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A nature writer living in Wellfleet, Robert Finch has written about Cape Cod for more than forty years. He is the author of nine books of essays. A Cape Cod Notebook airs weekly on WCAI, the NPR station for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the South Coast. In both 2006 and 2013, the series won the New England Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio Writing.
Talking about what's going down in America's Hometown.
"Camille's Demi-Hour" on Nantucket's NPR 89.5 FM showcases the superb epicurean talents on Nantucket Island
Bird news airs on Wednesdays at 8:35am, Thursday at 12:35pm and Fridays at 4:30pm.E. Vernon Laux is an author and ornithologist who's been birding the Cape and Islands for nearly 40 years. He's the resident naturalist and land manager for the Linda Loring Foundation on Nantucket.
White and black conversations
Arthur Macy was a Nantucket boy of Quaker extraction. His name alone is evidence of this, for it is safe to say that a Macy, wherever found in the United States, is descended from that sturdy old Quaker who was one of those who bought Nantucket from the Indians, paid them fairly for it, treated them with justice, and lived on friendly terms with them. In many ways Arthur Macy showed that he was a Nantucketer and, at least by descent, a Quaker. He often used phrases peculiar to our island in ...
Nantucket's first Pod Cast. Hosted by Doug Cote, Inside the Whale features in depth conversations with some of the various personalities that make up the Island of Nantucket Massachusetts.
If you are in contact with other humans, then you should listen to this podcast! Building relationships, connecting with those around you, and understanding emotional intelligence can help you be better at work, home, and being a good human. Unlock leadership through emotional intelligence with Jason Bridges - coffee shop owner, Nantucket Island elected official, and a soon to be Dad.
All Ears Nantucket episodes emerge from Oral History research housed in the archive of the Nantucket Historical Association. Each episode illuminates an aspect of island life, or features the personal history of an island resident.
Creative Life offers an audio tour of arts, culture, and inspiration on Cape Cod, the Islands, and the South Coast. Our region is rich with creative diversity, and so are the stories we tell. Creative Life airs every second Monday on WCAI, the local NPR station for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the South Coast.. Creative Life is edited by Jay Allison.
The Weekly Bird Report with Mark Faherty can be heard every Wednesday on WCAI, the local NPR station for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the South Coast. Mark has been the Science Coordinator at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary since August 2007 and has led birding trips for Mass Audubon since 2002. He is past president of the Cape Cod Bird Club and current member of the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee.
Shadowvane is a radio drama podcast centered around telling tales of horror and suspense. Instead of one continuous story, we tell our stories in a limited number of episodes.
WeNeedaVacation.com provides an innovative means of matching Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket vacationers and homeowners efficiently and inexpensively. Our goal - to support the vacation rental homeowner to create awesome beach vacations. Starting with just 100 listings on Cape Cod in 1997, WeNeedaVacation.com now lists more than 3,500 property listings.
Kollin and Ryan take turns telling stories and attempt to mine for meaning within them.
A wonderful coming together of two writers who wrote their books more than half a century apart. Neither of them had ever visited the remote islands they were writing about yet they provided inspiration for a couple of exciting adventure tales. In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It was the only complete novel published by the American author. It was the story of a young boy who stows away on board a whaling ship and it goes on to relate the ev ...
Published in 1838, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Poe’s only complete novel and concentrates on several sea adventures gone awry. The novel follows Arthur Gordon Pym, who finds himself in the center of gloomy occurrences on board numerous vessels, as his anticipated sea adventure takes a drastic shift in the wind. Shipwreck, starvation, mutiny, near death experiences and cannibalism are just some of the issues endured in the gripping, and at times gruesome novel. The adve ...
“Call me Ishmael” is one of the most famous opening lines in American literature. With these words, opens one of the strangest and most gripping stories ever written about the sea and sea-faring. Moby Dick by Herman Melville is today considered one of the greatest novels written in America but paradoxically, it was a miserable failure when it first made its debut in 1851. Entitled Moby Dick or The Whale the book finally got its due after the author's death and is now regarded as a classic po ...
Welcome to Swann Sessions, a podcast from Swann Auction Galleries. We tap into our well of expertise and hear from specialists from our departments including American Art, African-American Fine Art, Autographs, Books, Contemporary Art, Illustration, Maps & Atlases, Photographs & Photobooks, Printed and Manuscript Americana and African Americana, Prints & Drawaings, and Vintage posters. You’ll hear our experts discuss everything from art to ephemera, from collecting to auction world trends.
