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.