DuPont Nature Center offers 2 Educational Programs

Dip Netting Adventures and Nature Walk

Program Date: July 20th, 2016

Program Time: 1:30-3:00pm

Participant Age Range: Ages 5 and up

and

Fishy Fashions

Program Date: July 29th, 2016

Program Time: 1:00pm – 3:00pm

Participant Age Range: All Ages

See flyer for details on both programs: DNC Ed Programs July 2016

DuPont Nature Center Family Fish-n-Fun Days

Saturday, July 23 10am—2pm
Saturday, August 6 10am—2pm

Family Fish-n-Fun Days are great opportunities for families to spend quality outdoor time together, with fun activities for all ages! Through hands-on fishing activities, participants will learn about saltwater fishing, fish anatomy, knot tying, casting, and will create a craft to take home!

For more information check out this flyer: 2016 Family Fish-n-Fun Days-2

July 4th Regatta Results and Recap

It’s been a week and our quiet little bit of paradise has reverted back to being a haven for solitude, birding, flippin’ crabs, cruising the beach in golf carts and of course, boating, when the tides and bugs permit.
The keg is almost dead, the kids and grandkids are on their way to points west and the majority of the buoys are deflated and put away.
I am personally so very thankful for everyone’s participation in this year’s festivities. Every possible circumstance was against us this year:

• The 4th fell on a Monday
• An incredibly early start due to tides.
• No wind, early. When I walked out of my home at sunrise and the seagulls had their index fingers in the air checking for any wind, you know it was going to be a challenge to sail.

All that being said, we had a great turnout. NSA provided us with bromide enhanced crowd control photography and closest estimates of turnout were 125 attendees, just right in the immediate vicinity of race control.
Sorry to the northenders for the change up of the schedule. We know it hurt boater turnout for the kayak and monohull races, but not much else could be done. I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. In the future, the Competition Committee (SBSCCC) strongly advises bringing your boats down to our place the day/night before. That way, you can get out regardless of wind, tide and horseshoe crab mating conditions.
The t-shirt decorating was a huge success, with creativity shown by all except Jason. Who knew that there are blue horseshoe crabs. We will have these ones around for along time as the new technology is pretty much wear proof. Great ideas from Sandy, Sarah, Jason and all.Jason, I still have yet to see your version!!!

With no further ado, here is the lineup, highlights, lowlights and race results:

