounds so we can share the experience of observing these Ospreys. Local students can send messages to the students at the other end of the line and, hopefully, they will send messages back. Through pen pals and other cross-continent programs, children at both ends can gain a better understanding of nature, migration, people and geography. Join Allens Pond and WRWA in this exciting new learning experience by visiting the website and asking questions. For more information contact Becky Cushing or Charlie Gerrior.
Come fly with Hudson, Ozzie and Hix, our three wired Westport Osprey!
A new collection of Duck Derby T-Shi rts is now available!
These all occasion t-shirts were specially designed for us by our summer wildlife intern Natasha Gallipeau, who is also an art student. The front of the shirt shows a black Bufflehead silhouette (a real Allens Pond duck!) and the back of the shirts shows a series of Buffleheads in flight.
 We have a large selection of colors and sizes and can also special order if you don’t find what you need. The ladies shirt is more fitted and the men’s sizes are a relaxed fit. Both are good quality, pre-shrunk cotton. Shirts are $18. each or $20. for special size/color order. Email Margaret Jones or call (508) 636-2437 for more information.
Connecting Teens with Nature
The world recently got bigger for 36 New Bedford teenagers. The youths spent their summer participating in a jobs program that taught them important job-readiness skills and how to care for the environment, thanks to a partnership between NorthStar Learning Centers, a New Bedford-based minority nonprofit organization, and Mass Audubon's Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary in South Dartmouth. Over a seven-week period, these members of the Green Brigade divided their time providing stewardship at Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary and creating the Sacred Green Space and the State Street Community Garden from vacant lots in New Bedford low-income neighborhoods.
The youths worked 25 hours per week, earning $8 per hour. At Allens Pond, they worked alongside NorthStar and Mass Audubon staff and volunteers on various trail maintenance projects, including installing boardwalks and steppingstones, and removing over 300 pounds of the invasive plants brown knapweed and Canada thistle (taken to Covanta SEMASS in West Wareham to be reprocessed and used as a source for electricity). The teens also planted donated cana lilies, salvia, yarrow and other flowers in the sanctuary's butterfly garden, and built bluebird boxes, among other tasks.
 The hands-on work was complemented by environmental education. One Mass Audubon volunteer, a retired teacher, gave the youths a lesson in freshwater insects while working with the teens to weed and expand a butterfly garden. Another volunteer explained the value of composting while working with them to dig and install a French drain to collect and move rainwater away from the Mass Audubon field station.
Although grateful to receive the help, Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary Director Gina Purtell noted that the work program had a greater purpose. "This project was a first step to help acquaint these young adults with outdoor life, nature, and ecology science, and we planted the seed to encourage them to have a sense of belonging in nature," she said. "For our part, we need urban youth of different cultures to be part of the conservation equation here to build a core group of adults who will come back with their children to help sustain Allens Pond over time. Sometimes the teens were challenging but I really appreciated having the opportunity to get to know them better. Given additional time, it would really open up more conservation competency and help to bridge cultural divides." Read the full story. | 
Bioneers by the Bay: Connecting for Change October 22-25, 2009 Downtown New Bedford, MA.
