Important: The International Space Station is only visible from 7:32 to approximately 7:42 p.m. A clear view toward the north is critical. Welcome to your self-guided September Night Sky Tour courtesy of HCT volunteer astronomer Michael Payne. If you want to see the International Space Station make sure you have identified what direction north is […] Read more »

Steps for your Night Sky Tour First, to orient yourself, download the August Evening Sky Map by clicking here. You will want to have the direction that you are facing at the bottom of the map. Find a location away from streetlights and as open to the horizons as possible. To read the sky map, […] Read more »

Story by Tyler Maikath Photos by Sarah E. Devlin Starting in late July, the breeding shorebirds of the treeless Arctic tundra begin streaming south fanning out across North America. The wading birds characterized as shorebirds are a diverse group of species in the order Charadriiformes, and hundreds of thousands of these birds migrate along Cape […] Read more »

Story by Susanna Graham Pye Tracking turtles isn’t as easy as one might think, but HCT volunteer Michael Musnick, a passionate amateur herpetologist, is doing his best.  Holding an antenna and receiver, Musnick sets off down one of the grassy trails leading from the parking lot of Harwich Conservation Trust’s (HCT) Robert F. Smith Cold […] Read more »

Self-Guided Steps for your Night Sky Tour First, to orient yourself, download the July Evening Sky Map by clicking here. You will want to have the direction that you are facing at the bottom of the map. Find a location away from streetlights and as open to the horizons as possible. To read the sky […] Read more »

In the fields we let them have- in the fields we don’t want yet- where thistles rise out of the marshlands of spring, and spring open- each bud a settlement of riches- a coin of reddish fire- the finches wait for midsummer, for the long days, for the brass heat, for the seeds to begin […] Read more »

The walking trail is now open at HCT’s 17-acre Muddy Creek Headwaters Preserve! The new conservation destination on Church Street in East Harwich offers scenic vistas of a wildflower meadow in full bloom nestled within a forested valley that borders 1,400 feet of shoreline along Muddy Creek flowing into Pleasant Bay.  The trail length is […] Read more »

One morning last week, Nan Poor (a Trustee of the Harwich Conservation Trust) looked out her window into her yard next to the HCT Robert F. Smith Cold Brook Preserve’s wetlands and walking paths. She has several bird feeding stations at her home. Among the visitors, there are often mourning doves eating seed on the […] Read more »

“But if I were required to name a sound the remembrance of which most perfectly revives the impression which the beach has made, it would be the dreary peep of the piping plover which haunts there. Their voices, too, are heard as a fugacious part in the dirge which is ever played along the shore […] Read more »

It’s been waiting for you, just sitting there quietly minding its own business of filtering water, growing trees and plants and sheltering wildlife. Waiting for a time in your life when you needed it most.  When you could not visit friends and family at their homes.  When your only choices were to remain inside 24/7, […] Read more »