We are almost very nearly right on the line when it comes to snow on Nantucket. I suppose the ocean, and so much of it, makes it hard to accurately predict just how much snow, if any, will fall. It usually all turns to rain, the balmy sea air keeping us warm.By Mary Bergman
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OldColonyCast
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"Glory" and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment
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Hanna provides the historical context to one of Andy's favorite movies as she shares the history of the second, but most famous, African-American infantry regiment during the Civil War. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.By Inebri-Art
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Weekly Bird Report on WCAI
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Never Mind the Temperature, Increasing Photoperiod Means Birds Are Singing Louder and Longer
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When it comes to late winter on Cape Cod, and the knowledge that beach weather is still four months away, it’s the little signs of better things to come that keep you going. If you are paying attention to the birds around you every day, you should be brimming with hope, because they clearly are, too.…
Leading off the Old Colony Cast's observance of Black History Month, Andy's in full comic book guy mode as Hanna digs deep into an abolitionist response to the Fugitive Slave Act, the Boston Vigilance Committee. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.By Inebri-Art
A few days ago, a grim ornithological mystery came across my computer screen. A photo of a chunky, yellowish bird found dead in the wrack line at Hardings Beach in Chatham. It was originally sent to Mike O’Connor at Birdwatcher’s General Store in Orleans, who identified it as one of the most sought-after and hardest to see birds in North America, a…
Last March, in the early days of the pandemic, we gave a couple of small donations to organizations aiding the poor and those particularly susceptible to the virus. We gave to certain early-on hard-hit communities like Charlestown, to first responders and to “essential workers.” We did this partly out of passive philanthropy, and partly, it now see…
It’s finally that time of year when winter gets serious here on the Cape. Water actually starts to freeze, even salt water, and the place finally feels shut down for the season. Despite this, it’s also the time of year when birdsong noticeably increases and a few foolish migrants trickle back early, a time when hope and hormones trump the cold. But…
There are things in our childhood that implant themselves so strongly that no amount of subsequent adult rational reconsideration can completely remove them. Let me give you an example:By Robert Finch
Hanna tells Andy & Fish about the ill-fated attempt to open a major movie studio in Plymouth. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.By Inebri-Art
I’d like to briefly shed the feathery mantle of the Weekly Bird Report in favor of a furrier piece. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about coyotes, those ever present, ever mythologized wild dogs with whom we share this suburban peninsula.By Mark Faherty
In the fading light of a raw December day, as the sun begins to set, I stoop to collect scallop shells on the beach. I am not here for that purpose, but I can’t help myself: they are so beautiful and there are so many- tens of thousands- of them strewn about.By Dennis Minsky
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Weekly Bird Report on WCAI
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An Unexplained Flurry of Puffins on Cape Cod
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On the morning of January 7, after a few days of moderate, mostly northerly winds, Sue Finnegan and Alex Burdo pulled into the parking lot at First Encounter Beach in Eastham to find some seabirds on the move. Watching from the car to avoid the biting cold, they soon realized that among the Razorbills and Dovekies were some pudgy, dusky-faced birds…
Years ago, I lived in Washington, DC. More years have passed between the day my one-way rental Town and Country minivan pulled away from the 1400 block of A Street, Southeast than the five years I lived in that city. My father and I packed my whole adult life up until then into the back of the van. An IKEA mattress, a blue bicycle, and too many clo…
Recorded under the promise of anonymity, the person behind the Plymouth 4Hundy Instagram account joins the OCC to talk about its origins, its initial failure in merchandising, and Hanna's rock-throwing problem. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by Cory Gray.By Inebri-Art
Some weeks I’m scraping the bottom of the birding barrel looking for “Bird Report” content. This is not one of those weeks. No, this past week brought the opposite problem, the one where a truly absurd number of noteworthy bird happenings coincide, leaving me wondering how to tie them all together.By Mark Faherty
On a late afternoon earlier this month I walked out to one of the rip-rapped bluffs overlooking Wellfleet Harbor. I like this spot because it provides a particularly satisfying perspective.By Robert Finch
It’s finally over, and what a white-knuckle ride it’s been. While I could easily be talking about 2020, I actually mean that the last of the Christmas Bird Counts are finally in the books. That makes this a bittersweet time for some birders. In my case, there are some very warm, absurdly thick socks mostly reserved for these 12-hour blitzes that I …
