Local NPR for the Cape, Coast & Islands 90.1 91.1 94.3
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

A Cape Cod Notebook

A Cape Cod Notebook

Kathy Shorr



A Cape Cod Notebook can be heard every Tuesday morning at 8:45am and afternoon at 5:45pm.

It's commentary on the unique people, wildlife, and environment of our coastal region.

A Cape Cod Notebook commentators include:

Robert Finch, a nature writer living in Wellfleet who created, 'A Cape Cod Notebook.' It won the 2006 New England Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio Writing. He has lived on and written about Cape Cod for forty years. He is the author of six collections of essays, including "The Iambics of Newfoundland" (Counterpoint Press), and co-editor of "The Norton Book of Nature Writing." His new book, "The Outer Beach: A Thousand-Mile Walk Along Cape Cod’s Atlantic Shore."

Mary Bergman, originally from Provincetown, now lives on Nantucket.  She is a writer and historian, working in historic preservation and writing a novel. 

Nelson Sigelman is an award winning former reporter, outdoor writer and author. He has been honored by the Outdoor Writers Association of America, the New England Outdoor Writers Association and the New England Press Association. His most recent book is Martha’s Vineyard Outdoors, Fishing, Hunting and Avoiding Divorce on a Small Island. He currently works part time for the Tisbury Shellfish Department and lives with his wife Norma in Vineyard Haven.

Susan Moeller - Susan Moeller is a freelance writer and editor who was a reporter and editor with the Boston Herald and Cape Cod Times. She’s lived on the Cape for 45 years and when not working, swims, plays handbells, pretends to garden and walks her dog, Dug. She lives in Cummaquid. 

Dennis Minsky's career as a field biologist began in 1974, at Cape Cod National Seashore, protecting nesting terns and plovers.  A Provincetown resident since 1968, he returned full time in 2005.  He is involved in many local conservation projects, works as a naturalist on the Dolphin Fleet Whale Watch, and tries to write.





 A Cape Cod Notebook is made possible in part with support from Titcomb’s Bookshop on Route 6A in East Sandwich.

Ways to Connect
  • Turns out empty nest syndrome doesn't require actual children. Susan Moeller follows a gray catbird family that set up shop in the viburnum by the kitchen window, from sloppy first nest to turquoise eggs to a six hour screaming fit from an anxious dad. Then, silence. And a lot of feelings about it.
  • Nantucket wakes most summer mornings wrapped in fog, yet the island is deep in drought. With a sole-source aquifer and no neighboring town to lean on, water restrictions have divided the island between lawns left to go golden and lawns kept impossibly green by private wells. A meditation on scarcity, privilege, and the strange beauty of a place learning to live with less water.
  • From "Happy as a Clam" to "Squeezed Inn," a Cape Cod cottage-naming saga full of bad puns, a 92-year-old sign-maker's wisdom, and the realization that some things resist a name.
  • This week Robert Finch tells us why there is nothing more soothing than the sound of rain.
  • A surprising etymology of "tourist," from ancient pilgrims to the invention of the "tourist trap," and a case for seeing visitors as individuals rather than a crowd.
  • After a long winter on Cape Cod, Mary Bergman laces up her boots and heads to Portugal's rugged Atlantic coast to hike the Fisherman's Trail. She travels through the last stretch of undeveloped coastline in Europe, where ancient cliffs, turquoise water, and fearless local fishermen offer a world apart from home.
  • A dog's unblinking vigil at a Cape Cod window becomes a quiet reflection on attention, perception, and all the things just outside the frame of human awareness.
  • From hydrangea fun facts to backyard storytelling, Tom Moroney shares a charming and humorous vision of what he calls “The People’s Stop” on the festival tour.
  • One of many mysteries that attends living on Cape Cod manifests in an unlikely location: Route 6, Harwich, around what most people still call Exit 10 at Route 124, now officially Exit 82.
  • A quiet nighttime journey to count horseshoe crabs becomes an exploration of Nantucket’s seasonal transformations. From blooming lilacs to shifting shorelines, Mary Bergman reflects on the beauty, fragility, and resilience of coastal life.
  • In the middle of a snowy Cape Cod winter, a dog, an opossum, and a pair of neighbors create an unforgettable moment of surprise, humor, and connection.
  • Tom Moroney explores the efforts to protect the herring population on the Cape and the volunteers and infrastructure that make its recovery possible.