📜 EwA Week Highlights: Staying Sandy

[Mike McGlathery]

EwA Highlights August 26, 2025 Hello everyone,  Thanks for reading the August 26th EwA highlights. I hope you're enjoying your last few weeks before the beginning of fall. 📸 At EwA, we spend a lot of time in the forest ecosystems of Massachusetts, and it’s fun to see what our naturalists observe in more coastal ecosystems. Jeannie spotted this American sand wasp (Bembix americana) near the water in Boston this weekend. This wasp, like a great diversity of other wasps, is a parasitoid that paralyzes its prey as food for its young. This specializes in preying on flies.  EwA iNaturalist Record (© JeannieK · Boston, MA · Aug. 22, 2025)  We don’t observe too many crustaceans (subphylum Crustacea) here at EwA: they account for less than 1 in every 200 of our observations. And even then, most of those are terrestrial isopods as opposed to marine crustaceans. We might come into contact with them less often, but they’re a treat to observe. I encountered a dense aggregation of well-camouflaged Atlantic sand fiddler crabs this weekend, most of whom quickly fled into their burrows. Massachusetts is historically at the very northern extreme of this crab’s range. EwA iNaturalist Record (© Michael McGlathery · Nantucket, MA · Aug. 24, 2025)  EwA’s most-observed gall this week was the pleasingly spherical and pink gall of Philonix fulvicollis, an oak gall wasp. Claire’s iNat captions informs us that this particular gall was observed on the leaf of a dwarf chestnut oak (Quercus prinoides). EwA iNaturalist Record (© Claire O’Neill · Woburn, MA · Aug. 25, 2025)  📊 Thanks to everyone for your great biodiversity records this week, totaling 828 observations of 418 distinct species. If you’re curious about the records from this week that have been validated by the iNat community so far, you can find them » here. 🏆 Running tally: To date, we have recorded 257,774 observations of 13,038 distinct species! Check out our EwA umbrella project, see the details per site/observer, and more » here. 📅 EwA Upcoming Public Events Ewa Field Events » Check the EwA Summer [ Event details and registration » ] Don’t miss some great opportunities to follow the rhythm of the season in our local habitats and in the local wildlife! Space is limited for all our field events. Wildlife ethics is important to us and we seek to avoid putting the pressure on natural habitats which large gatherings unavoidably do. We are asking our audience to register-and-commit (or cancel when you know you can’t come) to avoid no-shows. EwA Fieldwork (and Resources) It’s a great time to join our monitoring programs. Check EwA’s Volunteer Program Calendar 📅  to know when things happen. And if a session is of interest to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to get the rendezvous location. 📅 EwA Sites Map | 🌱 Site Protocols and Guides · Field Rosters · Field Notes » All here! | ℹ️ More about EwA’s Citizen Science Program » Here ❓ Do you have any questions? Don’t be shy. Just email me or reply to this thread.  That’s all for this week—hope you have a good one! -Mike