I think I am starting to forget words; well, perhaps not so much forget as to have trouble retrieving them. I might be more worried about this but for the fact that my mother, her mind still otherwise functioning perfectly at the age of 92, always forgot or misremembered words throughout her life.By Robert Finch
For various reasons, this year’s Nantucket, Stellwagen Bank, and Mid-Cape Christmas Bird Counts all ended up scheduled on the same day, Sunday the 27 th . This is unprecedented as far as I know - these counts share some of the same personnel, so normally the organizers coordinate on dates. But as we well know, nothing is normal in 2020. Luckily, th…
The year is ending and it is a time for solemn contemplation. But what is a year? Our calendar years are artificial, human constructs. So, too, are our weeks and months—arbitrary divisions of time that were devised over the course of human history for various organizational purposes-notches in the hieroglyphics of ancient civilizations and up to th…
Content Warning for Frank & Mature Discussion of Santa Claus. Hanna, Andy, and Fish celebrate the holidays by discussing Brockton businessman James Edgar, and the department store owner's connection to Santa. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.By Inebri-Art
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Weekly Bird Report on WCAI
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An Old Tradition Continues: The Christmas Bird Counts
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When I say Christmas Bird Count to most people, I often wonder if they think I’m referring to the avian enumeration in that old song, you know, “four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves”, etc. Come to think of it, fully half of the gifts from that person’s true love are birds. I feel like I could have been a real Casanova in the 18 t…
Years ago, my husband, David, and his friend, Jack Braginton-Smith, then owner of Jack’s Outback in Yarmouthport, tackled what they considered a holiday heresy: displays of white Christmas lights along Route 6A.By Susan Moeller
If there’s one thing you can count on each December, it’s counting. It’s when we hold the counts during which we count all the birds we can count. I’m talking about last weekend’s annual Cape Cod Waterfowl count as well as the various Christmas Bird Counts that begin this weekend. At last count, there were at least nine such counts in the CAI liste…
There is something about waking up in the rain, the sky ripped open, asphalt shingles doing their best impression of a tin roof. The wind has been howling such that I now only notice the moments when it isn’t blowing, when the only sound is the hum of my refrigerator.By Mary Bergman
General Manager and producer Aimée Shapiro Sedley tells us about King Richard's Faire, New England's oldest Renaissance Faire. Hanna, Andy, and Fish learn about its midwest origins, Aimée joining the family business, and comparative wench quality. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.…
On Monday, some lucky homeowners in Wellfleet got to see a chickadee. They saw it well, photographed it, and got the word out to some other birders. Soon, a handful of the Cape’s most active birders had seen the chickadee. Phones were ringing. “Have you heard about the chickadee?”, the person on the other end would say. “There’s a chickadee in Well…
It’s this time of the year that people begin to get mice in their houses, and we have been no exception. I might not have done something about it immediately (after all, mice have the right to be warm, too, don’t they?), but this mouse (or mice) was in the wall directly over our bed. It was obviously making a nest there, and its rhythmic gnawing ke…
On Thanksgiving morning, there was just one large, meaty bird on the minds of Cape Cod birders. I am of course referring to the rare Pink-footed Goose discovered that morning in Wellfleet. With just two prior records for the Cape and Islands, this was a bird to see. So it was that I loaded my son and all his toddlery accoutrements into the family c…
This is the time of year when friends and acquaintances boast about late-season swimming in the local ponds – or even occasionally the bay itself. Most of us go for a dip two or three times in September before calling it a season. Then there are the hardy folk who swim into October as far as Oyster Fest or even Halloween. A rare few, consumed with …
Hanna leads Andy & Fish through the history of the "first" Thanksgiving. We talk about its origins as a fairly common giving of thanks to President Lincoln making it a national holiday. We also spend a lot of time talking about marjoram. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.…
You might have missed it, but the floodgates recently opened. The conditions must have set up just right, with east winds over the weekend, followed by very strong northwest winds through Tuesday morning. This brought big numbers of everyone’s favorite little winter seabird ever so briefly within reach of our binoculars. Thousands of Dovekies passe…
I have officially crossed the Rubicon into old age. I have a pair of reading glasses in every room. I lecture the clerk at Home Depot on how to do his job. I worry if the house is clean enough for the rescue squad.By Susan Moeller
