voices: the community speaks of Nantucket and GHYC

Virginia F. Andrews
1 Stone Alley
PO Box 1182
Nantucket, Mass. 02554

Feb.11, 2004

To the Nantucket Conservation Commission
37 Washington St.
Nantucket.

I am writing because as far as I am aware, no mention of the many avian wildlife interests in the area of the Creeks has yet been presented to the Commission in the discussion of the Great Harbor Yacht Club application.

Many species of birds depend on the harbor flats as a feeding ground at low tide. Not only is eelgrass an important habitat, but so are the shallows themselves.

A partial list of species seen in this area includes: Blackbellied Plover, Piping Plover, Ruddy Turnstone, American Oystercatcher, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Dowitchers, Dunlin, Semipalmated Plovers, Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, Great Blue Heron, Little Blue Heron, Green Heron, Blackcrowned Nightheron, Black-headed Gull, ThayerÕs Gull, Green-winged Teal, Kingfisher, Avocet, Great and Snowy Egrets, Little Egret, Bittern, and Clapper and Sora Rail.

Dredging nearby, even if re-planted with eelgrass, will create deeper water and inevitably create habitat loss in the shallows.

The sediments stirred up by the dredging will be carried by the tide and have a negative effect on the nearby salt marsh, even if no work is proposed on the marsh itself.

Among bird species using the marsh itself are Clapper rail (nesting) and Saltmarsh Sharptailed Sparrow (nesting) Peregrine Falcon (hunting) Merlin, and Northern Harrier (formerly called the Marsh Hawk).

Sincerely,

Virginia F. Andrews