• Kayak race – a tight start with narrow starting blocks insured a hectic beginning, but nothing seemed to dissuade the Giampietro men from pulling quickly out ahead of the pack. Lynn and Jeff even had an oar on Tony’s PFD but were easily shrugged off. Must be that military training. Jason had a straight t-bone shot at the leaders at the northern buoy, but somehow the serpentine training of Jake and Tony paid off. They shot further ahead for the southern leg and basically spanked the field. This is the 2nd year in a row for the Giampietro team. Next year, we are hoping the northender O’Donnell crew gets their boats out to give them a challenge. Lynn, Jeff, a valiant attempt to draw closer at the end, but they just had too much of a lead on you. I think we’ve imported a strong contender in Lynn. I could hear her telling my son just what to do, through most of the southern leg. Those Rhode Island girls are tough.
• Kids kayak race – Another hotly contested race with a pair of winners in Riley Galizio & Whitley Gilchrist pulling it out in the end. Who knew we had future olympiads in our midst. I expect them back next year to see if they can hold up their end for another season!!!
• Monohull race – the winds picked up a bit after the tide turn and the monohull race was finally on the starting blocks. Not that we had brisk winds. I decided to crochet a sweater on the north leg. Charlie hit the start perfectly and raced a very smart course. He hit the north mark in the lead and was able to pinch the east buoy without the enormous east tack many of us took. Raced a smart race all around and deserved the lead he had all the way through. A few interesting points along the way. Chip must have had a recorded message on his boat as all I heard off my stern for the first 5 minutes of the race was “don’t hit my boat, don’t hit my boat……”. I think he needs to get Gail back on his hull to keep the peace out on the water. Again, not sure where he dumped Gail off, but if I were her, I’d be pissed. Bob Kehoe and I had fun on the north leg with him pinching me up wind most of the way. Let that be a warning to the rest of you, do this at your own risk as the lasso I used to grab his rudder allowed me to leap frog past him. Pinch at your own risk!!! Jeff, Andreus, Jason, and even Chip all had a pretty relaxed attitude during much of the race as I saw them laying down in their respective cockpits with lines running boat to boat and beers being transferred to and fro. Just sayin, sharing is allowed and next year may be mandatory. Again, male domination continued here, as well. I smell a theme.
• Boogie board race – Katie, Gia, Ella and Maddy all participated in a race that was starting to be impacted by the rising winds. Seemed that all had a bit of trouble listening to course control for the start, so a few yellow flag warnings later, all were able to get a clean start. Maddy and Katie quickly jumped into a blocking lead, but Maddy’s consistent legwork paid off with a strong north leg and a steady southern leg pulled Maddy the win. Gia and Ella seemed to have a Ian powered turbo boost that brought them in for a tie for 3rd. Katie was strong in second, but just couldn’t quite get to Maddy on the southern leg. Congrats to Maddie for pulling out a much needed win for the Ward household. So great to see our future leaders all out on the water, enjoying the day and having a great time. Congrats to all 4 of these smart and beautiful girls. Having said that, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that my granddaughter finally brought home a trophy to the Ward clan. A long drought finally ended. Proud Grandpa!!!
• Catamaran race. What can I say here except thank you to all the participants this year. Best turnout so far with either 6 or 7 boats. I am hesitant to discuss the details, except to say one thing – I FINALLY WON!!! Mike, Craig and Ben, I have no idea what happened to you guys at different points of the race, and I really do care, but I will not belabor those details, as again – I WON!!!
• Kids pie eating contest – who knew that kids would all want to participate in a contest where all they have to do is wolf down as much chocolate and whipped cream as they can, in a short period of time? In this inaugural event for the kids, we really got their attention. All it takes is sugar – who knew? Wow, these kids have a future in the adult version of this contest. Took no more than 98 seconds for them to scarf down a whole pie. Congrats to Leo Updegraft for a fine showing and with finesse and with very little mess. I think a few of the adults could take lessons from Leo!!!
• Pie eating contest – a full contingent of participants. Two former winners and some real contenders in the mix. Glenn, Chris, Jason, Roddy and Gerry all seemed to have a fighting chance. As it turns out all we had for possibilities at the end were Glenn, Chris and Roddy. Chris pulled it out at the end but both Roddy and Glenn were only seconds off the rocket pace set by Chris. I do believe his fold and face plant methodology is the key to his success.
• Wet t-shirt contest – as promised, a family friendly wet t-shirt contest was pulled off, and by all accounts was the latest and greatest addition to the SBSC Events Committee (SBSCEC) traditions. I just don’t know what to say here. I could make crass commentary or even really corny puns, but I will simply say that when you get a DC lawyer pitted against a liquor Sales executive at the end, you would think the Liquor executive would have the upper hand in a wet t-shirt contest. Obviously not in this part of the solar system. Congratulations to Claire Watkins for being the most capable wet t-shirt applier in SB. Kelly, all I can say is – practice, practice, practice.

A great day and I need to take the time to bring all up to date on a sad note. We lost the 3rd buoy (southern most one) to the seas on Monday night. Not sure if it was pirates, a kraken or simply a poorly tied anchor by the SBSC buoy setting committee (SBSCBSC). If you see it in your travels, please sign your name to it and add a phone number or email address. It could be the next “were is Waldo of the seas” or some other foolish game to keep us amused when the sun is not shining.

Thanks go to too many people in the family and community for all of your help. I always run the risk of missing many people when I go through the thank you’s, but I would feel terrible if I didn’t mention as many as I can think of at the moment.

