Counting Has Stopped ~ Next Steps

We stopped counting at the end of the day Sunday as we didn't feel we'd get anything for all of the effort involved. However, we'll still monitor the run several times a day for the next week or so to be sure we haven't made a mistake in doing that.

Since the last post of May 6 when we counted a total of 41 fish, that has now leaped up to 53 - our final number for counting this year at Mill Pond - an unbelievably small number.

So, What's Going On?
That's a question I've been asked many times. We'll be doing a lot more work on this over the coming months and we'll keep you posted here.

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To Our Counters...
Thank you for helping out this year and I know I've said this many times before: If we didn't take these counts we'd have no idea of what was going on.

Those frustrating zero after zero counts have had a direct impact on the awareness of this issue and your efforts have clearly quantified the severity of the situation. Instead of just guesses or approximations, we have irrefutable data that's as clear as can be - thanks to you!

Terrible, Terrible Numbers ~ On The Lighter Side

The counts continue to be mostly zeros with just 41 fish counted to-date at Mill Pond Station - that's about 1/4 herring for each of the 153 counts.

Below shows the counts for the first 17 days of the run for all of the years we have counted:

• 2011 -      41
• 2010 -    298
• 2009 - 1,255
• 2008 - 4,574
• 2007 - 1,558
• 2006 -    453

So, Do We Just Keep Counting?
In most prior years we had a second wave of migration which started at about this time and may have been blueback herring [it's almost impossible to tell alewives from bluebacks]. We'll wait a few more days and if there's no uptick, we'll stop counting for the year.

I know how frustrating it's been for everyone to go down to count and bring back zero after zero, but the truly important thing is we know exactly how bad things have been, which is valuable information in itself.

Honorary Herring
At  River Day last Sunday, Abigail Franklin of the Cape Cod Conservation District was working with young kids teaching them about herring and having them make eyes and fins to wear. Below are Rebecca and Sabrina who are shown ready to swim up the ladder.

Since we've had so few fish to count, we designated them as "Honorary Herring" and I removed two real herring from our count sheet and replaced them with these two. Now, if they would only tell us where all their friends were...

Herring Gulls
I've written before about how these gulls hang out at the Mill Pond waiting for a herring to pass by just a little too slowly. When I told folks that I've seen the gulls swallow a herring whole in one gulp, all I got was a look of disbelief.

I've always wanted to catch them doing just that with my video camera and have tried several times to no avail, but for all of you non-believers out there, watch this! And the old timer at the end of this one is calmer then most would be [I get ticked when I get one or two...].

And one of new counters this year, Annette, sent this clip of herring at a pool near Middle Pond [you can supply your own audio].

So Where Are The Herring?
Not in Marstons Mills - that's for sure! Bycatch gets a lot of blame [our river herring that get caught while fishing for something else] and there's very little data on how much of this goes on.

I've started a dialogue with several groups more knowledgeable in this subject then I and while I'm sure they'll have no definitive answer, I'm hoping to be able to provide some likely possibilities. For those who wish to learn more, we'll provide links to relevant information when we find them.

And we'll also work to get more details on the results from other nearby runs.

Very Disappointing Numbers ~ River Day 2011

I've been slow to make a post here, because I'm having trouble believing this year's counts...

As the numbers show here, the counts so far have been our lowest since we started 5 years ago, and low by a very big number.

Through the 11th day of the run, we've counted just 39 fish. That's 96% below the average for the first 11 days of the prior 5 years. And this year should have included many returning young from 2008 - the best year we had since we started counting in 2006.

We've checked the other side of Route 28 [opposite Mill Pond] to see if getting past there was an issue: there were no fish in the pool just before Route 28. Three weeks ago, the Natural Resources Division had checked the entire river, from Route 28 down to Prince Cove, looking for obstructions [there were none] and they are checking again now as I write.

Five days ago, I personally visited the runs in Mashpee, Sandwich, Bournedale and Plymouth, spending 15-20 minutes at each location and saw a grand total of 5-6 fish. But I hear that some runs are having very good numbers, like Weymouth. The difficulty I have writing this blog is there isn't an easy way to find out what's happening at other runs on a timely basis - so I can't effectively compare what we're experiencing.

Real-Time Posting Of Numbers [as if we really needed this...]

