The Alewives Are Coming!

This afternoon we spotted some wild activity on our dam’s spillway. Little silver fish were leaping off with reckless abandon. Concerned for their welfare, we asked our friends at The Nature Conservancy what was going on. All is well, they tell us. They are juvenile alewives making their migration out to salt water. Our Mill Pond was stocked this summer with pre-spawned adults. Their offspring, our fearless jumpers, now consider the Falls River, a tributary of the Connecticut River, their “natal” stream. This means they’re hard-wired to find none other that’s quite so special. We hope they’ll return, perhaps one day to a fish ladder that makes the return trip less harrowing.