Have you ever picked warm, juicy blueberries from the side of a trail on a Nantucket summer day? If so, congratulations! You are a budding forager.

Foraging is the practice of finding and harvesting materials from nature for use as food, medicine, or craft supplies. Generally, foraging refers to plants and fungi; fishing, hunting, and trapping are related activities but fall into their own categories.

Around the island, it is hard to miss the birds that are hard at work building nests and getting ready to raise their young. Recently, I’ve spotted birds in my neighborhood whizzing by with a bill full of grass and seen osprey clutching sticks in their talons. When you think of a bird’s nest, you probably imagine a small cup of woven sticks on a tree branch- usually made by songbirds. While many birds build nests like this, nests vary widely in shape, construction, materials, and placement. Birds are like nature’s little architects and real estate agents and have a diverse array of homes that do not need to go through HDC permitting.

Looking carefully at nature, you will notice that each month has a unique color that dominates the landscape. April is noticeably yellow, with its blooms of forsythia, dandelions, and the most famous of all- daffodils. This pop of bright color brings joy to many on Nantucket, especially after enduring the pale grays and browns throughout the winter.

Spring is here, and there are signs of it everywhere. Birds are singing, daffodils are blooming and shrubs are greening up. These are the typical hallmarks we look forward to, but the herp world has something to say about spring too. If you’ve been near a wetland around dusk lately, you’ve probably heard from one of our most famous herps.

Spring on Nantucket is a period of rebirth after a long, cold winter. Warmer temperatures, budding flowers, and the reopening of your favorite restaurants are all welcomed sights. Everyone has their most anticipated signs of spring: it may be daffodils blooming, striped bass returning to the harbors, or the chance to plant your vegetable garden. Here at the Linda Loring Nature Foundation, one spring moment reigns supreme, the annual return of our nesting ospreys.

When someone describes Nantucket, they usually emphasize the miles of beaches and historic downtown; but very few people will mention the unique pockets of woods found here, especially our Pitch Pine forests. Pitch Pines are quirky trees that thrive in harsh conditions and sandy soils; that’s why they do so well on Nantucket. Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Lost Farm property is home to one of the island's most fantastic Pitch Pine forests.

Owls have been capturing people’s curiosity for centuries. Their mysterious lifestyle, haunting calls, and captivating round faces with large eyes are hard to dismiss. Most owls are nocturnal, hunting at night. Owls have many adaptations that aid with nighttime hunting. They have special combs on their feathers that help silence their flight allowing them to sneak up on their prey. Their eyes are large to support seeing in low light or darkness. The forward placement of the eyes on owls, like us, allows them to hunt and determine depth perception and distance from their prey. However, owls cannot move their eyeballs as we can; that’s why they have extra vertebrate bones to rotate their head 270 degrees. This rotation and the asymmetrical placement of their ears on their heads also helps them triangulate the sounds of their prey.

Sometimes the cold, gray, foggy days of winter make us sad and all we want to do is snuggle up inside under a cozy blanket. Or for those of us who are ecologists, perhaps we envision what it would be like to be a Snapping Turtle and take a long nap under the mud until spring arrives. But if we can shake off that urge to just sit in bed and watch TV, a whole wide world of wonder awaits us outdoors.