although everyone is enjoying and indulging in the all that the island of nantucket has to offer, it was very nice to go home for spring break to see family and some real mountains that are above 150ft above sea level. everyone has returned from their spring breaks and have had enough time to ACKlimate (cant be the only one that doesn’t do it) back to their natural tendencies on the island and with some relief knowing that we have finished two of our classes.

we have begun our next venture with the Natural history of nantucket which is taught by Peter Brace. Peter has a true passion for the outdoors and nantucket as a whole. he shares his knowledge and passion with us not only by educating us through his lectures but also by bringing us to his favorite spots on the island to show the true beauty beheld by nantucket. these field trips which typically occur everyday after class clarify a lot of what we speak about in class and provides a great amount of perspective and context to the subjects we study. so far our coarse has consisted of everything from how the island was formed, native people, and the native and non-native plant and animal species on the island.

today we were lucky enough to have Vern who is a bird specialist, accompany us on our field trip to locate and identify birds. Vern has great insight on basically all avian creatures, being able to identify them from great distances and knowing the migrational patterns and general locations the birds reside. with his help we were able locate and identify a snowy owl, which many of us had never seen before.

Nantucket has been quite the experience so far, and i look forward to all it has to show me in the future.

-Michael Low