• Jimmy, Marie, Lynn, Jerry, Peg & Ernie. Thanks for all your help with the food committee and so many other things you help the SBSC with. The dogs and watermelon were great and we love the new technology!!!
• Roddy, your help in setting up and tearing down is always appreciated and much needed. Gonna have to import you from Alaska soon
• Cynthia and John. Thanks so much for the Yuengling!!!
• Ian and Claire. Thanks for offering up the front yard to those needing to bring boats down and for being such good sports and good neighbors.
• Mike and Leslie and all friends and family. Thanks for the help in setting up, in setting buoys and being generally supportive. Thanks especially for the scotch!
• Anne. Thanks so much for the pie crusts.
• Donald and family and all others who were so helpful in teardown. Thank you.
• Tricia Anne. Thanks so much for the photos – all – see attached link!!!
  • https://coventry.smugmug.com/SBSC-Regatta-20160704/n-DWM4cq/
• Bill, thanks for all your support on the website and all year long support of us SBSCers
• Becky, thanks so much for all your help with photography. You didn’t know you were the official photographer to the SBSC marketing arm.
• Sarah, Thanks for being the best daughter in the world and for all year long support putting Jason and my weird ideas into practical terms.
• Jeff, you are a son that cannot be beaten. In a lot of ways. I love all your help and your constant encouragement.
• Jason and Krista. How do you put up with all of us without some of the weirdness rubbing off – too bad and too late. Thanks to both for the help, the creativity and your support.
• Sandy. If I told you 31 years ago that my passion would be this type of thing, would you still have married me or would you have run away even faster than you tried to. Thanks for putting up with this bizarre passion.
• All of the participants on and off the water and all along the beach. Thanks for allowing this to happen and all being great sports about this event
• All others that I have neglected to mention. My heartfelt and most sincere apologies.
• NSA, TSA, FCC, CIA, DIA, FEMA, DEMA, DNREC, Army Corps and the GSA. Thanks for the monitoring, permitting, spying and kibitzing. Fees will continue to rise until we have covered all of your SBSC regatta budgetary expenditures

Wishing you all a great rest of the summer and here’s to finding buoy #3!!!

Prosit

Harry Ward

Commode Ore

Slaughter Beach Sail Club

More pictures can be found here

Town of Slaughter Beach Public Notice – Election

The Town of Slaughter Beach Election, scheduled for July 2, 2016 has been cancelled.  Three Town Council Seats were open and three candidates have completed paperwork to run for office.  The candidates are listed below:

           Kathleen Lock

           Amy J. Reed Parker

           Robert Wood

PHNWR/Fowler Beach Update

Restoration work continues in the refuge.  Fowler Beach Road is closed, prior to the bridge, for both car and foot traffic. There is no access to Fowler Beach at this time.  The road should be open in late July or August.  For further information about the restoration work you can go here – https://www.fws.gov/refuge/prime_hook/ or here https://www.facebook.com/Prime-Hook-National-Wildlife-Refuge-319564514783623/?fref=ts   Access to Fowler Beach via Slaughter Beach is also closed for nesting shorebirds.  This area should be open again in July.

Zika – be safe this summer

Good information/link from Senator Gary Simpson on the Zika virus and staying safe.

Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival on May 21

DNREC’s DuPont Nature Center to host Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival on May 21

SLAUGHTER BEACH (May 6, 2016) – The DuPont Nature Center at Mispillion Harbor Reserve, a DNREC Division of Fish & Wildlife facility, will host its seventh annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival, celebrating the spring spectacle of migrating shorebirds and spawning horseshoe crabs, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 21 at the center, located at 2992 Lighthouse Road, Milford, DE 19963. Admission is free.