2020 has been a year to forget in so many ways. But many of us have been given a glimmer of hope in recent weeks, a beacon of light in a dark year. Many voices were heard, and their message was resounding and clear. “We are the winter finches”, they said “and we are here in big numbers."By Mark Faherty
I’ve been trying to break up the day with more walking, get moving as soon as my feet hit the floor in the mornings. These weird November days have been unsettling--both too warm and too dark. I’m still jumping into the ocean and my neighbors have just put up their Christmas tree. Hard to say who is living in the bigger dream world. We are losing a…
Peter Kelleher has spent the last four years traveling New England to provide support to the homeless. We talk with him about how he got started, his mission, and the kinds of donations he's looking for. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.By Inebri-Art
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Weekly Bird Report on WCAI
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The 'Penguin of the North' Causes a Stir Among Cape Cod Birders
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The Ancient one has returned; the prophecy has been fulfilled. Ok, maybe there wasn’t a prophecy, but the Ancient one has indeed returned. For the first time in over 20 years, a mysterious bird known as the Ancient Murrelet has appeared in Massachusetts. And this odd, singing sea bird from the North Pacific may have an interesting story to tell—one…
The other evening, from the woods down below our house, came the distinctive, haunting call of the screech owl. I was particularly delighted to hear it, since it was the first time I’d done so since moving to Wellfleet some 25 years ago. It used to be a fairly common sound when I lived in Brewster, deep in the oak woods that the screech owl seems t…
I almost always keep these reports to birds on the Cape and Islands. But in this otherwise slow news week, a certain bird from a neighboring state is just way too good to ignore. One of the world’s most interesting birds has landed at a place called Snake Den Farm in Johnston Rhode Island – it’s the not-so-common-around-here Common Cuckoo, just the…
The moonlight pours through the skylight, banishing any thoughts of sleep. Slipping on my shoes and tucking my nightshirt into my pants, I go out into the night, walking down the steps and into the drive. It is a night as still as nights get. Shadows are motionless. Ragged pools of moonlight lie on the drive like white-grey patches of old snow.…
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OldColonyCast
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The Old Colony Cast Goes Ghost Hunting!
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Andy, Hanna, and Fish, joined by CAIPRS president Derek Bartlett and America's Hometown Horror Podcast, gather at Barnstable's Old Gaol. Derek and Hanna take us through the history, both normal and paranormal, of the building, and then we sit in the dark listening for spirits. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Socie…
Though the weather is finally cooling down, the birding continues to heat up. The past few days have brought some nice additions to the winter finch irruption, new rarities, and new expected winter arrivals. At feeders and in the field, birds that weren’t here yesterday are still turning up all the time.…
Midnight, and I can’t sleep. The cat is curled beside me, having no problem at all. A cool breeze flows through the screened window; finally the hot nights of August and September have given up the ghost.By Dennis Minsky
Murder enthusiast Hanna leads Andy and Fish through the long, deadly career of nurse and serial killer "Jolly" Jane Toppen. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.By Inebri-Art
At this birdiest time of year, the savvy birdwatcher knows the most efficient places to maximize their birding time. Places where you are just as likely to find an interesting warbler or sparrow, a rare shorebird, or an offshore seabird. A darting falcon or a furtive rail. These are places of sand, surf, and salt marsh, but also potentially product…
The other Friday night, we were driving around. With the heat on, windows down, and (new this year) masks on. I leaned my head out the window a bit, the sky turning from pink to yellow to blue. We headed towards the western end of the island, where the sun lingers the longest. Everyone speeds up as they approach the slight hill on the way to the du…
It was a birdy week at the Faherty household. Which is good, because I rarely leave the household. But the birding is so good this time of year, sometimes you don’t have to. A slightly tardy Scarlet Tanager visited my birdbath several times over two days, as did several Blackpoll Warblers and a Yellow-rumped Warbler. A Peregrine Falcon streaking by…
Today I’d like to talk to you a bit about the “green flash.” And no, by that I don’t mean the merging of two of my boyhood comic book heroes, the Green Arrow and The Flash. No, I mean the “green flash,” one of the most common yet rarely observed of celestial phenomena.By Robert Finch
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OldColonyCast
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The Bridgewater Triangle w/Christopher Balzano
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Investigator and writer Christopher Balzano joins the show to talk about southeast Massachusetts' own paranormal hot spot. We talk about bigfoot, pukwudgies, and zombies. Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.By Inebri-Art
More great books at LoyalBooks.comBy Herman Melville