I've been making a number of enhancements to the spreadsheets that we use in counting to save time and improve accuracy. Instead of me reviewing each counter's spreadsheet and posting those numbers into a summary sheet, now when a counter posts a count, it is reflected here immediately. Below, we have a counter using her iPad at Mill Pond to post a count [yes, another zero].


River Day 2011

River Day is Sunday, May 1 at Burgess Park on Route 149, and the Program can be seen here. All of the 2011 counters are invited to a FREE lunch - the least we can do for counting all those zeros. See me under the tent for a coupon. I'll also be doing a talk on anadromous fish at Mill Pond at 11:00 and you can catch a bus from Burgess Park [I'll bring a box of Kleenex].

The Herring Are Running But Slowly...

The herring were first spotted in late Sunday and we commenced counting Monday morning.

The counts so far have been somewhat small, which is a little abnormal as once they start they unusually get right into it. We'll start publishing actual counts in a day or two.

Water Slowing Down ~ Still Too Cold

The water has slowed down considerably since Wednesday's storm. Compare the video below [taken 11:30 today] with that of the April 13th post.



The water level in the pipe in about 1/3 of the way up now - it's about 1/4 of the way in normal conditions.

But that's not the only thing that's keeping the herring away - the water temperature is only 47.8F, short of the 51F that they prefer.

So we won't see anything for a day or two at least.


So what do the herring do when there's an obstruction: In the March 27th post I explained what happened in 2010 with the heavy rains, and that I did research as to what the herring would do when confronted with an obstruction in their migratory path.

The answer is that while they have a natural tendency to return to their natal pond/stream, they will not give up if they can't get there. They'll instead go back down stream and find another one closeby that others are migrating to.

So does this mean that those offspring will return to that other pond instead to spawn? We'll find out in 3-4 years when those born in 2010 return.

Water Is Receding ~ Any Day Now...

Things have quieted down quite a bit at Mill Pond when we made a visit at 4:30pm today.

The water level in the pipe going under Route 28 is about 1/2 way up the pipe [on Wednesday after the heavy rain it was almost to the top]. I expect the herring to arrive any day now.

Note to counters: Wait for an email from me for instruction as to when to start counting. Since we lost a whole week of scheduled counts, I may have to ask that you 'return' them so we can use you at a later time. We'll ask you in the email we send you. Those haven't been scheduled yet will receive them early Saturday [we we're waiting on some stragglers].

About the swans: Several people asked what happened with the swans I wrote about on March 18th. Well the kids are gone and the hen can be seen in the video below building her nest in the very northerly end of the pond [out of public view].

Heavy Rain Delays The Run

With several inches of rain today, the amount of water going through the ladder at Mill Pond will certainly delay the herring.

The water level in the pond is 2" above normal right now and with an ~5 acre pond that's about 275,000 gallons in just the pond itself that needs to drain, never mind the water constantly flowing in from the river for probably another 24 hours.

Our counters have been on standby since Monday and this will add a few days for sure to the wait.

The two videos below taken at 5:15pm today show the herring ladder area and specifically the conduit going under Route 28. There's no way the herring could swim 180+ feet though that...








The hay bales placed along the road for the Route 149 & 28 construction failed to contain the washout today, which completely covered the area cleaned just last Saturday with mud.

Herring Due Soon & A Spring Cleaning

A couple of scouts have been spotted, but no quantity yet. We're guessing the herring will arrive on Monday or Tuesday and we'll be finalizing the schedules for the first two weeks of the run tomorrow.

Several counters spent their Saturday morning making the herring run at Mill Pond presentable for our upcoming visitors - both aquatic and human.


Charlie Thifault clearing root growth in one of the steps in the ladder.



Over 15 bags of leaves and twigs to be recycled [sans the plastic bags, of course].



A Marstons Mills Gothic:
[L-R] John Dowling, Judy Galvin, Pieter & Tom Burgess, Charlie Thifault [missing from photo: Shirley Eastman]

That Persistent, Perennial, Precursor...

I've lived right beside Mill Pond for 10 years now and have developed a pretty good sense of the events and cycles that occur at the pond and the behavior of the swans, the blue herons, migrating birds, osprey, turtles, frogs & toads, owls, etc, etc.

I learn more and more as time goes by, but one thing I'm certain of is this: the only time of the year that the aptly-named Herring Gull is on Mill Pond is when the herring are running - and the gulls arrive on Mill Pond exactly when the herring do.

What's even nicer about this is that I don't even have to look for the gulls, as I can simply just listen for them. And that unmistakable screech is notice to me to get the folks out to start countin'.