Festivities will feature children’s games and a variety of fun and educational activities for everyone. A series of Estuary Eco-Challenge stations will be set up on the center’s grounds for visitors of all ages. Visitors will learn about how to identify shorebirds, get close to live horseshoe crabs and other aquatic species, learn how to cast a fishing rod, learn about boating safety, try their hand at Gyotaku fish printing, and much more!

Visitors also will have great viewing opportunities from the center’s large deck to check out interaction between horseshoe crabs and migrating shorebirds, including federally-threatened red knots, which depend on horseshoe crab eggs to help fuel their 9,000-mile journey from South America to their Arctic breeding grounds. DNREC’s Delaware Shorebird Project Team members will be on hand to identify the shorebirds along the shoreline surrounding the center.

Parking will be available at the Lacy E. Nichols Jr. Cedar Creek Boating Access Area’s public boat ramp, with a shuttle running to the center throughout the day. The festival will be held rain or shine.

Perched on the edge of Mispillion Harbor at the intersection of the mouths of the Mispillion River and Cedar Creek, the Division of Fish & Wildlife’s DuPont Nature Center regularly offers a variety of interactive exhibits, school tours and educational programs. Spring and summer hours from May 1 through Aug. 31 are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. September hours will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays. The center will close for the season at the end of the day Friday, Sept. 30, reopening in April 2017. Admission is free and open to the public.

For more information about the Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival, or about the DuPont Nature Center and its programs, please call 302-422-1329. Also visit DuPont Nature Center, or find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DelawareFishWildlife.

The DuPont Nature Center is a focal point of the Delaware Bayshore, and is part of DNREC’s Delaware Bayshore Initiative, a landscape approach to restore and protect fish and wildlife habitat, increase volunteer participation in habitat stewardship projects, enhance low-impact outdoor recreation and ecotourism opportunities, and promote associated environmentally compatible economic development. For more information, click Delaware Bayshore.

They’re Back

Dawn and Willy have returned to their nest again this year.  They arrived several weeks ago and can be seen fishing in the area and adding to their nest.  This is the third year they have returned.

Purple Martins have also been seen scouting out housing for the season.  If you are a Martin lover, it’s time to clean out their houses and get them up.

Hummingbirds should be arriving soon, and Diamondback Hatchlings will be emerging soon and crossing the road to the marsh.

Get the Shell out of the Road

Get the Shell Out of the Road

Get the Shell out of the Road.

Diamondback Terrapins Hatchlings are starting to move from the Bay over to the marsh.  As you are driving through Town, keep an eye out for them and move them over to the marsh if you can.  The wetlands act as there nursery.

New Marvel Saltmarsh Preserve Sign/Boardwalk

Delaware Nature Society honors Marvel family donation & celebrates partnership with Town of Slaughter Beach

MILFORD, Del. (March 22, 2016) – Delaware Nature Society (DNS), a state-wide non-profit organization, in partnership with the Town of Slaughter Beach, would like to announce the installation of a new sign denoting our Marvel Saltmarsh Preserve as well as the awarding of a Lands & Waters Conservation Trust Fund Grant, through Delaware’s Department of Natural Resource & Environmental Control (DNREC), for the design of a public boardwalk to be constructed at the Preserve. The 109-acre Marvel Saltmarsh Preserve was graciously donated in 1989 to Delaware Nature Society by the Marvel family of Milford, Delaware, and DNS’s Abbott’s Mill Nature Center, also located in Milford, has been conducting environmental education programs for students and families at the site ever since. The new Marvel Saltmarsh Preserve sign, installed by Rogers Sign Co., in Milton, DE, and made possible through the generosity of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s Beer and Benevolence program, recognizes the Marvel family’s commitment to conservation while furthering DNS’s mission of connecting people to the natural world to improve our environment through education, advocacy, and conservation.

Marvel Saltmarsh Preserve, an excellent example of the large expanses of saltmarshes that form much of Delaware’s eastern bayshore, is home to a large diversity of animals including fiddler crabs, blue crabs, grass shrimp, and many species of mollusks and insects. Nesting Willet, Clapper Rails, Red-wing Blackbirds, Marsh Wrens, and Swamp and Seaside Sparrows can be heard singing and calling from the marsh grasses each spring and summer. In the winter, Northern Harriers and Short-eared Owls can be observed hunting low over the marsh. In the spring of 2015, Abbott’s staff and Slaughter Beach community members erected an Osprey nesting platform in the southern end of the Preserve, with support from DNREC’s DuPont Nature Center and funding from the Sussex County Council. The platform hosted a pair of nesting Osprey throughout last summer, and just last week those Osprey have returned to the site after a winter spent in Central and South America.

The highly productive saltmarsh is a key component of the food chain in the Delaware Bay estuary, providing nutrients in the form of decomposing vegetation, called detritus, for countless estuarine organisms. These minute, decaying grass particles feed small fish, plankton, oysters, shrimp, clams, and crabs that live in the bay. These smaller organisms are in turn eaten by larger animals, some of which are consumed by humans. The marsh also serves as an important nursery ground for young fish, shellfish, and crustaceans. The Marvel Saltmarsh Preserve’s beautiful open landscape adds to the scenic nature of the town of Slaughter Beach and serves as a natural green buffer by providing flood control during storms for the community.

Delaware Nature Society’s environmental education programs conducted at our Marvel Saltmarsh Preserve, averaging 900+ annual participants, stress the important role that the marsh plays in the Delaware Bay ecosystem and in the lives of people that live around it. Additionally, Abbott’s has hosted an annual Horseshoe Crab Spawning & Population Volunteer Survey at Slaughter Beach since 1999, providing the Division of Fish & Wildlife important data used to monitor the species’ health as well as to set harvest limits for Whelk fishermen and the scientific community who use the crab’s blood to test the sterility of medical equipment and prescription medications. The Town of Slaughter Beach has been actively engaged in conservation efforts as well, becoming an official Horseshoe Crab Sanctuary, and becoming Delaware’s 3^rd (83^rd in the U.S.) Certified Community Wildlife Habitat^TM through the assistance of DNS last May.

In February of 2016, the Town of Slaughter Beach, in partnership with Delaware Nature Society, was awarded a Lands & Waters Conservation Trust Fund Grant, through DNREC, for the design of a boardwalk to be built at our Marvel Saltmarsh Preserve for the intended use of educational programs and public access. The project to plan, design, and build a boardwalk and elevated observation area at Marvel Saltmarsh Preserve seeks maximize access to the marshlands and tidal pools located in the Preserve, and greatly expand educational activities for students and families visiting the Town to study wildlife habitat and ecosystems. Landscape Architectural Services, L.L.C., located in Milford, Delaware, is overseeing the permitting and design phase for this project, and additional design funding has generously been provided by DNREC’s Bayshore Initiative, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s Beer and Benevolence program, and DNS. The Town and DNS will seek additional funding for the construction phase of the boardwalk project.

DNS is currently celebrating the 35^th Anniversary of our Abbott’s Mill Nature Center, which represents a unique partnership between DNS and Delaware’s Division of Historical & Cultural Affairs and Division of Fish & Wildlife.  Since 1981, Abbott’s has provided hands-on educational programs for Delmarva area students and families (188,500+ participants since 2000), while also preserving 482 acres of wildlife habitat and public hiking trails in Sussex County. Our namesake, Abbott’s Mill, is Delaware’s only preserved, working gristmill, and allows visitors to discover over 220 years of history and engineering. Additionally, as the National Wildlife Federation’s state affiliate, DNS has been instrumental in designating over 1,000 yards and 3 communities in Delaware as Certified Wildlife Habitats^TM. Abbott’s Mill Nature Center is located at 15411 Abbotts Pond Road, Milford, DE, and can be reached by phone at 302-422-0847 or online at www.delnature.org/abbotts.

Nice article from the Milford Chronicle