Now sometimes the gulls will show up a few days early and kind of just poke around, but there isn't any noise, because there's to nothing to fight over. But when the herring arrive (yum!) the fighting and associated screeching begins, because as with many animals, the easiest way to find food is to try to steal it from one who's already found it.

So we have a few gulls poking around the pond today, and they're quiet as expected. But my guess is that within a couple of days two things will happen: there'll be the sound of screeching gulls and we'll be counting herring...

Scheduling Well Underway; Cleanup On Saturday

We're well on our way to getting the scheduling done, at least for the first two weeks.

But were very short on help this year, with 5 of our last year counters out for medical and other reasons - so please volunteer here if you can help us count. If you know of someone who might be interested, please tell them about it and we can even work with folks who have no access to the Internet.

We're checking the water temperature 2-3 times a day at Mill Pond and today at 11am it was 46F which is pretty cool - the Alewives, which migrate first, like ~51F and the Bluebacks like ~57F.

But a bigger picture shows that the ocean water temperature posted by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] at Woods Hole being 41.7F at 7am this morning, which is below the historical average of 44F for April 1-15. The NOAA website isn't working this morning, but we're going to look back at what the historical temperatures were at Woods Hole when the Herring started running here in prior years to see if there is a correlation. It may be that the Herring will tolerate a colder ocean temperature while approaching their natal pond, but not start migrating until the higher 51F is reached, or perhaps the ocean needs to be at least 51F as well for them to even approach.

The Herring Run viewing area at Routes 28 & 149 needs a good cleaning. If you'd like to help doing this for 30-60 minutes on Saturday [April 9] at 10am, please let us know here by checking Herring Counting Program and put 'will help cleaning' in the Comments box. Thanks!

Scheduling Process Started

Everyone who has helped out in the Herring Counting Program in prior years was asked if they could help count again this year. This email went out late yesterday and we've have received 15 replies so far, which is good!

We'll be using the same Google Docs spreadsheets for scheduling/counting as we did in 2010, with things being a little easier this year as the counter will not have to have a Google account or sign-in to access their spreadsheet.

As we did last year, we'll use the early responders and schedule just the first couple of weeks. Then as more people respond we'll schedule the rest of the run.

What Happened In 2010?
I'll gather and chart some statistics sometime over the next few weeks, but my posts at the time [April 2010] highlighted my concern about the volume and velocity of the water traveling through the pipe under Route 28 from Mill Pond. This was due to the very heavy rains we had in late March and early April, which I feel was too much for the herring to overcome.

The flaw in the design of the herring run at Mill Pond is that while there is a ladder to allow the herring to climb the change in elevation, there's no way to control the volume [and therefore the velocity] of water that travels through the pipe used by the fish. And the pipe is 175+ long and there's no pool for the herring to rest/regroup.

Over the winter I did a bit of research about the velocity that herring can overcome and what they do when confronted with this [or by some other obstruction]. That will be the topic of a later post.

We're going to watch this element of the run this year very closely. If you want to help out in this velocity testing, please let me know [we need someone at both ends of the pipe]. We'll do this only if we get heavy rains, but I'll be keeping a daily log of the height of the water traveling through the pipe.

If there's an engineer out there who could tell me how to figure this out [with the diameter of pipe, inches of water, change in elevation, and whatever other input might be needed] I'd appreciate it - as that would be much easier then the current method of timing ping-pong balls...

Preparing For 2011 Count

We'll be starting the process of gearing up for the count in the next two weeks.

We'll contact all of those who have counted in the past, and the procedure for counting will be essentially the same as last year.

We're always looking for help in counting, if you are interested or you know of someone who is, please contact us here. If they are not computer-literate, they can still help out as we have folks who can be their cyberbuddy and do the online work for them.


This picture, which was taken today, is of one of the swans who is strangely wandering on the grass beside Mill Pond [they almost never leave the water].

It's one of the three cygnets that were born last May and has wintered in the pond.

In March, the adults start thinking about a new brood and they literally kick-out last year's crop before they start building a new nest.

This one on the lawn probably thinks his parents were 'just kidding' when they chased it out, but if things happen as in prior years, its sayonara!

The young will live together in a colony of sometimes 100's of swans [there's a small one in Popponesset Bay] and when they reach maturity in 3-4 years, will pair up and find a place of their own.